Sometimes, when watching movies, or TV shows, or sports, I “pull” for a certain one of those things if I have a personal connection. The connection could be anything. Say, for instance, my neighbor’s niece was a producer for “Law and Order.” Well, I always hope that show does well in the ratings. And such.
One real example I know of comes from the sports world. I don’t follow golf. At all. I don’t really play either. But I like to have something moving on the TV when I’m doing work around the house, just to look up and see what is happening, without paying attention. Golf can do that for me.
And, I always root for a golfer named Justin Thomas, because I have a good friend down in Charleston, SC, named Justin Thomas. Exactly matching names. I just found out that today, April 29, is Justin Thomas’ birthday. The golfer. Not the friend.
It is quite a coincidence. As today is also my birthday. Connections.
There are lots of other people born on this day. Obviously. In fact, on the planet today, some 20,438,356 will be celebrating their birthdays. Give or take a few. The same goes for your birthday. That’s 1/365 of the world’s population of seven and a half billion people.
Big cake. Lots of candles. I’d say.
Sometimes, we find out that somebody cool is born on our birthday. Like Duke Ellington. That’s true for me. He was born on April 29, 1899.
There is a slew of actors, musicians, and athletes, like Jerry Seinfeld, Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eve Plumb, Uma Thurman, Willie Nelson, Andre Agassi, Dale Earnhardt, and others.
Then there are others who are born on our day, the ones we are not so quick to admit. Like Hirohito, William Randolph Hearst, or Bernie Madoff.
I went about 40 years or so before I actually met one of those 20,438,356. It was someone I met in Minnesota while visiting once. A few years later, I met another friend with the same birthday. I suppose the odds are about right.
Looking at all these people, I am reminded just how big the world can be. The expansiveness and the depth of the people who share this planet with us. Each person, unique in their gifts and their pitfalls. All those people who came in on the same date as we did, when the other planets were lined up, this way and that, giving us our Astrological signs for life. Or something like that.
And in that same notion is our singular moment. That second. That instant. When we switched from not existing — to existing. That breath, when we came to be.
And, oh. How we be.
We are the one person, the only one, out of seven and a half billion, who is exactly like us. And, in all of history so far, the only one out of the 108 billion who have ever walked this earth. That’s quite remarkable, you. Me.
So. Happy Day of Existence to us all.
May we all be our best selves. May we stay true to our course, for ours is the only one like it. Now and forever.
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“We — don’t try to become”
― Osho
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“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
― Mark Twain
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“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein
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That day, for all of us, when we are. We be.
