The Holiday Spirit

It was raining outside. I wanted to seclude into my head as deeply as possible to avoid thinking about how cold it was, or how fast I couldn't go with my two feet.

I was stopped by a light, where there stood a crossing guard I'd seen the day before. Gave me a lecture about my headphones, how they were dangerous cause I couldn't hear what was going on around me. I took them out before I got to him this time.

We stood there for a few seconds, deciding whether to speak to one another in our heads. Once we came comfortable with the fact that we recognized each other he broke the silence.

"In the Holiday Spirit?", he asked.

I didn't know what side of that fence he was on, so I muttered out the least conflicting answer I could think of. The words didn't even matter, they meant nothing. He was a stranger, and I doubted how much he really wanted to talk about it.

"I couldn't give less about this time of year", he clarified, defensively, "People just trying to get you to spend money on gifts for people."

Great, I've heard this before, and he's probably just projecting his frustration onto me. Until he snapped me out of my disposition to be distant about our conversation.

"I can't even take part in it anymore"

He unloaded it all. He once had nothing against Christmas. The problem is now that so many people make you believe you have to pay to love, and when he can't show love through money he's excluded from a holiday that's centred around gifting.

"It wasn't this way 35 years ago." I no longer felt distant from him. He was just a heartbroken man who wanted his world back. "Everyone cares about money money money. It's all anyone thinks about, and it makes me sick."

This is where I decided to contribute. I told him that not everyone cares about money, there are just a few people who are very good at manipulating it, and they hide away in the caves they call offices, leaving good, innocent people on the front lines of retail and customer service. All you can do is see through it. That's all that will get us out of their clutches.

"Those people do nothing but scheme. It's awful. The sooner their schemes fail, the better off this world will be. Everyone cares about money."

Another example of how capitalism has turned us against each other. It's gotten so out of control that this man sees no good in anyone. All I could bring myself to tell him was to see through the schemes of the few, and realize that the people we interact with are good. People are good. People are good.

But I couldn't help but feel like the silent majority I was preaching for had let this man down.

"It wasn't like this 35 years ago", he said.

The man just wanted his world back.