Why do celebrations matter when there's so much wrong in the world?

Nasreddin Hodja rode his donkey backwards through town. People asked why. He said he was looking for what he'd lost. The point wasn't that his method worked—it was that sometimes the examined life requires paradox. We need both eyes open: one toward what's broken, one toward what's possible. Celebrations aren't denial. They're resistance. They're how humans say: yes, the difficulty is real, and so is this moment, this gathering, this taste, this laugh. When you mark time together—even small time—you're practicing a form of hope. Not optimism that everything will be fine. Hope that life contains both sorrow and sweetness, and both deserve acknowledgment. The examined joyful life isn't naive. It's fierce. It says: I will not let difficulty steal every moment. I will create pockets where something else lives too. A festival, a meal, a conversation—these are acts of refusal and affirmation at once. Your celebration doesn't solve the world's problems. It solves something more immediate: it reminds you—and those near you—that you're still capable of noticing beauty, of pausing, of togetherness. That's not selfish. That's how people sustain themselves for what comes next.