Thursday, December 31, 2009
This Blog Has A Flavor...Bacon!
Okay guys, in something almost unprecedented I'm giving you not one, not two but three blogs today (counting this one). The one directly beneath this one is an objective view of New Year's while the one following it is more of a personal touch on everything I've been through over the passing year. So pick your poison, choke down a healthy dose of alcohol, and reflect as appropriate. See you in the New Year.
Would you like some Chesse with your Whiny Bitch Syndrome?
The New Year began with nothing so spectacular as a raucous party or a mind numbing hook up, but rather with relative quiet serenity brought about by the blue wash of a television. Enjoying the company of close friends and relishing the warmth of being off the street and away from the chaos outside, it could have been more, but it most definitely could have been worse. Embracing the coming year meant accepting the passing of old things, lying to rest some juvenile tendencies, relishing the coming events and looking beyond my own shortsighted endeavors. Old friends had passed into the wayside, but new friends were made. I ended the most debilitating relationship I’ve ever been in, courted a new lady friend and realized that my powers of deduction and reasoning were not isolated to one person but that I could form a deep emotional connection with someone I hadn’t seen in a decade. While the ramifications of the realization served to splinter the dynamic, mainly out of fear, it did serve as validation of a talent that all too often I downplay and regard with humility. Aside from the relationship stuff I suffered some of the wickedest vitriol ever dished out by my father, saw the limits of my emotional capacity realized and found that I am capable of enduring incredible things. I welcomed my nephew into the world, which I’m still unsure of how to regard so indifference is the chosen response. I invested in my car, obtained two jobs, and realized above all else that I’m a better person than I give myself credit for being.
I’m not nearly as emotionally callous as I claim to be, unless I choose to be, and in that I’ve found that I’m exactly where I want to be, in complete control of my emotions, able to connect, commit, and feel as I choose. I have also learned incredible things. While the edict I clung to before my dalliance with Nicole was one which asserted all feeling to be a form of weakness, I now see that extreme emotion can be debilitating if left unchecked. I reeled in my own hubris, ascribed the worst of my habits to my own choices, and made conscious efforts to limit them.
Aside from all of the emotional growth, the relationship learning, and the sordid bouts of romance, let me leave you with something a bit more up lifting. Right now, for many, life is too mired in the shortcomings that we’re forced to recognize every day. Not enough money, too many bills, not enough time, too much drama, things seeming too hard, a slew of things, situations, people, and circumstances that seem far too daunting and imposing for us to endure or survive. But take it from someone who has seen the ugly side of what life has to offer, there is good out there. I have endured unimaginable things in my life, family so fractured and polarized as to elicit silent cries of emotional agony, the scathing expression of deep emotion that comes to little more than strung together sounds, and some of the most heart wrenching goodbyes you can imagine. But there is still good in the world. I’ve been lucky enough to surround myself with some of the best friends money can’t buy, a mind and an intellect sharp enough to accept and adapt to the ever changing circumstances, and an as yet unbreakable resolve to persevere and endure the worst the world can throw at me.
So do me a favor guys, before you go washing your hands of the passing year and relegating all that is to be learned from it, take a moment to reflect on all you’ve been through, all that you’ve seen, all of the good times, all of the bad experiences, every moment you can remember and embrace it for all that it is. Good cannot exist without evil, and thus we cannot appreciate our blessings unless we acknowledge our shortcomings. Be thankful for all you’ve endured because, trust me on this, it all works to make us far better people than who we would be otherwise. See you guys in the New Year, may it be better than the passing one, but just as enlightening and full of opportunities for growth.
-T
I’m not nearly as emotionally callous as I claim to be, unless I choose to be, and in that I’ve found that I’m exactly where I want to be, in complete control of my emotions, able to connect, commit, and feel as I choose. I have also learned incredible things. While the edict I clung to before my dalliance with Nicole was one which asserted all feeling to be a form of weakness, I now see that extreme emotion can be debilitating if left unchecked. I reeled in my own hubris, ascribed the worst of my habits to my own choices, and made conscious efforts to limit them.
