christmas

What I Like About This Time of Year

A large robot in a colorful forest setting.
~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ Leave a comment

I don’t celebrate Christmas, or care much about it in much the same way that I don’t celebrate Hanukkah, Eid, or Divali. It’s just not my thing. This doesn’t mean I don’t respect the beliefs of others, but it leaves me as a bit of an oddity.

From age 0 to 9, I grew up as Jehovah’s Witness, knocking on doors and distributing Watchtower magazines. It wasn’t my thing, but it was the 70s, I was a kid, and my parents told me what to do with the implied, or else. For those who have grown up since that era, ‘or else‘ was generally something unpleasant.

As a boy, at age 9, my father’s side of the family – Hindu – introduced me to Christmas. It was a matter of looking for gifts under a plastic tree and being disappointed that whatever I got wasn’t that great. My cousins loved it. I was not very enamored. The idea of someone old fat white guy keeping track of kids around the world was a bit creepy – and in this day and age, might even get someone charged with pedophilia. It is really weird if you think about it.

And so goes the rest of my life.

But what I like about it is simple. Most people are nice around this time of year – perhaps even uncharacteristically so in some cases. It’s almost as though some are trying to out-nice each other. The world can stand a bit more of that type of competition, even if it is a little selfish in wanting to be seen as nice in the case of some.

I also like that people pretty much leave me alone around this time of year. Sure, now and then I get invited to something, but it’s just not my thing. There’s nothing wrong with me. Not everyone likes liver and onions, and I have doesn’t like lasagna. Not everyone has to like what you do. I like peace and quiet and no family drama.

Be careful with the drinking, but go have fun and enjoy what you enjoy about this time of year, be it celebrating the birth of Christ, or seeing family, or eating and peacefully making merry.

With that, I close this blog until Boxing Day.

Billionaires Donate to SCEB

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ 1 Comment

In a strange turn of events, billionaires have decided to donate billions of dollars to the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus through stock options of their company so that they all can avoid taxation and to re-invigorate the ever-failing philanthropic system. This was done at a Philanthropy Reveal Party on April Fool’s Day.

Of course, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus had to make some concessions for this to happen. They will both be driven by self-driving vehicles, and they will exclusively communicate through social networks. To this end, they will have the user name ‘SCEB’, for ‘Santa Claus & Easter Bunny’, while their full names will have the Easter Bunny preceding it in a personal agreement.

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, after the release of their sex tape earlier today1, did a mutual press release about their social networks and interactions with SCEB, stating that children wishing to communicate with SCEB must be paying members of their networks. Bezos has also created a SCEB affiliate store so that the purchases that SCEB makes to fulfill orders allows them to mitigate pricing, while Amazon takes a minimum 30% administrative fee.

The bad news hidden in this is that all of their former employees are now competing for your jobs. Expect assorted creatures on LinkedIn. SCEB’s press release stated that they would be giving recommendations for all their former employees and would not gift the children of employers who do not hire their former employees.

An Associated Press journalist was banned for asking how a bunny can lay eggs, and Reuters was physically thrown out of the building for questioning whether the coal Santa Claus distributes was clean. The Washington Post was the only group left in the building by the end of the Philanthropy Reveal Party.

Various religious figures weighed in about the Philanthropy Reveal Party. The Pope said something in Latin, Buddhists around the world said that they had nothing to say but showed up to not say it. Muslims were busy with Ramadan, and did not show up, but Benjamin Netanyahu, democratically elected to a State that self-identifies as Jewish, applauded the endeavor and said cryptically that ‘settlers are standing by for naysayers property’.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump were in the audience and almost stole the show when Joe sniffed Donald’s hair while Donald ‘grabbed him by the…’ and shouted, “BIGLY!” A sex tape is expected to drop sometime before the Presidential Elections.

Of course this is an April Fool’s Day post, if you haven’t figured that out yet.

  1. They decided they would be lovers instead of fighters. ↩︎

Divali/Eid/Christmas From An Atheist Perspective

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ Leave a comment

DiwaliPeople are wishing each other a Happy Divali today, just as others wish others a Merry Christmas or a Happy Eid on other days. There are other religions I have missed, and I apologize, but I’m no expert on any of these things..

