In my country the days we celebrate ---United States
Americans will celebrate anything involving drinking liquor, spending money, saluting soldiers of wars past, holidays that Hallmark Greeting Cards have deemed holidays like Grandparents Day and Valentines Day, anything that has a cute and fuzzy mascot or a jolly looking spokesperson and of course our own birthdays.
Holidays in the USA are either about spending more than you have and getting into terrible debt buying useless crap that everyone will be bored with or will break sooner than later OR they are about feeling really crappy because you don't have enough money to celebrate properly or give your kids toys and clothes like other that have money do.
Thanksgiving is the one holiday I can personally get behind. All you do is eat and hang out and watch TV, play games and eat some more. Many people love the NFL Football or the many televised parades shown on TV.
The one bad thing about Thanksgiving is that it is the start of the the "Holiday Season" and the day after is called "Black Friday" because millions of Americans will get up at 4am to go to stores to stand in line to buy stuff that is drastically on sale. Most retailers in the USA make more than 50% of their total years profits during the months of November and Dececmber.
Today, November 24, Friday is BUY NOTHING DAY internationally. Don't cave into advertisers and mass media who try to dictate what we need to live. Stay home, buy nothing.
Holidays in the USA are either about spending more than you have and getting into terrible debt buying useless crap that everyone will be bored with or will break sooner than later OR they are about feeling really crappy because you don't have enough money to celebrate properly or give your kids toys and clothes like other that have money do.
Thanksgiving is the one holiday I can personally get behind. All you do is eat and hang out and watch TV, play games and eat some more. Many people love the NFL Football or the many televised parades shown on TV.
The one bad thing about Thanksgiving is that it is the start of the the "Holiday Season" and the day after is called "Black Friday" because millions of Americans will get up at 4am to go to stores to stand in line to buy stuff that is drastically on sale. Most retailers in the USA make more than 50% of their total years profits during the months of November and Dececmber.
Today, November 24, Friday is BUY NOTHING DAY internationally. Don't cave into advertisers and mass media who try to dictate what we need to live. Stay home, buy nothing.
8 Comments:
Most of the holidays are about spending money because we forget the true meaning of what we are supposed to be celebrating. Like Christmas, we should be thinking about family but instead we are looking for new and improved ways to spend our money.
These are things we all know, but when you see a Xbox 360 for $100 in Amazon, it's hard to resist, althought you can buy it and play with your family, that way you won't go to hell.
Luckily for me , as an atheist, I don't believe in hell so I can buy what I want. I just don't like advertisers and capitalistic retailers trying to dictate what and when I should purchase things.
During xmas, love and respect are shown with your heart and soul, not with how big a pile of crap you give to someone.
I think it is about being selective and trying to share with those that have less. No?
It was hard to read your post, and it is sorrowful to watch our holidays though everything look grand outwardly.
However, our reality even can’t look otherwise because we shift from spiritual values to the comprehension of the success as the prosperity.
Though it isn’t bad of itself, but it is so until we put the having as our goal. Loneliness and sense of personal needlessness, rise of crime and the awful growth of psychiatric disorders are the synonyms of current prosperity. The gazing at TV and the eating for the sake of eating express the modern outlook towards the eternities and self. Have a look. The tourists are used to rejoice at the building blocks of the ancient castles but ignore the unknown at the corner. By the way, he is just like I or you. The unknown is not the foreigner but as my as your brother in the spirit...
The castles differ between in their style but the ancient walls whisper the same message. Each of us must to choose and nobody can do that for us.
I have red what irritate you, yet what do you enjoy? WHY?
Tomas, dude, for christs sake.....try to avoid the flowery poetry and just speak.
Do you think I am sad? I am not.
All the topics have been about "our countries" not "ourselves"....a point that you seem to miss each and every single time to post.
I don't think that I am exaggerating that many people in my country are consumed by getting the lastest, coolest, best, most expenisve...whatever and that xmas is just another time of year to pursue that. Many xmas's are spent hours of opening gifts....literally HOURS. There have been shootings at malls and stores where people freak the fuck out and hurt each other over a Tickle Me Elmo doll or some other bullshit. The holidays here in the USA are pretty ridiculous. My country is pretty ridiculous much of the time.
If I were to write about myself ( and I am happy, married, with 2 children, just accepted into nursing school, renovating an old house, going out with friends and spending time with my family....) I would have my own personal blog to do that....OH YEA...I do. So here, I write about what my perspective of the USA is.
Are you saying this to me because I made you mad about not writing on the topic of ONEATALL?
Some "assvice" (joke, you will need to translate....Drop the flowery language. You loose everyone in the translation I believe.
What do "I" enjoy? How is that relevant to this topic? If the "unknown" is god you are referring to, I don't believe "it" exists.....so lets not have that debate here.
Dear Edward, thanks for the comprehensive reply to my comments and for your remarks. I didn’t want to irritate you and didn’t criticized anything. I just have expressed my opinion towards the purchasing.
It was strange to hear that you name it as the flowery poetry.
I perfectly understood your remark about the theme of these topics, but I cant accept your position (position of the most intelligent people) Many various things are going in my country. They are called differently but have one common thing. Impersonal overview didn’t exist at all. I can either express what I think on one or other theme (on how I comprehend myself and my part in life) or just avoid to look at the mirror and to count what others are doing. The objective truth didn’t exist at all, it is always only personal (subjectivity is inseparable from us till we are alive)
Yes, this forum isn’t the place to discus about the God and I am not going to that. But my response to God is my outlook at myself. My love to God is my love to you and that’s what I understand as loving myself.
What happens around (either now, or in the ancient times) I see the same way as I look at the pictures in the Art Palaces. What changes is just nothing at all. I either live or am dead.
I am sorry for my words have offended you. I love you and heartily wish the best.
Be well, my dear friend.
"But my response to God is my outlook at myself. My love to God is my love to you and that’s what I understand as loving myself."
Are you a buddist or a narcsisist?
If you love yourself and other people, I am all for that. You did not offend me. I thought your were challenging me to be more cheerful in my depictiion of the USA. Regretably, I can not.
I think Thanksgiving is a really thoughtful holiday.
I would even suggest that every country have a Thanksgiving. I myself give thanks for most anything: a friend dropping in on me at work, a note from a loved one, a surprise movie invitation, a cup of coffee...even just a helping hand when I don't feel brave enough to ask for help.
We all have SOMETHING to thank God for. The only trouble is, media, our human selfishness, and the intermittent and elusive search for what we perceive might be happiness is what makes us go consumer-crazy. (And I'm not excempt from this.)
We don't celebrate thanksgiving in the Philippines, but I would be happy to, just once in a while, have a day where family and friends can gather over a simple meal (doesn't have to be homemade), think about the blessings each one has received, and GIVE THANKS, no, REALLY GIVE THANKS.
Dear Cole,
you asked am I a buddist or a narcsisist?
Thank you. It was a good lesson on humility to me. I wanted to reply :
No. Of courcse, not. I am not a narcissist.
But ... I came in a shock. I indeed love when somebody click on my link http://captains-bridge.blogspot.com/
and leave nice feedback about my artworks.
Yes, I love to hear I am a good guy. Does it mean I am a narcissist?
The question reminded a term "pharisee" to me... Hurry to claim we are different than other (in a sense we are better than other)is the typical human feature.
I am happy to answer that I am not a pharisee for sure. All human sore are present in me, but am happy to recover from the pharisee-ism through recognizing myself in the eyes of other - by recognizing God's presence and His love to each of us in other.
However, this wonderful healing is not one time action but the life long process.
Did I answere your question?
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