Father's Day

For reasons which probably have to do with generational differences (or early communal bonding) and very likely children and children's children having been similarly indoctrinated without ever questioning how or why ancient rituals exist or may change over time, many people seem genuinely vested in symbolic sociological constructs; holidays. Despite the best efforts of my own parents (and parent's parents), I am not. In fact I'm not emotionally involved in any time, date, or duration events at all. I don't "feel" more or less strongly about elusive things on or around the dates the disaster/celebration occurred any more or any less than any other time. This broadly applies to births, deaths, marriages, divorces, world wars, civil wars, domestic disputes, and to reiterate, all holidays.

In simplest terms, I don't care. Society creates meaning from things. From symbols and from events. And to some, its a highly charged, emotional attachment - either because they really do feel more strongly, or they have been programmed to. This is why so many people seem to have highly stressful holidays. Presumably these same people adhere to rigid, unyielding expectations for acceptable holiday behavior, which helps fuel this cycle of insanity. I find it fascinating from a distance, as I hope to never become involved in someone else's personal drama over something as inconsequential and benign as a holiday. These symbolic societal constructs don't create emotional instability, they simply focus it.

I suppose a lot of my indifference is where I get my self-worth. It absolutely does not come from external things. Capitalistic marketing loves our perceived inadequacy, however; exploits it! Take a look at Freud's 12 defense mechanisms and see how many could be applied to [a family holiday for example]. For those who are self-aware, compare them now to our own behavior. Where are we on the locus of control chart? If I had to guess, those of us who are not emotionally vested in artificial symbols of meaning tend to create our own destiny - and speaking from personal experience in case anyone was wondering, that one is the awesome one, not the other.

But I did pick up a bag of smoking pellets for my Traeger on sale. So that's cool.