WHAT IS CELEBRATION? What is Celebration? is the first and the groundbreaking book ever written, heralding the theory of celebration originally postulated and authored by Sola Odumosu, the Father of Celebrology and the World leading Celebration Thinker. It is best known as the book of celebration theory. It is the first theoretical postulation on celebration in the world. It is also the theme of the 1st World Celebration Conference scheduled to hold in University of Lagos Nigeria, in Africa, on August 30th, 2014. It is also the basis of the world’s intel-social website www.whatiscelebration.com.
What is Celebration? is the question that has lingered on in the mind for thousands of years and is being revisited in our century by the Father of Celebrology. It is a question that has never been answered for long, perhaps attempts have been made but no satisfactory answers ever given before now. As the world faces the challenges of the 21st century, as the world presses upward for hope to define the existential survival in human dignity, so the question rings bell in our time. As the question is being asked day by day so the existing discovery becomes unfolded and people are inspired to think along with the Father of Celebrology. According to Sola Odumosu, the Father of Celebrology and the world leading celebration thinker, “Celebration can be defined as an activity of fun in which people indulge as a thing of remembrance to mark a given event which makes a given day memorable, evaluating it in terms of its message”. This definition has no doubt become the world’s best definition often cited and quoted by global researchers in the course of their researches on celebration but before this, it is very important for global researchers and readers to know about the origin of celebration.
Sola Odumosu, the Father of Celebrology introduces what he calls “the infinite conception at creation” and “the finite establishment in Egypt”. But he puts himself to task first by asking at the beginning that what is the origin of celebration?’ He first postulates an encounter in the being of being. It is the genesisan attempt that encapsulates the “fun” that first existed with the unmoved mover at the creation of things. This fun was expressed in God’s encounter with the universe in which nothingness was pronounced into something. God found delight in such pronouncement that brought forth things into existence… thus the existential worth of celebration itself became embedded in the maker and existed only with the maker:. This was the infinite conception because there was no sharing portion of the divine outpouring with man who could project the celebration with “thanksgiving and praise”. God needed man to express celebration and exclusively reserves the right for him.
God was willing to establish celebration Himself in its “finite” so that man would occupy the centre-stage in a majestic reverence to Him. He looked for an opportunity at the very cradle of world civilization (Egypt), with man. God chose an encounter between Israel and Egypt to establish the finite conception in Egypt at the deliverance of Israelites from slavery, with Passover as a divine festival. Meanwhile in the celebration theory, according to Sola Odumosu, the Father of Celebrology, this only authenticates the celebration being divinely affirmed as the order of celebration in the content of human dignity. It proves to us that celebration originates from the encounter and struggles of the people. The theory establishes the place of divine origin and paganistic origin with explicit clarity of monotheism and polytheism. While God is connected to monotheism, polytheism is connected to gods in the Egyptian cults. However, this is only understood better as one explores the book of celebration theory in the postulation that establishes the difference between carnival and festival.
Yet it must not be forgotten that in the course of the postulation of the “finite” establishment of celebration in Egypt, ahead of the Israelites’ Passover, polytheism was prevalent in Egypt and in the course of time, had been deeply rooted with civilization and had been passed to others as human heritage. Idolatry was the key ingredient and the basis of Egyptian celebration. This is what the world had inherited in its numerous festivals, in Greece, in Assyria, in Rome at the march of civilization. The postulation that establishes this fact is best seen in Sola Odumosu’s “Experimental fun of encounter with nature”. This postulation establishes the activities of man in the celebrological theory of “heroic exploration”. Heroic exploration is about the brave conquest of nature by man in establishing his settlement. It explains the formation of settlements across the world. Heroic exploration guides and vividly explains the formation of society. The experimental fun of nature, drawing inspiration from the heroic exploration theory explains the quest in man for possession of the natural world in which he enters into an encounter with nature, in his wild enthusiasm gets an over- exaggeration of nature to excite his memory for fun in which he builds a godly quests of things to fraternize with nature, negating the creator of nature Himself. Man proceeds by observing the mystery of the natural resources that gives him joy of living. He makes the images of heavenly beings, creates the imagination and fantasy of ages in mythologies, superstitions and tales in a responsive encounter of his experiment in a negotiative deal with nature in his extracts of reality as he continues to make the society. This is what humanity has so far inherited from Egypt at the march of civilization at the beginning. This explains the evolution of many world festivals.
While the celebration definition has been given, the book of celebration theory “What Is Celebration?” creates a platform for thinking revolution. It is a thinking revolution that may give a hot-seat to lexicographers and may provoke a jealousy of controversy as it faults the dictionary’s definition. Going through the first paragraph, we read “The dictionary’s definition of celebration is wrong, according to Sola Odumosu, the Father of Celebrology and the World Leading Celebration Thinker. Its error is tied to its very grammatical misappropriation in its analytical context both in its waves of etymological conception and circumstantial writing. There is lack of clarity in the dictionary. There exists shade and shadow of ambiguities. Perhaps what I should let the lexicographers understand in the 21st century, at the invention of Celebrology, is the misleading stance that characterizes the toiling words, with which celebration is projected”.
Various dictionaries’ definitions have been investigated and subjected to constructive criticism for the sake of clarity and enlightenment. It investigates into the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary and Oxford Dictionary. One provocative thing in those definitions, is the continuous use of the word and phrase “to celebrate” “the act of celebrating” by the lexicographers. This has generated a concept in the celebration theory and it is called “forokobaro” which means the use of the same word to define the word and in the process constitutes harm to its definition.This was coined by Sola Odumosu from Africa, from the Yoruba words f’oro ko ba oro which literally means use a word to harm the word.
What is Celebration? tells us explicitly, in a frank tone what celebration is and what it is not with six fundamental facts presented. It opens our eyes to the trivices of celebration. Trivices are the three evils being perpetrated during celebration. These are: exploitation, opportunism and violence. It conscientises readers to be watchful of them anytime they celebrate. The etymology of celebration has been carefully investigated in connection with its circumstance.