Last night I hung out in Hutchinson, Kansas with some friends. We were celebrating the birthday of one of those friends (which is actually today). Anyway, the point about my writing about this is that we went to the fireworks display that had been postponed on the fourth to take place the fifth due to rain. As the fireworks began to pop and boom and echo off of the many and massive grain elevators of Hutch, I found myself wondering why this was happening: why do we feel the need to have lots of noise, smoke, and light in order to "celebrate." I found myself feeling untouched by the incredible force of the sound. This is strange because I have been to fireworks displays before and somehow it had the desired effect on me: I felt somehow made alive by it's power: the awe. But last night I found myself feeling quite untouched, and I almost began to laugh at the absurdidy of it all, the utter emptiness of the formalism of having fireworks on the fourth of July. This isn't something I have against the fourth of July either, nor patriotism for the U.S. or otherwise, because I can remember feeling the same way when, just a couple of months ago, I watched the fireworks display to "celebrate" the joining of Hungary to the European Union.