All of these religious observations are focused on being the best self you can be. Underneath all of these religious observations are fundamentals of good triumphing over evil, and that would be pretty subjective if it weren’t how people implement them through religion.

Being nice to other people is generally a good idea – but how we’re nice to people varies. On days like this, people open their doors to friends, family and even strangers and share their food, space and even gifts.  Some people use it as a time to demonstrate how successful they are, as you find in any religion, and still others try to out-devout everyone else – again, just as you find in any religion.

It’s the rare person with pure intent. It’s the rare person who is that light in the darkness, even on the most brightly lit of deepest darkness.

We are all selfish, flawed creatures – some say we’re all sinners, and though the nomenclature is different the philosophical meaning is the same. We get caught up in our lives, doing the best we can within the confines of the prisons of our lives, and even with the best of intentions we’re imperfect.

There’s a part of me that wonders why people don’t strive to be the best that they can every day, and questions the need for such religious observations. There is another part of me that understands the need to pause and have some introspection on such things, which I believe the religious observations are truly supposed to be about.

So, to those going through their introspection on your religious observation, considering how to be better versions of yourself, refilling your cup with that which you think is good – I sincerely and without reservation, wish you the best, be it Divali, be it whatever your observation is.

For the rest of you – enjoy your day off. Try not to be too loud or make too much of a mess.

The Key

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ Leave a comment

KeyA morning of cutting brush out on the land, and a voice from a pickup on the road nearby shouts my name. I invite them up the hill; they had planted cassava when I had and had just gone to try to dig some up. They told me it was no good.

“It’s all in bush”, I said, looking over my cassava proud and tall in the beds, having just gone through by hand – pulling vines, hacking or pulling weeds. They admit to not keeping it clear… and yet, they thought by simply sticking it in the ground they would be able to reap something.

It doesn’t work that way. It never works that way. The expectation that it would work another way boggles me, a reality as clear as a sunrise, a truth as hot or cold as one makes it.  And of course, once there is bush, people start doing things – like letting their cows graze.

Crazy.

———————————————————————–

The young man upstairs – about 6 – is doing handstands in front of my apartment. He’s getting better at them; I say so – it may be that he has the girl as an audience that inspires extra effort, but he has gotten better and I say so. I ask them if they’re ready for Christmas – people celebrate this thing, slaving for money to slave to purchase to give to other people – fellow slaves, typically – but it’s a popular thing, probably the most popular thing on the planet, and who am I to rob children of the dreams of their parents?

I expected a few remarks about Santa Claus, what they had asked for, etc. Instead, I was told that Santa Claus didn’t exist, that it was their parents. So I told them the truth.

“I am not a Santa Claus expert. I don’t know whether he exists or not.”

“But, T?”, they call me that, “But haven’t you gotten gifts for Christmas?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“No”

“Not even as a child?”

“No”

Now, I may have at some point gotten things for Christmas, but I wasn’t about to get into detail with inquisitive minds. I’ve never been much for all of that; when I wanted things I tend to get them – and as the years have come and gone, I have wanted less and less.

—————————————————————————–

I work for what I need, and what I want has become much more inline with what I need. I only bought a gift for one nephew that I have yet to drop off; I rarely buy things for people on agreed upon shopping periods… I do it randomly.

The point, I suppose, is that we have these myths that have become mandatory for society that make no sense to me. OK, let’s say that Jesus was born on this day – the reality being largely disproven – and even for an atheist, he was a nice guy who, after being born, disappeared until he was much older and was doing nice things (I’m waiting for someone to write “Jesus: The Missing Years”). But what are people actually buying each other other than shiny trinkets, metaphorical and otherwise? It keeps them happy, and that’s good.

We are all keys in our own ways, only – at least some of us – are sentient and can decide what locks we unlock. We choose our paths, we decide our futures with simple acts and simple habits. This, I suppose, was my gift from my abruptly ended childhood.

That key. That we can choose for temporary happiness or seek out contentedness, a nuance demonstrably lost in shopping sprees. Marketing constantly sells temporary happiness.

Contentedness is free.