So every year at my college they do this tree-lighting ceremony: they cover up the fountain base and put a pretty tree on it and it's very nice and yay and whee. And then everyone gets together one night and there's food and carols and shit and they light the tree. This is fine with me; it's not my cup of tea, though, so I just don't go.
Well, tonight after dinner, my friends and I walked out of the Student Center right into the middle of this thing. Students and faculty everywhere, sipping cider and smiling while a quartet sang carols, and it was all very warm and fuzzy and I almost fucking vomited all over the goddamn place.
My reaction may seem cruel or harsh to some of you. But I disagree. In fact, I would--and do--assert that anyone who willingly participates in that kind of mass emotional mindfucking is a tool in need of some serious guidance. Allow me to explain this.
I'm not a big proponent of the Christmas season--note, here, I say the Christmas season, not the holiday itself. Yeah, I'm not religious, so I can't get on board with Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Yule or whatever to begin with, and I'm particularly disinterested in any holiday celebrating a baby, for Pete's sake--but I like Christmas morning with my family, and I like putting up lights and eating good food and all that sort of thing. The festiveness is fine. The attitude is retarded.
It's like this: I spend a month out of every year surrounded by people telling me how I should be feeling. And while I have recently come to embrace my own penchant for the emotional--and sometimes, even the melodramatic, as any of my closer friends can attest--I do not subscribe to this ridiculous idea that this time of year is specifically designated HappyWarmFuzzyLoveThyNeighborTeletubbyCircleJerk Time, and that if I am NOT getting all misty-eyed at Silent Night and babies dressed as Santa and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and his pals all engaging in a mass orgy of pixie dust-sprinkled buttfucking with whipped cream and fruitcake on top, I'm a heartless, sour, embittered, loveless bitch who, GASP, did not see The Passion and I'd better get on my knees and lick the Virgin Mary NOW or prepare my soul for the eternal tortures of Hell.
Well, butter and toast my creamy white ass, then, because I don't weep on cue.
Family is great. Friends are great. These things in combination? Are great. But, you know, I love my family and friends all the time. I'm not going to spend X period of weeks out of my life getting extra worked up about it because that's what I'm supposed to do-- and people who don't appreciate their friends and family all the rest of the year are MAJORLY fucking lame for thinking they can do it one MONTH out of the year and still be fucking moral. Thanksgiving, too, is the same way for me: it's my favorite holiday because my mom's a bitchin' cook and I can see my brother and sister when I generally haven't seen them in months, and that's awesome, but giving thanks just to give thanks? Because some anal retentive New Englanders nearly starved to death and then ended up slaughtering the people who helped them? How about I'll just eat my cranberry sauce and be grateful I'm not eating in the caf, thanks, and you can stuff that hypocrisy right up your turkey's butthole. Hope it tastes better with gravy on it.
And it doesn't have anything to do with the commercialization of Christmas, either-- in fact, one of these days, I'll get around to posting a link to an old article the Ayn Rand website entitled "Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial"-- not so much because I agree 100%, but because it's interesting and worth a read. However, Christmas HAS become one major fucking Hallmark wet dream, and more than that, it's expensive! Go buy everyone presents! Now! NOW! EVERYONE! SEND YOUR COUSIN'S SISTER'S DAUGHTER'S HUSBAND'S MOTHER'S BROTHER'S WIFE'S FETUS CHRISTMAS CARDS! WE PWNZ0R JOO!!!!!11// And I do it because I like giving people presents, but holy shit on a stick, people! It's too fucking STRESSFUL. Is it any wonder that suicide rates skyrocket around the holidays? Only, oh, we don't talk about THAT because it isn't pleasant and fuzzy. Christmas is a time for Love and Giving and Rosy Infant Derriere! Yay! Only, oh yeah-- all that pressure to be happy makes people who aren't just not want to live anymore. How does your spongecake taste now, you whinging bleeding-hearts?
Basically, I know I'm cynical and possibly blowing this way out of proportion. But I'm just finding it increasingly difficult to tolerate this international circle jerk. I'm happy. I have love, and I give it freely. But I also have a considerable measure of acrimony for those who blindly swallow the syrupy contents of whatever holiday cock is thrust in their eager little mouths because that's what Jesus would want, or whatever. You know what? Don't tell me what to fucking feel because you're insecure, or because it makes you insecure to know that I'm not obsessed with feeling melancholy--even sad--because it's the goddamn holidays and you can't keep your wistfulness to your own damn self. Guilt disgused as love is one fucked-up way of spreading good cheer.
So, to steal one of Chef's lines and bastardize it to suit my own demented needs: Go fa la la your las.
Assholes.
Well, tonight after dinner, my friends and I walked out of the Student Center right into the middle of this thing. Students and faculty everywhere, sipping cider and smiling while a quartet sang carols, and it was all very warm and fuzzy and I almost fucking vomited all over the goddamn place.
My reaction may seem cruel or harsh to some of you. But I disagree. In fact, I would--and do--assert that anyone who willingly participates in that kind of mass emotional mindfucking is a tool in need of some serious guidance. Allow me to explain this.
I'm not a big proponent of the Christmas season--note, here, I say the Christmas season, not the holiday itself. Yeah, I'm not religious, so I can't get on board with Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Yule or whatever to begin with, and I'm particularly disinterested in any holiday celebrating a baby, for Pete's sake--but I like Christmas morning with my family, and I like putting up lights and eating good food and all that sort of thing. The festiveness is fine. The attitude is retarded.
