Accelerated Adolescence

Season's Greetings

This morning I awoke to see a headline in the newspaper that reads, "Go Ahead, Splurge!" I thought to my cynical self, "Ah, cultural endorsement of taking the next few months to fulfill your every wonton desire until, on January 1st, your bloated fattened body finally forces you into a prolonged period of drunken coma, like a glass of red wine a day, it's even good for the economy!"

From my perspective self-destruction (and frequently the collateral destruction of those close to oneself) is A) not a sustainable way of living and B) is a sign of the severe emptiness felt by hundreds of millions (billions) of people worldwide. And, evoking the red wine metaphor, it seems a poor trade off to exchange a very minimal amount of heart health for a gradually decaying liver; there are much better ways to ensure that your heart is healthy.

However, the irony is, of course, that I belong to the wealthiest and most audaciously opulent culture in, possibly, the history of mankind. On some level, I cannot escape the national religion, materialism. Regardless of who we are, frequently, the first thing in the morning that many of us do is prostrate ourselves before the gods of money. Frankly, the thought of this makes me a little queasy. My biggest issue with our material culture is the extent to which society embraces ignorance and denies the destructiveness and insustainability of our present way of life.

That said, in the name of Holiday Spirit, I would like to wish all of you a pleasant season's greetings (because specifying a holiday could make you awkward, especially when the whole point is to inspire you to waste and consumption. What does it matter that these ought to be the most hallowed days of the year?). Happy Holidays!

Posted by Mendon at November 23, 2006 8:02 AM