Aside from all of the emotional growth, the relationship learning, and the sordid bouts of romance, let me leave you with something a bit more up lifting. Right now, for many, life is too mired in the shortcomings that we’re forced to recognize every day. Not enough money, too many bills, not enough time, too much drama, things seeming too hard, a slew of things, situations, people, and circumstances that seem far too daunting and imposing for us to endure or survive. But take it from someone who has seen the ugly side of what life has to offer, there is good out there. I have endured unimaginable things in my life, family so fractured and polarized as to elicit silent cries of emotional agony, the scathing expression of deep emotion that comes to little more than strung together sounds, and some of the most heart wrenching goodbyes you can imagine. But there is still good in the world. I’ve been lucky enough to surround myself with some of the best friends money can’t buy, a mind and an intellect sharp enough to accept and adapt to the ever changing circumstances, and an as yet unbreakable resolve to persevere and endure the worst the world can throw at me.
So do me a favor guys, before you go washing your hands of the passing year and relegating all that is to be learned from it, take a moment to reflect on all you’ve been through, all that you’ve seen, all of the good times, all of the bad experiences, every moment you can remember and embrace it for all that it is. Good cannot exist without evil, and thus we cannot appreciate our blessings unless we acknowledge our shortcomings. Be thankful for all you’ve endured because, trust me on this, it all works to make us far better people than who we would be otherwise. See you guys in the New Year, may it be better than the passing one, but just as enlightening and full of opportunities for growth.
-T
It's not all bad...Right?
2009 saw numerous things for me personally. The New Year began with more of a whimper than a bang. I sat silent and nonplussed as the clock chimed twelve. The exuberance being felt at countless parties and relished by so many lovers across the land was lost on me. My love was no doubt cradled in the arms of someone else, her lips pressed against someone that was not me. Such was my lot in life. I sat quietly contented on the couch of a friend’s house, the TV serving more as white noise than anything to actually command my rapt attention. My phone idly buzzed and flashed messages of well wishing and celebration, but my heart hung heavy as I waited for the only message I really wanted. It arrived twenty-one minutes after midnight and simple said, “I love you baby, Happy New Year Pig. Feel me”. The euphoria that surged through me was unparalleled. For those brief few moments I was elated.
Nicole and I had endured the normal death knell of our relationship, the Holiday Season, and come out alive. No break ups, no terse words, no fighting, I even got her gifts. All seemed right with the world. The year progressed slowly, the days ticking by idly. Valentine’s Day came and went and little more was said than a passing acknowledgement of Singles Awareness Day. March began and served as one of the heaviest hearted months I’ve ever had to endure. Nicole’s two year wedding anniversary was looming just ahead and with it a deadline I’d imposed the previous December. She had to make a choice. As each day drew closer to the 24th, anxiety and fear permeated every fiber of my being. At last the Monday before arrived and she sat stoically upon my bed and delivered the words I hoped I wouldn’t hear. To be honest it came as no real surprise, her own fear and guilt had compounded in a way that left her unable to emotionally connect. Imagine my surprise at the realization that I had found and fallen for someone more emotionally stunted than myself.
The deadline came, harsh words were said, but still nothing changed. Within a month of that night we were back to behaving as though nothing had changed. Then came the announcement that she’d be moving by August and our relationship, such that it was, would end. I set out to try to make her stay and also to find ways to cushion the emptiness she would leave. No amount of talking, pleading, reasoning, deduction, or placating would bring about a reversal of what had already been set in motion.
The months wore on with little more being done or said to alleviate the impending chaos. I devoted time to my car, worked my ass off, and kept myself busy in a myriad of ways. The end of May saw my first face to face meeting with Natalie. I had stored her number in my phone back in February but had declined calling it as I was contented and too afraid of what may have been with Nicole. The meeting went well, albeit nothing of consequence happened. I returned to my life and embraced, as best I could, what was to come working diligently to keep the truth of the entire affair hidden from all but my most trusted friends. A month before Nicole was to leave me forever I set about making final preparations. I backed up the few letters and messages from my Myspace that held any meaning and deleted an account I had opened back in 2005. I also began to try to compartmentalize my feelings in an effort to keep them from consuming me.
