Give the gift of time
Jenson Hagen
I'm not sure how trends begin but I'm amazed at the veil of dissonance people feel contradicting what society has bespoken.
It's an inconvenient truth that the holidays are no longer about family, friends, peace on earth or goodwill toward all. They're about buying as much crap per the resource limitations imposed.
I got an email today from a friend needing a job. Hers was shipped to India. I watch the news and we need billions of borrowed funds so politicians can pull jobs through the front door at the same time they turn a blind eye to the ones scurrying out the back.
And how many gifts this year will come from China? Let's ignore the trade imbalance weighing on our economy . . . I need a zhu zhu pet or my darling niece will throw an eight hour tantrum and wish me dead.
If I were to sacrifice my life for the benefit of others, I would only hope that they celebrate my worth by placing great importance on the most trivial of fad trinkets.
Time. You could indirectly present your affection toward others by buying packaged goods. Or you could connect with the human beings around you directly by interacting with them and communicating what they mean to you.
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Dec 9, '09
The gift I am giving this year (we draw one adult name for gift, another for stocking) is not from overseas. I am making a family history scrapbook for my niece.
10:57 p.m.
Dec 9, '09
I agree with the spirit of your general comments - time, communications and connecting with the humans around us as the most important values for this season.
But I find your joining that to China bashing as distasteful. Where is your "peace on earth or goodwill toward all" attitude toward the Chinese?
11:31 p.m.
Dec 9, '09
Dewd lame. What are family and friends but friends on my Facebook webpage for everyone to see, and no one to care about seeing.
Dec 10, '09
My gifts always come from Ireland. I make copious quantities of this:
Dec 10, '09
I have one simple rule in life: don't let family get away with what you wouldn't tolerate in friends. Doesn't win a lot of popularity points, but more than one night these last two weeks I've been up at all hours, counseling a friend that was also dealing with a "darling niece". Last "darling" was 18. Good on you, managing to that earlier rather than later.
I liked living in the Netherlands, where the gift giving was all done last Sunday, on St. Nicholas Day. Christmas day will only be about Christmas day. Trees didn't go up until this week. It was easy for me to adapt to; my grandparents were Bavarian and we grew up putting our shoes out on December 6. Plus xmas. Plus my b'day in between. Seems to be a Teutonic theme here.
Predictably, we micromanage the details, having lost control of the meaning. Just the reverse there. When I returned I ran into a stark example of the difference. Naturally I packed my seasonal decorations up for the move. Then it occurred to me. I didn't really want to clear customs with Zwarte Piet onboard. He simply wouldn't be tolerated here; racist, sends the wrong message. Meanwhile, the Dutch don't have to worry about telegraphing messages, because they've got the meaning under control. Our constantly watching whose toes we step on has more to do with the fact that we are knifing them in the back and don't want to give the game away. Where there is true egalitarianism, you can play like grown boys and girls. The more we domesticate our kids at the behest of the state, the more we have to give them tokens of affection- it's seldom demonstrated other ways. I was talking with an older friend that was a hopeless 60s freak. Always said she would never lie to her kids. Her daughter is just starting college, and I asked her if she had kept that promise. "No, she said", "if you don't keep your kids to the prescribed substance abuse wisdom, they'll never compete, but we know that's a crock". So we lie to them, withold our lives from them, and give lots of gifts as compensation. All work in the service of human domestication...or else!
Of course, that starts in childhood. While we tell kids unbelievable tales and use them to candy coat our nuclear missile defenses, Dutch kids are told that Sint Nicholas and Piet go by boat, from port to port. There's a schedule every year, and it takes about 2 weeks to complete. No "it's fun to practice bogus reality testing" there!
I did a piece on the phenomenon once, and asked the mayor of Am*dam what he had to say to foreign visitors that might be offended. He replied, "I would tell them to go to hell. It's our culture, if you have a problem, leave". Sigh. You can dream of voting for a politician like that! Here, even the stooges of the stooges of the stooges (that would be BO) feel compelled to spin and translate to schmarm-speak.
Present company exempted, of course. Many thanks for a great thought/article that one wouldn't see many other places!
Dec 10, '09
Jason, you say the holidays are no longer about friends, family, and helping? I could not disagree more. 20 years ago I saw many large extended families at Christmas time exchanging gift, after gift, after gift. All this following weeks of engaging in frantic, vulgar, stressful consumerism. Luckily, most of them have evolved.
I now see those same large extended families helping family or others during the holidays. Things have changed. You could argue that the economy forced the issue, but nevertheless, the holidays are more about family and helping others now than in any other years before. Unfortunately, the peace on earth part has a ways to go.
Dec 10, '09
A Holiday Thought... Peace on Earth???
