Christmas has an interesting history, of which I am mostly ignorant. Some place its roots as far back as Saturnalia, a Roman holiday which may or may not have been about a week in length at approximately this point in the Julian calendar. This event was marked by public revelry, slaves and masters 'reversing' roles (more as a jest than in reality, naturally), and gift giving. It nearly coincides with the winter solstice, which is probably not coincidental. (One wonders why human beings are so fascinated by the regular motions of the objects in the sky and mark them with such care.) Without any historical facts to back this up, it seems to me that most cultures (selection bias: those which left some indication of their existence and culture, that is, mostly ones that became agrarian, which may explain the predominant predilection with predicting the motions of heavenly bodies by cultures that I'm aware of) have holidays (holy days right?) around this time of year. Role-playing games with interesting and well-thought out settings, I'm thinking specifically of Exalted here, mimic this trend (and make it awesome, Calibration sounds cool to me, anyway). The end of a year, or digging back further, the end of the yearly harvesting cycle, happens now. The crops are all harvested and processed, and the farmers must wait for the warm times to return. (Our agrarian past explains a lot about many of the more common elements in those agrarian cultures that we know about, including our more enduring myths about resurrection, etc.) The winter solstice marks the time from which the days start becoming longer, the sun, unconquered, returns to us. In more accessible parts of our culture, it is meant to mark a time of merriment and good will toward men. The basic underpinnings of the religious elements call for the celebration of the birth of our lord and savior.
That serves as a preface to my main thrust, however. I'm an atheist, and it's Christmas. I'm much more dedicated to atheism now than I have been in the past, which makes this time of year, shall we say, troublesome for me. But why is that? As I'm sure you have all heard, we don't celebrate Christmas properly in this country as it is. "It's too commercial", "We forgot about the reason for the season", etc. With the exception of my earlier Christmases with my fundamentalist side of the family that I no longer have any contact with (thank goodness), I've never experienced Christmas as religious event. Christmas, so it would seem, is an increasingly secular holiday. Still, the name and basic assumptions (in lay American culture, I'll say) are those of a Judeo-Christian mindset. Being fervently wished many merry christmases already by every Tom, Dick, Jose, and Harry out here in Texas left me with a quandary. On the one hand, I value the conclusions I have come to after years of personal deliberation on the subject of religion, and believe that others would benefit from sharing in my current beliefs on the matter. On the other, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to change anyone's mind on the subject by pulling them up short when they 'wish me a merry christmas' by telling that "I don't celebrate Christmas because I'm an atheist, but I hope [they] enjoy [their] time off from work". In the end it just seems grinchy to pull that on people, especially because I'd probably end up delivering that with some wrong tone or other in my voice and alienating folks (though I'm sure the momentary pause and grimace before I parrot back an unenunciated 'merry christmas' doesn't do much to endear me to them either).
In the face of this, my solution is one of co-opting. A rose by any other name, right? The holiday is already waxing secular in popular culture to begin with, or so it would seem. So, rather than object to the unicorns in the christmas closet, I choose to focus my attention on those aspects of the holiday which are worthwhile. It's a bit cowardly, and not particularly original, since, apparently, lots of folks are ignoring the religious aspects of the holiday already.
The traditions of the holidays at this time of year called upon us to reflect on the year which has passed, show love to friends, family, and strangers, be joyful, and have an eye toward the coming year. These are all things that I can get behind. We celebrate the good times we have had with food and cheer. We see the year born once more and we can also take that time for a metaphorical rebirth of ourselves. Where Thanksgiving is, to my mind, a holiday focused on the abundance of good things that we can share with each other, Christmas has a more solem feel to it. It is a holiday for the death of the year, to be followed by the birth of a new one a week later. Death, in the sense that it is used in the tarot, is more about change than _DEATH_ (scary and evil!).