A few weeks before Nicole took off, I found myself diverting my affections to a girl I’d not yet met. Entranced by a photo and enamored with what I could ascertain through my own observances I found myself intrigued and infatuated. Finally, through the facilitations of a mutual friend, Jessica and I finally came face to face. A most peculiar meeting to be sure, as she looked every inch the knockout I’d envisioned, and I was covered in sweat, grease, dirt, and countless other forms of grime. I’d spent the afternoon working on Jeremy’s Mustang and was covered in head to toe in the tell tale signatures of automotive work. Jessica and I began talking, and a mutual attraction seemed evident, but our own emotional hang ups served to be our undoing. I was nowhere close to letting go of Nicole, and Jessica still found herself harboring feelings for her ex. It was destined for doom before it began.
Nicole called me August 1 to say goodbye and less than a half hour later she and I were staring into each other’s eyes for what would be the last time. So many things left unsaid, so many feelings left unresolved, and yet we let it happen; heedless of the cost. Hours later I found myself trying to hold Jessica and recapture the feelings I’d had earlier that afternoon, to no avail. Jessica’s own proclivities toward physical affection were decidedly different than Nicole’s and trying to ascribe the same patterns of behavior to another person could only be described as being foolish at best. The late nights and early morning wore on and in the end all either of us had to show for our attempted trickery of ourselves was a couple awkward sexual encounters, some laughs, and a reaffirmed understanding that we really wanted people other than each other.
Silence is a funny thing. It can comfort you, give you peace, serenity, clarity, and an oneness with your own soul, or it can cripple you, wreak havoc on your mind and leave you battered and psychologically beaten. For me silence held solace from the immediate pain that followed Nicole’s departure and then it gave way to a chaos of the mind that, I have no doubt, would have consumed lesser men. Assailed by countless images and memories, eventually I managed to construct a mindset where I had achieved emotional detachment from the horrors that plagued me. While saying that I had found my peace from the devils of that time would be an outright lie, I have found a way to live each day without the pangs of want, longing, and misery that plagued me for so many days and nights. So in many ways I’m better. A part of me will always belong to her, will always be connected, and will always feel her. It’s inescapable that when you are that close to someone you begin to live in tandem. But persevere, survive, and endure I must, after all, no one else is going to save your sorry asses from the zombie invasion.
Nicole and I had endured the normal death knell of our relationship, the Holiday Season, and come out alive. No break ups, no terse words, no fighting, I even got her gifts. All seemed right with the world. The year progressed slowly, the days ticking by idly. Valentine’s Day came and went and little more was said than a passing acknowledgement of Singles Awareness Day. March began and served as one of the heaviest hearted months I’ve ever had to endure. Nicole’s two year wedding anniversary was looming just ahead and with it a deadline I’d imposed the previous December. She had to make a choice. As each day drew closer to the 24th, anxiety and fear permeated every fiber of my being. At last the Monday before arrived and she sat stoically upon my bed and delivered the words I hoped I wouldn’t hear. To be honest it came as no real surprise, her own fear and guilt had compounded in a way that left her unable to emotionally connect. Imagine my surprise at the realization that I had found and fallen for someone more emotionally stunted than myself.
The deadline came, harsh words were said, but still nothing changed. Within a month of that night we were back to behaving as though nothing had changed. Then came the announcement that she’d be moving by August and our relationship, such that it was, would end. I set out to try to make her stay and also to find ways to cushion the emptiness she would leave. No amount of talking, pleading, reasoning, deduction, or placating would bring about a reversal of what had already been set in motion.
The months wore on with little more being done or said to alleviate the impending chaos. I devoted time to my car, worked my ass off, and kept myself busy in a myriad of ways. The end of May saw my first face to face meeting with Natalie. I had stored her number in my phone back in February but had declined calling it as I was contented and too afraid of what may have been with Nicole. The meeting went well, albeit nothing of consequence happened. I returned to my life and embraced, as best I could, what was to come working diligently to keep the truth of the entire affair hidden from all but my most trusted friends. A month before Nicole was to leave me forever I set about making final preparations. I backed up the few letters and messages from my Myspace that held any meaning and deleted an account I had opened back in 2005. I also began to try to compartmentalize my feelings in an effort to keep them from consuming me.
