New Year’s Eve ritual practiced by Americans in New York every year on January 31st at Midnight in which a giant ball is “dropped” from the top of Time Square and confetti is released to celebrate the arrival of another year. They are used to reinforce social bonds and structure.” “Rituals are actions with intentional symbolic meaning undertaken for a specific cultural purpose, such as a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, and may reinforce broader community social bonds, as in a wedding. Coming from an academic background in anthropology, the anthropological definition is engrained in my mind. It’s time we reevaluate what the meaning of a ritual is, and recognize the potential (dare I say) benefits of doing such things - specifically here the Destruction Ritual. However, rituals are a universal feature of human cognitive function and social structure. Mere mention of the word generally conjures images of occult symbols painted on the walls of decrepit basements, animal sacrifice, and strange chanting that reverberates off the walls of horror film scenery and news headlines to assault the American imagination. The truth is, that all of human life is made of rituals. If you’re out with people and you tell them you did a ritual earlier that day, odds are you’ll be met with the same response as if you told them you jerked off that morning. Rituals are a very personal thing, and seldom understood writ large. It’s something everyone does (whether they like to admit it or not), we’re told to be ashamed of their practice, but they both make us feel good. I’ve come to learn that rituals are treated very similarly to masturbation in society.
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