Tinsel, Tea and Irony.
by Crom
As the looming spectre of Christmas approaches I take my usual moment to think about the last year and wonder what the hell is going on. I've found Christmas an Ironic time of year since I was about 19 years old, always attributing such thoughts to the contrast of feelings that grew out of the difference from my childhood christmas experiences and expectations to that of a man's. When I was a kid there was an endless list of things I could think up that I just had to have, and couldn't obtain myself. I shifted in the years after high school into the young guy who needed things more then wanted them. Homey gifts that I would have scoffed as a child (like socks) I was glad to have. In recent time however the source of Irony has become more pronounced, and even rang the bell a few times. This Christmas when I was asked what I wanted, it was with some mirth that I replied "take some of my stuff, that'd be a gift".
In the last month or so I just started giving my things away. Many of them worth a not insignificant amount of money, but I don't really care about that. For a long time when I was working and being a single guy, I was deeply concerned with certain things that in my limited wisdom it was important to get my hands on. It doesn't matter what they were, everybody has a laundry list of things that they think will make them happier, and that they believe are sound investments. I had a lot of the things that were on my list, i've been surrounded by them for a long time.
But these things didn't seem to quiet the nagging feeling in the middle of my chest that I had yet to obtain the things that mattered most on the list. I hadn't managed to work out a vehicle that wasn't a rolling catastrophe, my wardrobe was pretty shabby, and I really had no useful furniture to speak of. These things once weighed heavily on my mind, once long ago. But, there are only so many nights you can spend, surrounded by the physical manifestation of your own midas complex before the value of the heaps of gold begin to lose what worth they once had to you specifically. And slowly, you begin to regret ever having them, and soon enough that regret turns to hating them.
Soon enough that hatred turns to you, for being the fool that obtained them in the first place. Piece by tiny piece I began to catalogue and loath each and every moment that I had surrounded myself with. Then I sat atop a heap of loathing and shit that I just wanted to soak with kerosene and light on fire, hoping that if I did so, perhaps I can stop hating the brainwashed monster that exists inside my head, whispering to me about Brand X, the latest, greatest I must have.
I've only marginally managed to expunge all of this detritus. I'm still working on it, ever diligent in my quest to shake loose the trash that clings to me. And that brings us back to the season. There is no greater moment in the year for the self-destructive acquisitiveness of our flat-line encephalograph culture to unleash the legions and blast their already shelled out checking account back further into the ice age. I can't think of anything I want less then to be another casualty in this struggle.
I won't indict anyone out there who wants to live this kind of life. By my own admission i'm a fucking walking disaster anyway, and probably too twisted in my advice giving for anyone to really understand or appreciate what I'd be telling them. All I can say is that anyone who wants to give something useful out, give out a High Five, and smile. You can only buy those by being a Bro, and goodwill is the only grease that will make the nut on the flip side.