A few weeks before Nicole took off, I found myself diverting my affections to a girl I’d not yet met. Entranced by a photo and enamored with what I could ascertain through my own observances I found myself intrigued and infatuated. Finally, through the facilitations of a mutual friend, Jessica and I finally came face to face. A most peculiar meeting to be sure, as she looked every inch the knockout I’d envisioned, and I was covered in sweat, grease, dirt, and countless other forms of grime. I’d spent the afternoon working on Jeremy’s Mustang and was covered in head to toe in the tell tale signatures of automotive work. Jessica and I began talking, and a mutual attraction seemed evident, but our own emotional hang ups served to be our undoing. I was nowhere close to letting go of Nicole, and Jessica still found herself harboring feelings for her ex. It was destined for doom before it began.
Nicole called me August 1 to say goodbye and less than a half hour later she and I were staring into each other’s eyes for what would be the last time. So many things left unsaid, so many feelings left unresolved, and yet we let it happen; heedless of the cost. Hours later I found myself trying to hold Jessica and recapture the feelings I’d had earlier that afternoon, to no avail. Jessica’s own proclivities toward physical affection were decidedly different than Nicole’s and trying to ascribe the same patterns of behavior to another person could only be described as being foolish at best. The late nights and early morning wore on and in the end all either of us had to show for our attempted trickery of ourselves was a couple awkward sexual encounters, some laughs, and a reaffirmed understanding that we really wanted people other than each other.
Silence is a funny thing. It can comfort you, give you peace, serenity, clarity, and an oneness with your own soul, or it can cripple you, wreak havoc on your mind and leave you battered and psychologically beaten. For me silence held solace from the immediate pain that followed Nicole’s departure and then it gave way to a chaos of the mind that, I have no doubt, would have consumed lesser men. Assailed by countless images and memories, eventually I managed to construct a mindset where I had achieved emotional detachment from the horrors that plagued me. While saying that I had found my peace from the devils of that time would be an outright lie, I have found a way to live each day without the pangs of want, longing, and misery that plagued me for so many days and nights. So in many ways I’m better. A part of me will always belong to her, will always be connected, and will always feel her. It’s inescapable that when you are that close to someone you begin to live in tandem. But persevere, survive, and endure I must, after all, no one else is going to save your sorry asses from the zombie invasion.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Phantoms...
Days later and still I find my thoughts muddled. My conscious mind consumed by something more than the simple conundrums of understanding, I am possessed that which is the most volatile of cancers, hope. Unable to let go of history, still wracked by the visions, bombarded by the stagnant phantoms of feelings what once was, pining away for what could never have been. Perhaps solace will find me in sleep, I think I need more Tool
Friday, December 25, 2009
Interesting Habits...
Why is it that the keys to our own damnation are sewn into the very fabric of our proclivities? I have been good, I've managed to stay the course and abide the terms of the handed down finality with little recourse or reason to seek absolution beyond what is readily given. Yet now I stand peering blindly into the past, heedless of the cost I know I will inevitably pay. No sin goes unpunished. I teeter, knowing full well what I'm in danger of falling into, what I will become. For all my inner strength, presence of mind, unconquerable will, every ounce of power I wield I am rendered impotent. I am left unable to assert myself, unable to accept logic and reason, so consumed by an aching heart...still the drama unfolds. Unable to escape, unable to fight, a titan muted and made a slave his own hubris. Pride is truly my sin, a sin compounded by limitless passion and unrivaled loved.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
A Very Merry Fuck You, and A Happy Go To Hell!
December is for most a time when the hustle and bustle of gift buying and exchanging is paramount on their list of things to do, and they set about extolling their dangerous festive mindset to anybody within earshot. Self centered selfish kids make up mile long lists of shit they feel they are owed, and expect morbidly obese bearded man (who may or may not be a pedophile) to deliver them, no questions asked.