Aren’t humans amazing Animals? They kill wildlife - birds, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice and foxes by the million in order to protect their domestic animals and their feed.
Then they kill domestic animals by the billion and eat them. This in turn kills people by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal - - health conditions like heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, and cancer.
So then humans spend billions of dollars torturing and killing millions of more animals to look for cures for these diseases.
Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals.
Meanwhile, few people recognize the absurdity of humans, who kill so easily and violently, and once a year send out cards praying for "Peace on Earth."
~Revised Preface to Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm by C. David Coates~
Dec 10, '09
Amen, JC!
It's particularly interesting noting that the diseases of domestication are a uniform commodity. Not just the domesticated humans, but the livestock are also dieing of "lifestyle diseases". BSE, hoof and mouth, bluetongue, salmonella in eggs, brucellosis, tularemia, equine herpes, toxocariasis...the list is seemingly endless. Not one of those diseases is endemic in nature; all sustained by the domesticated lifestyle.
Domestication is a crude technology, but it only has to work well enough to produce a net surplus of some commodity to be adjudicated successful. With humans it just has to be cheaper than using the military for equivalent behavioural control. Religion helps out there.
Point taken, again. If there were to be any kind of peace on earth, it certainly wouldn't come from religion. The topic of domestication is relevant. The phenomenon of the kid running in to see what's under the tree, is little different than your pet running to his bowl when you shake the food bag. People forget that the most negative socio-philosophical construct ever devised, Victorianism, was the product of a homesick German Prince, twisting those aforementioned Teutonic xmas traditions into a year-round concept of childhood innocence. It was also the most blatant attempt to treat humans exactly as one treats domesticated livestock. A line from a Dr. Who I was watching last night had a mentally confused guy shouting, "I'm hunting the Sax-Coburg"! Damn straight. And I'm loaded for bear.
You want to see an idyllic childhood xmas? Check out an eskimo family, living traditionally, this December. Life as an adult there is god-awful hard. Childhood is the compensation, and it is a great one. It proves that life doesn't have to be easy, and childhood doesn't have to be unrealistic, to give one the appropriate sense of belonging needed to function as an adult.
Peace on earth can happen, but only if people start thinking for themselves, and embrace civility over domestication. Thanks, J, for the forum!
Dec 10, '09
Posted by: Roy M | Dec 10, 2009 8:29:37 AM
Unfortunately, the peace on earth part has a ways to go.
Maybe if we tried to understand how Al-Quaeda were trained. I mean, if it's a good solution to the PPB shooting 12 year olds, maybe it's a good solution to our global conflicts!
Sorry, but it was pretty hard to read your comments in a neutral light after having seen that other thread! Ditto all the above commentators and poster, including Roy. Outstanding.
Dec 10, '09
Comrade Hagen, I agree with you completely time is the best thing you can give. It does not pollute the planet, like buying things from China or made in Amerika (worlds leading polluters). As a matter of fact, it might be a good idea for BO to run an anti-Made.In.USA campaign. Get some Democratic leadership behind the campaign.
11:43 p.m.
Dec 10, '09
Rahlstrom: As a matter of fact, it might be a good idea for BO to run an anti-Made.In.USA campaign. Get some Democratic leadership behind the campaign.
It's already here. It's called "outsourcing - encouraged, and supported through special tax giveaways by the Republican party".
And no, Rahlstrom, despite your fervent wishes, the Democratic leadership will not be joining your side, and your utter hatred for the American worker.
Dec 12, '09
And there is why people change pseudonyms. "Wunderblunder", ignored by all over a year ago, the most classic of dittoheads, gets a response by changing his pseudonym to Rahlstrom. I can complain. I support validated IDs. Until then, gotta do what works!
Maybe I was right that he changed it in the first place because it betrayed his existential status!
Dec 12, '09
Typical excellent BO post. Only a few considered responses and trolls ridiculing that anyone would go against banal American anti-intellectualism.
At least you know that their are 100s of silent readers that agree with each considered response (I hope).
Dec 13, '09
Hey Jensen Hagen, why don't you propose a wall of tariffs? That'll solve the problem of all those evil Chinese selling us low-priced products, and all those evil Indians taking our jobs!
Let's see: Stock market crash in 1929 + Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930 = Great Depression.
Hmmm.....
Dec 13, '09
RE: made in China
Best to stop using your computers. I'm pretty sure most everyone will find a "Made in China" on their computer, mouse, keyboard, and monitor.
With a proper boycott China campaign, the INternet would be a very lonely place.
By the way, "Made in USA" is quite different than "Assembled in the USA". the latter has the following addition implied: "of foreign and domestic components".
<h2>My friends and family are in line with Jensen's thoughts: better to have friendly conversation with friends and family over the holidays, than to focus on the exchange of gifts. We've been that way for years for the most part.</h2>