{"id":258,"date":"2010-12-13T20:34:18","date_gmt":"2010-12-14T04:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abysmalwitch.wordpress.com\/?p=258"},"modified":"2010-12-13T20:34:18","modified_gmt":"2010-12-14T04:34:18","slug":"society-encourages-the-me-a-spiritual-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/2010\/12\/13\/society-encourages-the-me-a-spiritual-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Society Encourages the &#8216;Me&#8217;-A Spiritual Christmas?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Okay, so a couple of days I got a tad tipsy, saw an ad that was for some high ticket item. \u00a0It was definitely a Christmas ad, but it was promoting that we buy the item for ourselves, not for others. \u00a0This led to something of a rant.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve hopefully cleaned it up enough that you can garner some smidge of a booze-addled insight from my rantings. \u00a0Feel free to correct me.<\/p>\n<p>(Of course, it&#8217;s always possible that the commentary is also completely obvious, but letting it out made me feel good.)<\/p>\n<p>Christmas ads are apparently now about getting stuff for yourself, before christmas. \u00a0Giving license to all of us to \u00a0be self-interested at this time of year. \u00a0Oh yeah, don&#8217;t forget to get something for the people you care about, but don&#8217;t you also care about yourself? \u00a0If you did, you would buy that fabulously priced 60&#8243; lcd tv now to save yourself stress and money. \u00a0Waiting for Boxing Day and using only those funds left after christmas that you can afford? \u00a0That&#8217;s just silly talk.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re saying it&#8217;s okay to put yourself first.<\/p>\n<p>Do you remember when Christmas was about giving to other people and yes, also about getting, but it was about what other people gave you. \u00a0It wasn&#8217;t about what you could get for yourself. \u00a0When did it stop being a social, community, all about each other event and become all about the Me?<\/p>\n<p>The Me? \u00a0What&#8217;s that? \u00a0You know, the individual, the I I I me me me that wants to come first. \u00a0Like when we were five and didn&#8217;t really get why we had to share our toys. \u00a0Mine first, you can have it later if I decide to give it to you. \u00a0All about me.<\/p>\n<p>And here we are, 17 days to Christmas and the ads are telling us to go out and buy this cool &#8216;x&#8217; for ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>Commercialism is clearly driving our society. \u00a0It is the driver of the chariot of our social opinions. \u00a0It gets money by getting us to spend. \u00a0We&#8217;re letting it tell us that it&#8217;s time to let go of the spiritual meanings in our lives in pursuit of getting the next cool thing.<\/p>\n<p>It makes me ill. \u00a0It&#8217;s hard enough holding onto, finding, and\/or drinking in our spiritual experiences. \u00a0It&#8217;s just that much harder when we are being slapped at every turn with instructions on how to be a more selfish, self-interested, self-involved <em>individual<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Show your love this season by <em>showing<\/em> that you care. \u00a0Which does not mean buying the biggest thing you possible can&#8230;.for yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, I admit, I should stop watching tv again.<\/p>\n<p>Happy holidays!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Okay, so a couple of days I got a tad tipsy, saw an ad that was for some high ticket item. \u00a0It was definitely a Christmas ad, but it was promoting that we buy the item for ourselves, not for others. \u00a0This led to something of a rant. I&#8217;ve hopefully cleaned it up enough that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/2010\/12\/13\/society-encourages-the-me-a-spiritual-christmas\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Society Encourages the &#8216;Me&#8217;-A Spiritual Christmas?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,12,15],"tags":[55,124,133,146,155,243,245,256,260,291,297],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}