So where to begin with this shit storm of things that seek to induce projectile vomiting? Do we start with the fat man that defies all conventions of what children are taught? Or with the obligatory gift giving that permeates the month? Or how about the myriad of lame parties all seeking to show off someone’s home or reacquaint forgotten friends with each other in the hopes of expanding the haul of gifts? Or perhaps we begin with the spewing of good tidings from people we don’t know and how they impose the expectation that we stand behind their religious ideology for a holiday that has been too far commercialized to really have any religious symbolism left in it?
I think I’ll start with the fat man and see where we end up. Now most any realistic parent will tell you that they stable their dislike for the holiday and simply endure the bullshit for the sake of their children. Now these children are another matter entirely. Too many books written on positive reinforcement and how to properly discipline your child focusing on reasoning with the child instead of going old school and doing it the way your parents did it, have produced an entire generation of children that feel they are in charge and able to dictate to anyone how to have their way. So these kids are pandered to with TV shows so insipid and thought destroying that they begin to exist in a world where everything has a neat solution and nothing terribly bad ever really happens.
Now this same crop of snot nosed, self serving, juice box drinkers make up huge lists of demands to be forwarded to an morbidly obese fat man with the expectation that he’ll deliver a slew of crap free of charge and without expectation for recompense, furthering the belief these kids have of the world provided free lunches at every turn. Now the down side is that the majority of these kids will pitch a huge fit if their exact demands are not met in any way.
The true meat of this demon though is not just in the way that it furthers the idea of entitlement to a generation of kids that already feel they’re owed the world, or even the fact that it rewards children already so spoiled rotten that their parent’s bargain with them when they misbehave instead of just outright beating their asses, but instead, the problem lies in the double standard it promotes. All year long children are told to ignore and avoid contact with “strangers”. However for one month out of the year, kids are encouraged to write long letters flaunting all of the half assed good things they’ve done, exemplified, or exhibited over the past eleven months, most of which comes under the heading of just not being a complete ass of a child, and they mail their ramblings en masse through an already failing postal system to a guy they’ve never met, let alone actually seen outside of a TV special. The double standard doesn’t end here though, oh no. See I’m going to take it a step further, because when a child believes in an invisible fat man employing midgets in a socialist setting without the benefit of time off, pension plans, retirement, vacation, unions, or even a business model that falls under the eye of Fair Work and Labor Board, that child is considered young, innocent, pure, or unaware of the depravity that exists outside of his perfect little suburban life. However if an adult believes in anything unseen or verified by the rest of society at large (see Bigfoot, Son of Sam, or your local crazy hobo) or as is told in so many useless holiday movies, they actually believe themselves to be the slave driving white man with the beer gut and the dangerously high cholesterol, that adult is committed to a rubber room, made to stand trial, or just genuinely seen to be a massive pain in the ass for the rest of society. What makes it okay for a kid to believe in shit that makes no sense but it’s not okay for an adult? I mean we don’t institutionalize people for believing the bible, even though ninety percent of what comes from it is bullshit and used by people like the Westboro Baptist Church to promote hate, intolerance, and bigotry. So why the difference in treatment? I mean we’ll pay a guy to dress up in a red suit and let a slew of screaming, whining, selfish, sick brats sit on the guy’s lap and ask for useless shit, but if the guy in the suit claims himself to actually be the real douche bag he’s portraying then we have him committed for being a danger. It’s like adult society insists that you can’t adhere to the belief that Santa Claus is real, but by the same token, if you’re a kid you almost have to. Your parents actually promote you writing letters asking for free stuff to a guy that is essentially a slave driver making exclusive use of a class of people with a medically defined handicap that escapes crimes against humanity charges because he doesn’t turn a profit from the products he distributes.
All I’m saying is that if we’re going to teach children that strangers are bad, don’t promote a letter writing campaign to someone they’ve never met, and further more doesn’t really exist. And if it’s okay for kids to believe in shit that is very plainly not real, and perfectly acceptable for two thirds of the human population to believe in miracles, a bearded man living in the clouds, and a guy that dresses in drag that can turn water into alcohol, why are we keeping the more interesting among us locked up? It just doesn’t make much sense to me.
