There is a tale of a priest and the dog where tying the dog eventually becomes the ritual but a hollow one. A hollow ritual is a ritual with no essence just like a hollow festival. Most festivals we celebrate are hollow , abstracted from the essence of their origin. What allows this phenomenon to occur is selfishness. Our selfishness to collectively celebrate and experience bliss and in doing so the origin of the festival does not matter. Festivals act like a social drug giving us momentary pumps to avoid the ditch. The ditch of retrospect and realisation because once you end up in the ditch you realise the ditch is filled with melancholy and despair. The irony is that the ditch is where we are meant to live, celebrating in a ditch does not sond like a good idea so we cover the ditch with a fabric, often referred as the fabric of reality.