So indeed, merry Christmas to everyone. May we all experience joy as we put this year to rest in good company and look forward to the positive changes we will experience in our lives in the new year.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
I return to you a month later. Much has happened in that time frame. Much more than I might have thought could. Of course, less than what I may have wanted or what you might have expected has occurred. But what isn't relative, these days? So it goes, I suppose.
I am still in Texas. I may not be, come March. Or I might still be. That will depend on my bravery as well as my ambition. Perhaps it will also depend on my own foolhardy tendency toward choosing unusual paths (actually, that is probably the strongest factor in my possible decision to uproot once again). I chose St. John's with the idea of doing something unusual, and it is likely that relocating once again will spring from my predilection toward the "path less traveled by". I have yet to determine why it is that I do this.
Restaurant work is what I thought it was, to paraphrase a coach in the NFL that none of you will know about. That is, I still romanticize the industry, but I know it is not for me, which is to say that practical experience has born out what my theoretical knowledge told me. Still, I romanticize restaurant work, and I think I have finally figured out why. To put it simply, the people who work in restaurants are people who I identify with. They are, for the most part, intelligent and ambitious, but without a strong work ethic. They are in limbo. They have a variety of experiences and fields of knowledge (very interesting ones at that, I've found that lots of political and business degree majors end up in restaurants), but they are, to a (wo)man, people who put on the brakes, so to speak. Some haven't finished their degrees, others have. By and large though, they are in the air. They studied things in college that interested them, but those things failed to capture their interest to the point that they kept up with the field as a career. They are human beings. They are in transition. They have plans, hopes, dreams. Some will fail. Some will reach too high, and like Icarus, will fall to the firmament. Some will see the lie and move on. Some will carry out the lie and move on to management. Some still will continue on and be servers for life. It is the transitional element that draws my thematic eye. These are people, have no doubt. They are real. They have feelings, hopes, dreams, faults. I love them. I hate them for being so short-minded and simple. I love that they have so little regard for their practical futures. They capture so many things about human beings that I enjoy and love, as well as hate and wish to change.
The service industry depends on the noble lie, and the general capacity of human beings to accept that lie instead of examining the information and arriving at a correct assumption. Hotels, restaurants, tourism, etc. all depend on the generosity and trust of those persons who have money but not the expertise or experience to acquire the things supplied without the additional research/resources of larger corporate entities. For the most part, people are right to depend on such institutions to provide these services. The service industry purchases the services at a bulk rate and provides those services to the individual, making a profit between the price offered to individuals and groups.
The transitional element is the crucial element to me. I think that some day I will write something focusing on that aspect of the service industry; the difference of the experience of those who work in the industry and those who purchase the services it provides. It's a sexy subject to me. What's not to like about a small group of misfits who provide a constant service to an everchanging group of human beings while still being individuals with their own flaws? None of us want to be where we are, but we know that what we do is the best way to earn the money we need to keep our lives sustainable. It is a balance between need and independence, between cold sociopathy and meak cronyism. Hotels manage to offer a similar environment, from the perspective of a front desk employee. You check in the guests and check them out, but you have no other influence other than that. You are subject to the whims of fate. Did housekeeping perform well with respect to their room? Was the meal they had out on the town any good? Were they harrassed by midshipmen? Were they picky, or easily-pleased? Did their dog die while they stayed at your hotel, or did the babysitter call them to tell them how well behaved their children were? Their happiness is totally beyond your control, yet you are the ultimate arbiter of their experience, and the management is keenly aware of this. So, in the end we have a small group of unmotivated and listless individuals who have paused on their own lifepath to meet the impossible needs of others for the small period of time that they work for the company, hoping for success and rewards, but often met with scorn and lack of consideration. They represent faceless and wealthy corporations rather than that ephemeral hope for greater things. They are the object of scorn for frustrated people rather than the common people with thwarted ambitions that they truly are.
Remember them, these people. They wanted to be more than they are. They stopped on the path of life to gather themselves. True, they do not care one whit for your problems, but neither do you care about their own. They are human and they are where they are because they reached beyond their capacity rather than settling for what they could easily take, only to find themselves settling for less than that.