It's like this: I spend a month out of every year surrounded by people telling me how I should be feeling. And while I have recently come to embrace my own penchant for the emotional--and sometimes, even the melodramatic, as any of my closer friends can attest--I do not subscribe to this ridiculous idea that this time of year is specifically designated HappyWarmFuzzyLoveThyNeighborTeletubbyCircleJerk Time, and that if I am NOT getting all misty-eyed at Silent Night and babies dressed as Santa and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and his pals all engaging in a mass orgy of pixie dust-sprinkled buttfucking with whipped cream and fruitcake on top, I'm a heartless, sour, embittered, loveless bitch who, GASP, did not see The Passion and I'd better get on my knees and lick the Virgin Mary NOW or prepare my soul for the eternal tortures of Hell.
Well, butter and toast my creamy white ass, then, because I don't weep on cue.
Family is great. Friends are great. These things in combination? Are great. But, you know, I love my family and friends all the time. I'm not going to spend X period of weeks out of my life getting extra worked up about it because that's what I'm supposed to do-- and people who don't appreciate their friends and family all the rest of the year are MAJORLY fucking lame for thinking they can do it one MONTH out of the year and still be fucking moral. Thanksgiving, too, is the same way for me: it's my favorite holiday because my mom's a bitchin' cook and I can see my brother and sister when I generally haven't seen them in months, and that's awesome, but giving thanks just to give thanks? Because some anal retentive New Englanders nearly starved to death and then ended up slaughtering the people who helped them? How about I'll just eat my cranberry sauce and be grateful I'm not eating in the caf, thanks, and you can stuff that hypocrisy right up your turkey's butthole. Hope it tastes better with gravy on it.
And it doesn't have anything to do with the commercialization of Christmas, either-- in fact, one of these days, I'll get around to posting a link to an old article the Ayn Rand website entitled "Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial"-- not so much because I agree 100%, but because it's interesting and worth a read. However, Christmas HAS become one major fucking Hallmark wet dream, and more than that, it's expensive! Go buy everyone presents! Now! NOW! EVERYONE! SEND YOUR COUSIN'S SISTER'S DAUGHTER'S HUSBAND'S MOTHER'S BROTHER'S WIFE'S FETUS CHRISTMAS CARDS! WE PWNZ0R JOO!!!!!11// And I do it because I like giving people presents, but holy shit on a stick, people! It's too fucking STRESSFUL. Is it any wonder that suicide rates skyrocket around the holidays? Only, oh, we don't talk about THAT because it isn't pleasant and fuzzy. Christmas is a time for Love and Giving and Rosy Infant Derriere! Yay! Only, oh yeah-- all that pressure to be happy makes people who aren't just not want to live anymore. How does your spongecake taste now, you whinging bleeding-hearts?
Basically, I know I'm cynical and possibly blowing this way out of proportion. But I'm just finding it increasingly difficult to tolerate this international circle jerk. I'm happy. I have love, and I give it freely. But I also have a considerable measure of acrimony for those who blindly swallow the syrupy contents of whatever holiday cock is thrust in their eager little mouths because that's what Jesus would want, or whatever. You know what? Don't tell me what to fucking feel because you're insecure, or because it makes you insecure to know that I'm not obsessed with feeling melancholy--even sad--because it's the goddamn holidays and you can't keep your wistfulness to your own damn self. Guilt disgused as love is one fucked-up way of spreading good cheer.
So, to steal one of Chef's lines and bastardize it to suit my own demented needs: Go fa la la your las.
Assholes.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
Global politics isn't that much more complicated.
Within regard to national boundaries, I believe in a basic form of a Social Contract theory wherein if a society supports the Government, it is up to the Government to likewise (and I know you'd cling onto this, but I don't mean it in the outright version) support it's subjects. We turn to our government for protection and we should be protected, be it from terrorists, viruses or horrible living conditions. I don't think just handing a fist full of money to to an unmotivated mother of five is going to do any more good than you would imagine that it would, but lucky, that's not really what happens.
The problem with current government programs is that they take their obligation half heartedly. Yes, they create opportunities for people to emerge from a "life on the streets" but only inso far as to take it to the next level where the government is no longer responsible for their existence and then they the buckle them there. They can take you from gutter to subpar but they don't want you to go any further, they don't trust you to go any further and they certainly don't want previous gutter slime mixing in with THEM.
But that's me getting tangental and off the subject.
I think it breaks down to a very basic opinion on people. I don't think that most people are very bright, but I do have faith in them. I think that everyone has potential to contribute to society and think we're all better off if everyone does.
It doesn't appear, in the stance you've taken on this debate, (and had you chosen one side, I could have just as easily chosen the other), that you do think very highly of people. You think that they're lazy and that they'd cheat you if they could.
There's a chance that we're both right, that people are basically good, occasionally selfish, sometimes surpassingly selfless and often times lazy, but that's hard thing to wrap ones head around so we pick a viewpoint. The good news for you is that when you look for people to fail you, at least you won't be disappointed when they do.
[Edited on Nov 30, 2004 4:22PM]
And anyway, I wrote round two as it was cutting into my narrow allotted nap time, and post forty five minute sleep all I want to do is retract calling an author you appreciate a bitch, even if I don't like her.
So maybe instead of all that other shit, it's really about who got a nap and who didn't.
I dreamed of vaguely remembered french revolutionists, I hope you don't suffer the same dreams.
I hope yours are of Zach Braff.