The gift giving is another issue for me because it’s not done out of genuine want, or even out of any sense of altruism, but rather out of obligation. My ex girlfriend hated receiving gifts, but dammit if she didn’t buy one for everybody (sans myself, which always seemed a little weird, it’s like she was married or something), but as much as she professed to do it out of her want to make people happy, I know she did it out of obligation. And most of you buy gifts the same way, you tell yourselves that it’s because you want to, because it will make the people you care most about happy, or that it’s all in the spirit of the season, but really it’s all out of obligation and the fervent hope that if you invest enough time and energy in it, you’ll get something in return that isn’t a huge steaming ball of dog shit. The exchange of gifts has become the primary reason for even passing acknowledgment of the season, with countdowns of how many shopping days are left, organized gift exchanges at both the work place and in social life, and countless commercials, emails, and advertisements championing the “perfect gift”. Just as Thanksgiving is a holiday set aside to promote gluttony, Christmas seems to have been established to encourage greed. Gifts are even given to people we hardly see or like, as peace offerings to bury long gone disputes shrouded in the mists of the past. In-laws that are greeted through clenched teeth, extended family that is hardly known or recognized is welcomed into the home so long as they have an object in hand, and all of them privy to heaps of useless, mass marketed bull shit.
Now if the pandering to kids and the mindless buy in by parents who know they’re perpetuating a bullshit story wasn’t enough, we have countless, and I do mean countless, songs, TV specials, movies, books, stories, shirts, and ceremonies that blast the holiday into the consciousness. You can’t turn around, spit, yell or punch someone without being told to have a happy holiday, wished season’s greetings, or hearing someone spout some tiding of good cheer. The songs are perhaps the most asinine as they promote things that are very decidedly un-Christmas. Rudolph is a ridiculed and insulted reindeer that is harassed, ostracized, insulted and generally disliked member of his species but when the fat man comes asking for assistance due to unforeseen weather conditions, the oft disparaged animal freely acquiesces and the night is saved. The song promotes acceptance of social out casting on the pretense that if suffered long enough individual talents shine through. It’s a topic for another post, but too often ridicule stifles natural development of what could be wonderful abilities in an effort to fit in.
The TV specials promote the notion that no matter how catastrophic the situation all can be made right with a song, a positive attitude, and good will. Sorry kids but the truth is that if your mommy, daddy, grandma, or uncle is on a plane that goes down somewhere in the Rockies, no amount of singing is going to save grandma from hypothermia or starvation. I think they should bring back episodes of The Twilight Zone just to show how weird the world really is.
The movies are just advertising gimmicks that seek to make people warm and fuzzy but reminding us what a family Christmas is all about in storybooks and how little real life is able to resemble it. Families scattered to the furthest reaches of the globe are supposed to come together for a single day of the year, bury old wounds, and share a meal in the interest of good tidings and cheer. In truth most families today are lucky to hear from long lost relatives, let along see them. Tall trees, heavily decorated homes and fresh made eggnog, with the biggest problem at hand being a good moral lesson needing delivery to make someone come home and feel loved, it makes for some really entertaining television. But the truth is that this fairy tale idea of families coming together and feeling closer and working through any hardship together is little more than fabricated fodder meant to call up ideas of a Leave it to Beaver idealism that is long gone and forgotten.
All in all, the holiday wouldn’t be so fucking abhorrent to me if it would just put aside the pretense and exhibit a little honesty. It’s a time of year set aside to promote commercialism, greed, and the accumulation of useless shit, wrapped in the ideation of goodwill and warm feelings, and topped with a bow of pedantic cheer and all of it meant to elicit the behavior of decency that we should show anyway. Dress it up however you like, it’s still an evil holiday, it still stands for little more than corporate greed and commercialism, and at the end of the day, the closest connection you can have with family is the same you share the rest of the year. Getting an overpriced piece of shit in a box isn’t going to endear someone to you anymore than they already are unless your affection can be bought, in which case you should just admit you’re shallow and kill yourself.