I am still in Texas. I may not be, come March. Or I might still be. That will depend on my bravery as well as my ambition. Perhaps it will also depend on my own foolhardy tendency toward choosing unusual paths (actually, that is probably the strongest factor in my possible decision to uproot once again). I chose St. John's with the idea of doing something unusual, and it is likely that relocating once again will spring from my predilection toward the "path less traveled by". I have yet to determine why it is that I do this.
Restaurant work is what I thought it was, to paraphrase a coach in the NFL that none of you will know about. That is, I still romanticize the industry, but I know it is not for me, which is to say that practical experience has born out what my theoretical knowledge told me. Still, I romanticize restaurant work, and I think I have finally figured out why. To put it simply, the people who work in restaurants are people who I identify with. They are, for the most part, intelligent and ambitious, but without a strong work ethic. They are in limbo. They have a variety of experiences and fields of knowledge (very interesting ones at that, I've found that lots of political and business degree majors end up in restaurants), but they are, to a (wo)man, people who put on the brakes, so to speak. Some haven't finished their degrees, others have. By and large though, they are in the air. They studied things in college that interested them, but those things failed to capture their interest to the point that they kept up with the field as a career. They are human beings. They are in transition. They have plans, hopes, dreams. Some will fail. Some will reach too high, and like Icarus, will fall to the firmament. Some will see the lie and move on. Some will carry out the lie and move on to management. Some still will continue on and be servers for life. It is the transitional element that draws my thematic eye. These are people, have no doubt. They are real. They have feelings, hopes, dreams, faults. I love them. I hate them for being so short-minded and simple. I love that they have so little regard for their practical futures. They capture so many things about human beings that I enjoy and love, as well as hate and wish to change.
The service industry depends on the noble lie, and the general capacity of human beings to accept that lie instead of examining the information and arriving at a correct assumption. Hotels, restaurants, tourism, etc. all depend on the generosity and trust of those persons who have money but not the expertise or experience to acquire the things supplied without the additional research/resources of larger corporate entities. For the most part, people are right to depend on such institutions to provide these services. The service industry purchases the services at a bulk rate and provides those services to the individual, making a profit between the price offered to individuals and groups.
The transitional element is the crucial element to me. I think that some day I will write something focusing on that aspect of the service industry; the difference of the experience of those who work in the industry and those who purchase the services it provides. It's a sexy subject to me. What's not to like about a small group of misfits who provide a constant service to an everchanging group of human beings while still being individuals with their own flaws? None of us want to be where we are, but we know that what we do is the best way to earn the money we need to keep our lives sustainable. It is a balance between need and independence, between cold sociopathy and meak cronyism. Hotels manage to offer a similar environment, from the perspective of a front desk employee. You check in the guests and check them out, but you have no other influence other than that. You are subject to the whims of fate. Did housekeeping perform well with respect to their room? Was the meal they had out on the town any good? Were they harrassed by midshipmen? Were they picky, or easily-pleased? Did their dog die while they stayed at your hotel, or did the babysitter call them to tell them how well behaved their children were? Their happiness is totally beyond your control, yet you are the ultimate arbiter of their experience, and the management is keenly aware of this. So, in the end we have a small group of unmotivated and listless individuals who have paused on their own lifepath to meet the impossible needs of others for the small period of time that they work for the company, hoping for success and rewards, but often met with scorn and lack of consideration. They represent faceless and wealthy corporations rather than that ephemeral hope for greater things. They are the object of scorn for frustrated people rather than the common people with thwarted ambitions that they truly are.
Remember them, these people. They wanted to be more than they are. They stopped on the path of life to gather themselves. True, they do not care one whit for your problems, but neither do you care about their own. They are human and they are where they are because they reached beyond their capacity rather than settling for what they could easily take, only to find themselves settling for less than that.
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