The Great and the Greed

I am a humanitarian; I am sympathetic when called for and feel overpowering empathy for many a people and things. We live in a sometimes-mindless society, with a herd-like mentality, which I believe is leading us to our eventual demise. As you grow older and more aware you realize the horrors and unjustness of things you never really thought about before. Commonplace things have a rallying force behind them, people trying to make a difference whatever their desired outcome, for example vegans for the animals and religious extremists against Halloween. I grew up celebrating Thanksgiving as a time to gather with the family and enjoy good food together, but just this year the beginnings of Thanksgiving was revealed to me in a more evil light, practically ruining what I previously held as true. All in all I still love the holiday, if not just for the meaning it holds for me, no regard to it’s original reasons for celebration, it is truly a day when we can reflect on our lives and appreciate how lucky we are.

That note opens up the question of how such a merciful, modest holiday can be wrapped into the “holiday season,” a full month of greed and excess. I heard a joke the other day and see the terrible truth that it is, “black Friday: because only in America people trample each other for sales exactly one day after being thankful for what they already have.” The even worse thing about this joke than it’s truth, is the fact that now black Friday isn’t just Friday, it starts Thanksgiving and runs until Monday now. We are a capitalist country of consumerism, where we never have enough and will run ourselves into lifetimes of debt trying to fill some ever-growing hole in ourselves.

Maybe growing up with not a lot of money and very hardworking parents showed me the value of objects and the impermanence of wealth and material things. Maybe I am able to step back from consumerist illness we all are drunk on and say “I’d rather not” because I have adapted to live without. This is important, we are bigger. Simplicity is key, and this we shall teach our children. Be not a mindless hungry beast, be the wandering feather in the wind, not tethered or weighted down.