Gavin McLellan / Split off from the rest of the universe
Found something that connects a bit with Emily and Emma’s posts about stress and non-action but which also frames what we’re doing together, or maybe trying to resist in the in the current crazy jolly season.
“I think Christmas is about that point where we as humans split off from the rest of the universe and become prisoners of ourselves instead of being unselfconscious and free like the animals and birds. Yes, we received cars and jets and Hollywood pictures, but we also got saddled with calendars and time - the fact that there’s either too much of it , or too little. And we also got saddled with the knowledge that we can either make use of time doing worthwhile things or fritter it away….”
‘Bethany’ in, The Gum Thief, Douglas Coupland, 2007
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I was talking to a friend over a very nice meal tonight about all this and she had been listening to a New York radio programme that summarised the problem as choice. We have so much of it and its actually a big pressure. I’m inclined to think that we are overall still lucky to be a generation with choices (surely better than lives for so many who don’t have choices?)but we are struggling to deal with it. With choices comes the pressure to be happy, to act. to make choices. ‘Keep it simple stupid’?
December 6th, 2008 at 2:12 amIt has been a very odd week for me, with a huge tension between what I believe in passionately and what seems to be going on around me. So on Sunday, my church choir anthem, “O come, o come, Emmanuel” was all about waiting patiently for transformation in our lives. This week, it’s “Comfort ye, my people” from Handel’s Messiah, all about the physical transformation of the world that God has promised.
Meanwhile at work, one colleague has resigned, complaining that I have ignored her for months and demeaned her at the only meeting that I had with her; another has not been coping with her job and been concealing important information about what’s not working, while a third has been coping with his job, but by working such long hours that I’ve sent him to occupational health because I think that he’s suffering from stress and anxiety, and in the meantime taken some of his work away from him. And to round it off, one of my students died suddenly. Four weeks’ ago, I’d been talking about what he should do to take up a place for postgraduate study in the USA. That’s not going to happen now.
It’s brought home to me just how much wisdom there is in the tradition of the Christian calendar. Yes, Christmas is and should be a great feast. But we shouldn’t let it come upon us like a runaway train. Instead, if we really want to celebrate Christmas, we should spend four weeks in advance thinking about how we can change our way of thinking, our attitudes and our beliefs so that the transformation of the world starts from the inside and works its way out.
Yes, we might be able to make choices, but good choices need time for reflection - and not too much pressure to conform to the standards of the society that we live in.
December 7th, 2008 at 1:25 pmThe Gum Thief is a brilliant book - good call Gavin. Agree Emily about choice - that book Nudge I’ve been reading is about incentivising people to make the right choices - but also giving them the choice to mess it up if they want to.
December 9th, 2008 at 9:49 pmIt emphasises the importance of the ‘default’ in a world with so many choices.
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