Conor Williams, a newly minted Washington Post columnist and an acquaintance of mine, has a worthwhile post on finding meaning in the modern holiday machine:
I’ve struggled with it for years, often because I’m simultaneously struggling with my faith. My reasons are nothing new: the December holidays in the USA are consumerist, they’re corporate, they’re saccharine, they’re so materialist to be effectively meaningless, the stress of gift-giving erodes the enjoyment of close company, etc, etc. … Compared with Thanksgiving’s straightforwardness—come, have a meal, let’s talk together!—Christmas is really hard.
Jumping off David Foster Wallace’s This is Water, he concludes that Christmas has something to do with being forced to make connections we naturally resist but that are nevertheless vital:
This isn’t an argument about considering others because it’s the Right Thing To Do in any thick, compelling, moral sense. We have to make these connections because otherwise we will literally tear ourselves apart from the inside out. We’re not built to go it alone.
At the end of the day, our natural setting is self-destructive. No one is ever satisfied for long living without connection, without considering others, without empathy, or (ultimately) without something like compassion. Those most isolated among us seek out connection in the least productive ways. Many lonely individuals are sometimes pathological abusive or violent in their search for connections, but they are seeking recognition and comfort from others nonetheless. What is good in Christmas—it seems to me—is this at-times discomforting demand that we try to care about each other.
Read the whole thing here, and Conor’s Post columns here.
David Sessions
David Sessions is the founding editor of Patrol. He covers religion for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, and is a graduate student in the Draper Program for Humanities and Social Thought at New York University. He can be reached at hdavidsessions at gmail dot com.
7 Responses to The Fight to Feel Christmasy
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Right—even for those of us poor in spirit/weak in faith, Christmas demands that we connect with others. This is hard and it can be fraught with danger, but it keeps us sane. Glad you liked it!
I can’t express my love for DFW in words.
“And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.”
http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words
That David Foster Wallace quote is so true.
Of course, Wallace is just one way to get at this. There’s always that guy Christ (as I mentioned in my post). If Wallace is trying to get across the importance of compassion/connection/etc, Christ is asking us for a good deal more.
One of these days I need to sit down and write a post on Reinhold Niebuhr/William James and Christian modernity…
I’m an idiot. Sorry, I mistook your words, Conor, for the words of Mr. Wallace. I need to learn to read.
And your words are excellent.
Please feel free to mistake my words for his anytime!