I don't think that my appreciation for people will deepen if i fall into the holiday-loving-others-crap-trap. I call it this because it's not as if we should really NEED a holiday to celebrate the goodness of special people in our lives and the joy that they bring to us on a daily basis. If one is truly spiritual and has a deeper and more meaningful understanding of what it means to be altruistic and giving in a relationship they will not be apt to buy gifts and make huge feasts as a point in celebration. I MEAN REALLY who are we kidding ourselves? Of course, yes it's nice to flaunt self-worth by creating giant ham masterpieces and cutting down trees and hiding your pedophilia by dressing up like Santa and hiding eggs in little spots where children will inadvertently expose themselves dying for a little happy chocolate on the tongue. It completely is worthwhile to spend time with family and to give gifts (and at that even to WRITE about how great those people are and how happy and grateful you are to have them around. but lets not digress with niceties).
The idea of holiday celebration makes me wonder: does buying into the holiday idea effectively augment/intensify/validate our notion of what it means to be a writer/loving person/important?
Do we really need a holiday to ask ourselves these questions and to write about them? What does it say about our culture that we might? Are most celebrators (yes 'celebrator' is a word, although it does sound awkward i agree) of holidays REALLY RELIGIOUS? NO. No they are undoubtedly unequivocally first and foremost CONSUMER CAPITALISTS, members of one of the currently most irresponsible and poorly organized types of government around, based in part on John Stewart Mill's ideas of utilitarianism among others, which isn't a bad idea in itself at all but has lent itself more toward a nearly sadistic society, one in which the film industry, to name just one example of capitalism gone awry, is the centre of many people's universe and really is often the only way to get people to notice what happened over there with dem ay-rahbs. Kudos to celebrities who spend time spreading the word and who go against the conservative political norm, of course, but what does it mean that we are so disinterested in our real selves and so very interested in trying to look like them in all of their fashionably charitable glory that we blatantly ignore issues like Iraq and our own responsibility for the current war in favor of baby phat velour? That an individual's whole sense of self is consistently troubled and undermined to the point of depression, exhaustion and anxiety under the pressure of attempting to answer to the plastic credit card god only emphasizes how hard our country works to become an embodiment of success worthy of clout and pomp as America the Great Savior of Wayward Cultures and People Who Don't Know Any Better Than to Follow a Tyrant.
Of course it is no accident that the patterns of capitalism are intricately and intentionally sewn into the whole religion blanket, and that the leaders of our government lay claim to communication with god themselves, propagating christ as a worthwhile idea solely to cement the billion-dollar holiday/war industry into our heads. What appears to be our virulent adherence to consumption with only a cursory mindless shallow regard for people who are really suffering in the world is in all likelihood a sketchy scheme of propagandized conspiracy that our leaders in advertising, politics and manufacturing knowingly condone and force feed for their own protection. On the fifth day the Senator rose again.from his scotch induced binge in an effort to forget his own human rational brain which cannot cope with the reality of that affair he had in Argentina, much less the fleeting image of the medias portrayal of him that will surely reach one of thousands of the single moms who put him in office after he listened to her cry on the phone during his latest campaign. If it's difficult to determine where exactly the blame falls for our current corruption of the global market in order to feed our obesity we know at least that it falls on these drunken lawmakers who protect holidays for the masses like little shepherds herding us into complacency- Two more weeks of marrow sucking drudgery till that one paid day off!. One current trend that lessens the blow of selling your soul to corporate america seems to be the organic and natural foods industry. Jump onto that bandwagon and maybe you're safe a bit more from this scathing and yet probably very common view of american life. Have an ORGANIC ham on easter. But mind you: to the detriment of our own idea of culture and ourh own respect for tradition, Easter and all the holidays belittle indigenous peoples around the world whose resources have been stolen and are currently at this moment CAPTURED by colonizing paternalistic conquistadors.