So where to begin with this shit storm of things that seek to induce projectile vomiting? Do we start with the fat man that defies all conventions of what children are taught? Or with the obligatory gift giving that permeates the month? Or how about the myriad of lame parties all seeking to show off someone’s home or reacquaint forgotten friends with each other in the hopes of expanding the haul of gifts? Or perhaps we begin with the spewing of good tidings from people we don’t know and how they impose the expectation that we stand behind their religious ideology for a holiday that has been too far commercialized to really have any religious symbolism left in it?
I think I’ll start with the fat man and see where we end up. Now most any realistic parent will tell you that they stable their dislike for the holiday and simply endure the bullshit for the sake of their children. Now these children are another matter entirely. Too many books written on positive reinforcement and how to properly discipline your child focusing on reasoning with the child instead of going old school and doing it the way your parents did it, have produced an entire generation of children that feel they are in charge and able to dictate to anyone how to have their way. So these kids are pandered to with TV shows so insipid and thought destroying that they begin to exist in a world where everything has a neat solution and nothing terribly bad ever really happens.
Now this same crop of snot nosed, self serving, juice box drinkers make up huge lists of demands to be forwarded to an morbidly obese fat man with the expectation that he’ll deliver a slew of crap free of charge and without expectation for recompense, furthering the belief these kids have of the world provided free lunches at every turn. Now the down side is that the majority of these kids will pitch a huge fit if their exact demands are not met in any way.
The true meat of this demon though is not just in the way that it furthers the idea of entitlement to a generation of kids that already feel they’re owed the world, or even the fact that it rewards children already so spoiled rotten that their parent’s bargain with them when they misbehave instead of just outright beating their asses, but instead, the problem lies in the double standard it promotes. All year long children are told to ignore and avoid contact with “strangers”. However for one month out of the year, kids are encouraged to write long letters flaunting all of the half assed good things they’ve done, exemplified, or exhibited over the past eleven months, most of which comes under the heading of just not being a complete ass of a child, and they mail their ramblings en masse through an already failing postal system to a guy they’ve never met, let alone actually seen outside of a TV special. The double standard doesn’t end here though, oh no. See I’m going to take it a step further, because when a child believes in an invisible fat man employing midgets in a socialist setting without the benefit of time off, pension plans, retirement, vacation, unions, or even a business model that falls under the eye of Fair Work and Labor Board, that child is considered young, innocent, pure, or unaware of the depravity that exists outside of his perfect little suburban life. However if an adult believes in anything unseen or verified by the rest of society at large (see Bigfoot, Son of Sam, or your local crazy hobo) or as is told in so many useless holiday movies, they actually believe themselves to be the slave driving white man with the beer gut and the dangerously high cholesterol, that adult is committed to a rubber room, made to stand trial, or just genuinely seen to be a massive pain in the ass for the rest of society. What makes it okay for a kid to believe in shit that makes no sense but it’s not okay for an adult? I mean we don’t institutionalize people for believing the bible, even though ninety percent of what comes from it is bullshit and used by people like the Westboro Baptist Church to promote hate, intolerance, and bigotry. So why the difference in treatment? I mean we’ll pay a guy to dress up in a red suit and let a slew of screaming, whining, selfish, sick brats sit on the guy’s lap and ask for useless shit, but if the guy in the suit claims himself to actually be the real douche bag he’s portraying then we have him committed for being a danger. It’s like adult society insists that you can’t adhere to the belief that Santa Claus is real, but by the same token, if you’re a kid you almost have to. Your parents actually promote you writing letters asking for free stuff to a guy that is essentially a slave driver making exclusive use of a class of people with a medically defined handicap that escapes crimes against humanity charges because he doesn’t turn a profit from the products he distributes.
All I’m saying is that if we’re going to teach children that strangers are bad, don’t promote a letter writing campaign to someone they’ve never met, and further more doesn’t really exist. And if it’s okay for kids to believe in shit that is very plainly not real, and perfectly acceptable for two thirds of the human population to believe in miracles, a bearded man living in the clouds, and a guy that dresses in drag that can turn water into alcohol, why are we keeping the more interesting among us locked up? It just doesn’t make much sense to me.
