Ghost of Christmas Future, I Fear You More Than Any Other

'Twas the night before Christmas, and I've got some blogging to do.  In the tradition of my old journals (which these blogs are a spritual spinoff of sorts) I now write my annual CHRISTMAS EVE entry.  

Christmas is the apex of the year, replete with holiday cheer, togetherness, and tradition.  Of course, it is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, but that never stopped us from some good ol' fashioned capitalistic indulgence.  I mean, Jesus got gifts, right?  Same thing.

One of my favorite traditions for the last five or so years is the seminal adaption of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Scrooge.  I watch it every year and it always gets me out of my humbug "why  do they play Christmas songs so frickin' early" attitude and into the Christmas spirit.  

Scrooge is a detestable, loathsome creature...

Sometimes I in my most misanthropic moments, I remember Scrooge.  People can be really mean sometimes.

Everyone knows that Scrooge is visited by three spirits.  The first is the Ghost of Christmas Past:

My Christmas pasts have all been excellent.  I may be accused of selfishness or lightheartedness but I was pretty spoiled.  

Then, the Ghost of Christmas Present:

I love this guy.  And I like life!  This has been a great, if not rather snowbound Christmas.

Then the foreboding Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come:

This is the great variable.  What will my next Christmas look like?  What about in five years?  Ten?  Fifty?  Now I sound like some job interviewer.  

It doesn't really matter what my life will be like, Christmas is always the same.  I get to be with my family, and I get to enjoy life and give thanks for the babe born in Bethlehem.

Merry Christmas!  God bless us, every one!

Back from Deblogification

Night falls over the metaphorical world of this blog.  A hush trickles across the barren plain which is the repressed id.  Shaking free from the tentacles of dark, mysterious thoughts I pull myself towards a blurry light.  What is it, I wonder?  Lo,  it is the superficial superego which this megalomaniacal society forces upon me.  I momentarily unloose the brambles tying me to my deepest thoughts to sample the tepid waters of common thought.

For but a season I scamper about in this seeming wonderland.  I forsake the blogging roots which sustain me and try to go it alone.  The desire to rant, vent, or explicate I squelch, neglecting my most basic needs.  In my moments of deepest anguish I turn to apathy and complacency.  

Soon the ambivalency and lightmindedness of it all literally buoys me up and I float in the atmosphere.  While I hang high above in the haze, I realize I need some heaviness.  Some weight. Some are meant to live a life of ignorance and non-examination, but that is not the course for me.  I must return to my melancholy and semi-depressing blog!  For I have made a pledge!

From the frigid North I feel an ARCTIC BLAST of wind approaching.  Gusts envelope me and buffet me amongst the clouds.  I crystallize in the intense freeze and freefall to the earth in a familar hexagonal form.  Around me I see millions like me also parachuting to the firm ground.

For days I lay in a massive drift which blankets the landscape in a pristine white.  I find myself completely immobilized--nowhere to go.  How long will this last?  When will I be ready to return to the mire of the life I once knew?  

The sun breaks through the clouds at long last.  Slender rays pierce my sides and I disperse into water.  Rivulets form streams and I find the cycle returning me back finally to the briar pit which I so foolishly left.

As I ponder on this singular experience, the thought occurs to me that a cycle which perpetuates life on this earth--namely, the precipitation cycle-- mirrors a cycle that I have with my innermost self.  To wit,  I start off in the pit of intense self scrutiny.  I constantly wax philosophical and live life to the fullest (in my unique way), questioning everything.  Then the heat of artificiality, possessions, and gratification causes me to evaporate and I no longer think as deeply.  At the worst point, I become a slave to pleasure and I cast off my brain.  I then reach a barrier where I no longer can keep up the facade, whereupon I condense back into liquid and fall back where I was.  

To speak more plainly, I stopped writing posts for about a month.  Was it a formal self-imposed period of blogging detoxification?  No, not really.  Did I just start moving away from writing and didn't really feel like probing my mind and started worrying about other things?  Yes.

But I'm back.  Screw those other things.