Working Daze by John Zakour and Scott Roberts for December 17, 2013

In stores or online? I don’t really care. The crowds are a nuisance, and the parking a nightmare of which even Hieronymus Bosch had not dreamed. But I like the atmosphere. I certainly did when we had a large outdoor mall near where I grew up. It had a uniquely, 1960’s type electronic magic to a kid’s eyes. Perhaps, in retrospect, it was tacky and cheap and commercial. Didn’t look that way then. It’s long since been enclosed and gentrified, till, as the saying goes: “When you’ve seen one, you’ve seen the mall.”*****************************

By contrast: online, for all its convenience, is cold and solitary and detached. No atmosphere but what you make. I wouldn’t use the word ‘proud.’ Maybe it’s good not to contribute to the madness, but if that were truly our goal, we wouldn’t patronize those who profit financially by the holiday. We wouldn’t buy gifts at all, and would observe the day in a quieter, simpler way. Who’s ready to go that far? Who first?*******************************

People are throwing around terms like ‘brick and mortar’ as though they’re synonymous with caves. As though, with the press of an on button, we’ve gone in a blink from the Flintstones to the Jetsons.*****************************

Driving between a series of Christmas concerts in which Chris and I performed the last two weekends, we passed through a lot of rural parts of DE and MD. Farms. Woods. Long roads with little to look at, yet much to see. Our world has not yet entered cities in the sky. We are not yet in flying cars and jetpacks. There is still so much of what is traditional, old, and close to the Earth. The world is not yet all bits and bytes.****************************

Whether we shop online or stand on line, where’s the cause for pride? The world has become a weird mish-mosh of nature, and this net mankind had thrown over it. When we say ‘simplify,’ do we really mean ‘complicate in a more state of the art way?’**************************

Just choose gifts wisely. Give what will continue to mean something beyond the latest media controlled Pavlovian frenzy. Take time to get out of your house if you can, and see what’s left of simpler times. Spare a moment for that. And enjoy Christmas at a pace that doesn’t leave you worn and weary and glad it’s over. Wishing it away because it exhausts us- there’s nothing to be proud of in that.