Simply having a wonderful Christmas time
As bad as a lot of Christmas music is, I do enjoy a fair portion of it. The above song, however, is the worst. It came on in the grocery store today, and the thought of having to endure the whole thing was nearly enough to make me put down my basket and walk right out. It can singlehandedly prevent me from having a wonderful Christmas time.
I just now remembered that last night I had a dream about the philosophy department. Apparently it moved to some other UCSD campus, and the view from the lounge overlooked much of San Diego, including USD. This prompted me to realize that I haven't had many philosophy dreams, as far as I'm aware. When I graduated high school and college, I had exceptionally vivid dreams about those places for several months. I'm guessing the difference, among other things, is that there wasn't the same sort of anticipation and mental preparation leading to a big climax.
Wait, I got sidetracked; I really was planning to talk about Christmas. This year, about as many people as usual have been decrying the awful consumerism of it all, how the holiday has been co-opted by commercial interests, instead of properly being a celebration of the winter solstice, or the agreed-upon birthday of a religious figure, or trees, familial love, and ham. But really, this phenomenon is really just one of many symptoms of our commodifying mentality, rather than a cause. And if one's going to be grumpy about a symptom, then look, there are 364 other days in which our values are being shaped by what can be bought and sold, maybe we should complain then, and ease up a bit on the day for which the point of all this buying and selling is to make other people happy.
So I plan to enjoy the holiday festivities, spread some happiness however I see fit, and celebrate next Arbor day with ham and familial love. Because really, there should be more holidays like that.
I just now remembered that last night I had a dream about the philosophy department. Apparently it moved to some other UCSD campus, and the view from the lounge overlooked much of San Diego, including USD. This prompted me to realize that I haven't had many philosophy dreams, as far as I'm aware. When I graduated high school and college, I had exceptionally vivid dreams about those places for several months. I'm guessing the difference, among other things, is that there wasn't the same sort of anticipation and mental preparation leading to a big climax.
Wait, I got sidetracked; I really was planning to talk about Christmas. This year, about as many people as usual have been decrying the awful consumerism of it all, how the holiday has been co-opted by commercial interests, instead of properly being a celebration of the winter solstice, or the agreed-upon birthday of a religious figure, or trees, familial love, and ham. But really, this phenomenon is really just one of many symptoms of our commodifying mentality, rather than a cause. And if one's going to be grumpy about a symptom, then look, there are 364 other days in which our values are being shaped by what can be bought and sold, maybe we should complain then, and ease up a bit on the day for which the point of all this buying and selling is to make other people happy.
So I plan to enjoy the holiday festivities, spread some happiness however I see fit, and celebrate next Arbor day with ham and familial love. Because really, there should be more holidays like that.
posted by Evan at 6:02 PM
1 Comments:
Man, did you know you can induce nausea merely by mentioning that song's refrain? Well, you can.
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