Self and Meaning Creation

I am from India. Even if you can't find it on the map, i am fairly certain you will have a clue as to the importance of ritual in daily life there. It is a society steeped in tradition. There is such a variety in terms of belief and each community has some aspect of tradition governing every major event in life; Birth, Naming the new born, Coming of Age, Marriage, Anniversary and Death; You will find ritual in all these events, often elaborate and mind boggling.

To the logical mind, all this is trivial. Why do you need it? But even in the western (modern) world, you find institutions that actively seek to create rituals. Organizations especially. Awarding 'employee of the month' plaques is a good example. The human mind wants meaning attached to every event. Some value, some significance that makes it not ordinary. We tend to appreciate only things that are somehow far removed from our daily lives. While these rituals give us something to talk about and somehow make us feel we are different from the rest of the world, is this really so? We are all individuals with a sense of self. Why do we need this meaning creation?

Quoting from "The Way of Zen"(Alan W Watts),

"For the conventional "self" or "person" is composed mainly of a history consisting of selected memories and begining from the moment of parturition. According to convention, I am not simply what I am doing now. I am also what I have done, and my conventionally edited version of my past is made to seem almost more the real "me" than what I am at this moment. For what I am seems so fleeting and intangible, but what I was is fixed and final. It is the firm basis for predictions of what I will be in the future, and so it comes about that I am more closely identified with what no longer exists than with what actually is!

If i was to truly abandon all my memories, what would i be? Today would be no different from yesterday; there would be no concept of time. If everything ultimately has no real meaning, should we then abandon everything and live lives that are synthetically devoid of any form of meaning creation? Is it possible and more importantly, is it healthy? How does one avoid the seduction of the extremes; of no meaning and of delusion?

I think the answer lies here.

"The true joy of life is not in
the grand gesture but in the
consecration of the moment."

-Small Graces (Kent Nerburn)