Happy Giftmas...

Giftmas is a term that has been used to take the Christ out of Christmas as it were.  It's been derided as the ultimate commercialization of the holy Christmas holiday season and as such, a distasteful greedy expression of the worst capitalism has ever stood for.

But for me the commercialization of Christmas is the reason to celebrate...

Think about it. 

We spend our lives working, trying as hard as we can to achieve something.  Whether that achievement is some measure of fame, fortune or some other expression of our happiness, our life, our purpose.  
The commercialization of Christmas is a yearly expression of our success, of our achievement throughout the rest of the year, of our happiness.  We spend our money and our precious time buying things for our loved ones, and enjoying their company, feasting and partying and making merry. 

The products we buy are the product of the labour and creation of all those people around us.  They are in effect the essence and cause of our neighbours, friends and coworkers celebrations as well as our own.  The arguable platitude that "tis better to give than to receive" is not so altruistic if you consider that we give our productive effort each and every day, but our giving is more than an expression of devotion, love or respect, it is an expression of our own pride, our own productiveness.

So don't lament the commercialization of Christmas, give, eat, drink and be merry because not only did you all earn it, you all created it.

Far too long

It's been far too long since I've written anything.  Well that isn't entirely true, I've been ranting quite steadily on Facebook, but it isn't the same.

I'm going to start this blog up again in earnest, promise... or is it a threat?

Till then Keep the shiny side up and live your life at full throttle.

Selective Reasoning and the Modern Liberal Mind

The Mayor of Toronto is under fire for "skipping out" on that city's Gay Pride Parade.  This article lambastes Mayor Ford for missing an opportunity to show his support of the Gay community in Toronto.  The Mayor's excuse is that although the tradition of the Mayor to attend the parade during the Canada Day Weekend has gone on for 10 years, his family has one that supersedes and out dates that.

I have no problem with the Mayor's decision.  He, and he alone, must decide how to best divide his time between being a public and a private individual.  It's interesting to note that the people complaining about his missing the Gay Pride parade make no comment on the fact that he will also miss numerous Canada Day celebrations.  Does that fact make the Mayor Anti-Canadian?

Of course it doesn't and no one is suggesting it does, but the modern liberal schism that makes certain groups in society more equal (by virtue of past injustices) than others allows them to suggest everything from wasted  political opportunity to homophobia in the Mayors case.

Reflections on Death

Recent events have me thinking about my own death, or more rightly about the ceremony and social norms surrounding death, and I've discovered I don't much care for them.


Watching a good friend be buried and watching the dynamic of two families each grieving in their own way and witnessing the inevitable conflict created by such raw emotions, and of contrasting traditions, ideals, beliefs and perceptions has brought me to a solitary salient point.  I will not die without leaving specific and exacting instructions as to how I am to be laid to rest.

These instructions (which I will later formalize and place with my final Will and Testament) will be my final act of rational selfishness.  I will design the service and procedures not only with absolute adherence to my beliefs and ideals, but also with an eye to lessening the suffering of those closest to me.

The friend we buried this week was the wife of my best friend, and I watched him go through the hell made up of our societies standard rituals of death and burial for five days.  There was the viewing and the funeral, the burial and a reception, and from start to end a long procession of people showing up on his doorstep to offer their sympathies to "see how he was doing". 

The entire process seemed to me to be a tortuous pouring of salt in a fresh wound.  It demanded all his strength and all his attention, so that he might (perversely) stand straight and tall while people reminded him that he was hurting and that half of his life had been taken from him.

With this in mind I would save my loved ones such a drawn out process. 

I would disallow any sort of visitation.  I will not make my wife or children sit in the same room as my dead corpse while people wander past to do little more than convince themselves that I'm dead, or worse yet to satisfy a morbid fascination of seeing me so.

I would eliminate the funeral service.  The useful parts of it will be handled during the burial and I see absolutely no reason to have someone who doesn't know me lead my friends and family in remembrances of my life.

At the funeral I will act (in absentia) as the one leading the ceremony though a chosen voice, most likely a close friend who will read my final statements.  People will be asked to form a procession and say their goodbyes at this point over my grave and then the entire funeral party will retire to a selected location for a reception party where I, through my eulogizer would encourage everyone to really, truly and irreverently celebrate my life/what I meant to them.

They say funerals are for the living, but from what I have seen they are certainly not for the dearly departed's closest survivors, but more for those people on the periphery.  A death and all that surrounds it should, in my view, be a short, sharp, shock that will bring all the emotion to the surface, yet be over and done with as soon as practical.

Christmas

I think too many people expect "Christmas" to have some sort of profound effect on people as if the day has some sort of intrinsic spirit, when it is just another day, and the only "spirit" the day can have is a direct reflection of the spirit we give it. But having fostered completely unrealistic expectations people end up pissed off and disheartened that "everyone" is still exactly what and how and who they were throughout the year.

Here is my advice on Christmas... Use the day and the season to celebrate those people who you value. Don't worry about all of mankind... we are not all in this together. We are all individuals and as individuals we have to make rational value judgments about the people in our lives. That means the ones you deal with every day, your loved ones as well as that "idiot" that bumped into you without an apology when you were shopping.

Remember, you will have no more in common with the drug addled thief downtown on Dec 25th than you did for the rest of the year, and just because its Christmas it does not mean that his evil actions deserve to be forgiven, nor conversely do they become more evil because of the season.

It's Christmas. Buy something nice for someone nice, spend time with the people you love. Be good to yourself.

You want to know the best part about that idea? If everyone did it, if everyone rationally and selfishly chose to celebrate the people and things in their own lives that made life worth living (every day and all year) then there really would be peace on earth, and we'd get it without anyone telling us the way we got it was wrong or evil.

Arguement

If you disagree with me tell me how. Attempt to show me where I have gone wrong. Explain to me your reasoning and your reason.

If you can not convince me don't resort to calling me names. Do not assume that I am "dogmatic", "pig headed", "brainwashed" or "stupid" for I will always use reason and reality to form my opinions. I will not resort to emotion, fiction, fantasy or faith.

If you can assure me of the same then perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle of our individual beliefs and we will both be proven wrong by a better argument still to come.

If you can not assure me of the same, then you have no business trying to convince me in the first place.

Judge...

Right and wrong are simple concepts, easily divisible, easily discernible. Applied with the proper principal it is quite simple and quite correct to say…

“I’m right. You’re wrong.”