The gift giving is another issue for me because it’s not done out of genuine want, or even out of any sense of altruism, but rather out of obligation. My ex girlfriend hated receiving gifts, but dammit if she didn’t buy one for everybody (sans myself, which always seemed a little weird, it’s like she was married or something), but as much as she professed to do it out of her want to make people happy, I know she did it out of obligation. And most of you buy gifts the same way, you tell yourselves that it’s because you want to, because it will make the people you care most about happy, or that it’s all in the spirit of the season, but really it’s all out of obligation and the fervent hope that if you invest enough time and energy in it, you’ll get something in return that isn’t a huge steaming ball of dog shit. The exchange of gifts has become the primary reason for even passing acknowledgment of the season, with countdowns of how many shopping days are left, organized gift exchanges at both the work place and in social life, and countless commercials, emails, and advertisements championing the “perfect gift”. Just as Thanksgiving is a holiday set aside to promote gluttony, Christmas seems to have been established to encourage greed. Gifts are even given to people we hardly see or like, as peace offerings to bury long gone disputes shrouded in the mists of the past. In-laws that are greeted through clenched teeth, extended family that is hardly known or recognized is welcomed into the home so long as they have an object in hand, and all of them privy to heaps of useless, mass marketed bull shit.
Now if the pandering to kids and the mindless buy in by parents who know they’re perpetuating a bullshit story wasn’t enough, we have countless, and I do mean countless, songs, TV specials, movies, books, stories, shirts, and ceremonies that blast the holiday into the consciousness. You can’t turn around, spit, yell or punch someone without being told to have a happy holiday, wished season’s greetings, or hearing someone spout some tiding of good cheer. The songs are perhaps the most asinine as they promote things that are very decidedly un-Christmas. Rudolph is a ridiculed and insulted reindeer that is harassed, ostracized, insulted and generally disliked member of his species but when the fat man comes asking for assistance due to unforeseen weather conditions, the oft disparaged animal freely acquiesces and the night is saved. The song promotes acceptance of social out casting on the pretense that if suffered long enough individual talents shine through. It’s a topic for another post, but too often ridicule stifles natural development of what could be wonderful abilities in an effort to fit in.
The TV specials promote the notion that no matter how catastrophic the situation all can be made right with a song, a positive attitude, and good will. Sorry kids but the truth is that if your mommy, daddy, grandma, or uncle is on a plane that goes down somewhere in the Rockies, no amount of singing is going to save grandma from hypothermia or starvation. I think they should bring back episodes of The Twilight Zone just to show how weird the world really is.
The movies are just advertising gimmicks that seek to make people warm and fuzzy but reminding us what a family Christmas is all about in storybooks and how little real life is able to resemble it. Families scattered to the furthest reaches of the globe are supposed to come together for a single day of the year, bury old wounds, and share a meal in the interest of good tidings and cheer. In truth most families today are lucky to hear from long lost relatives, let along see them. Tall trees, heavily decorated homes and fresh made eggnog, with the biggest problem at hand being a good moral lesson needing delivery to make someone come home and feel loved, it makes for some really entertaining television. But the truth is that this fairy tale idea of families coming together and feeling closer and working through any hardship together is little more than fabricated fodder meant to call up ideas of a Leave it to Beaver idealism that is long gone and forgotten.
All in all, the holiday wouldn’t be so fucking abhorrent to me if it would just put aside the pretense and exhibit a little honesty. It’s a time of year set aside to promote commercialism, greed, and the accumulation of useless shit, wrapped in the ideation of goodwill and warm feelings, and topped with a bow of pedantic cheer and all of it meant to elicit the behavior of decency that we should show anyway. Dress it up however you like, it’s still an evil holiday, it still stands for little more than corporate greed and commercialism, and at the end of the day, the closest connection you can have with family is the same you share the rest of the year. Getting an overpriced piece of shit in a box isn’t going to endear someone to you anymore than they already are unless your affection can be bought, in which case you should just admit you’re shallow and kill yourself.
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