How do you REALLY feel about ceremony?

Graduations are for the parents. They want to celebrate you. They want you to feel proud and accepted by your community.

So I feel like I might have an interesting perspective on this...

All throughout college, I saw graduation similar to how you talk about it. I basically thought I'd show up drunk with my buddies, it would take half the day, and then it'd be over. Maybe I'd actually walk, maybe not.

For context, I graduated in the Spring of 2020, right when COVID first was becoming a thing. My graduation ceremony was cancelled, and replaced by a Facebook Live stream. Same speakers and similar speeches to what had been expected, but really none of the pomp and circumstance.

Now if you would've asked me earlier in my college career how I would've felt about my graduation ceremony being cancelled, I probably would've just shrugged it off. But it actually happened. And I find myself feeling like there is something missing from my time at college. Like there was no real sense of closure for the 4 years I spent there, the countless late nights in the library studying for insanely difficult exams, no real send off for the friends I had in the class outside my close circle.

So I feel differently about graduations now. There's always going to be extremes, people who take them way too far. But I see the ceremonies themselves as the way for people (friends, families, professors, etc) to show how proud they are of the accomplishments of the students. And I feel like there's wisdom in acknowledging that the ceremony is how they are trying to express that sentiment to you, and receiving it as intended.

I hate all of it and never participated. Some people seem to like it. The same people who take pictures of themselves in front of famous sights?

I love it. It's exciting! It's colorful and reverant and steeped in tradition. It's a strong memory to mark a transition from one phase of life to the next.

But I'm the kind of person who always wants to seize once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Who checks every mysterious door on the off chance that today it's unlocked.

Ceremony and ritual are key components of human civilization. I love them and look forward to them no matter how silly they can be.

As an atheistic Satanist, ceremony and ritual matters. They can be used to mark events or share community and the science behind their begnin effect is substantial.

They don't have to be long and drawn out. The collective I'm with (not CoS or TST) offer unbaptisms to help those who might have theist trauma for example and those last just a few minutes. Its what they can do that matters, not how long or expensive they are.

That's what they say, but I was a parent at two graduations this year. It sure as hell wasn't for me. Which is exactly why I'm asking if anyone actually does enjoy these things.

Who checks every mysterious door on the off chance that today it's unlocked.

Now this, I get. That's fun and exciting. Sitting in an uncomfortable space while someone talks at you for 2 hours feels like the exact opposite of that.

All forms of ceremony, from funerals to saluting a flag, make me deeply uncomfortable and I don't know why. I just want to break the whole thing it's weird.

Despite having a poor substitution for a graduation, do you have any sort of pride or feel exclusivity for being part of "The class without a graduation"?

I don't mean you're using it as a pick up line or anything, but just like a "yeah, I was there".

Yes! Saluting a flag, rising for the anthem, chanting, prayer before a meal.

I'm just sitting there looking at everyone participating in meaningless bullshit wondering what the point of it all is.

I'm not against the idea completely. Yes, it is nice to see my kids up on the stage and hear their accomplishments, but do we really need millions of dollars in flowers and decor in an overpriced venue with 6 different speakers talking about themselves before we get to that part?