A Sea of Humanity: The Holiday Season

By Craig: The other night I went for a 10 mile run under the lights at the Dallas 1/5 mile track. The sun was an orange ball low on the horizon when I started my run. It was pitch black when I finally limped toward my truck 1 hour, 28 minutes and 13 seconds later. I was starving so I pulled into an Arby's and ordered two turkey and swiss sandwiches which I wolfed down almost immediately. As I was pulling out of the parking lot I had to wait for traffic to pass before I could make a left hand turn. It was close to 7 P.M. so traffic was pretty heavy both ways. As I sat there waiting for a break, a huge SUV decided that I was being too cautious and blew it's horn attempting to get me to panic and dart out into the street to be tee-boned. I looked behind me to see if I could catch a glimpse of the driver of the impatient SUV, but all that I could see was the tinted glass of the windshield. It was as if the SUV itself was making the decisions and it began to take on a personality all of it's own. Was there a driver behind the wheel of this impatient machine? Or was it merely traveling down the highway of life making it's own decisions and pestering the other machines that it encountered during the course of a day? I watched the sea of headlights zooming by in both directions. Each vehicle possessing the shadowy shape of a driver motoring their way to parts unknown.

     The holiday season brings out the best and the worst of humanity. People become overwrought with their lives. Not only do they still have to perform the mundane tasks of their everyday lives, they are now expected to attend social gatherings and office parties. Money becomes short because of the exorbitant amount of it spent on gifts. They are also tasked with trying to keep up with the Jones.' This is something that I have never been able to understand. I know almost nothing about video games but it seems that every year at about this time some new fandangled system emerges on the scene which has been heavily advertised by the corporation who stands to profit from it. Of course, video game companies are not the only ones who profit from this unscrupulous form of capitalism. What? Just have to have the latest phone? New cell phones emerge on the market. Pretty soon people will be so reliant on these devices that they will forget how to use their brains. Probably the most insidious tactics used by big chain stores is how they rake in the kids with their promotions. When I was a kid (many moons ago) there was the Sears-Roebuck Christmas catalog with it's small section of toys for boys and girls. My mother would usually get this catalog sometime after Thanksgiving. We children would devour the toy section until, by Christmas, it was so heavily thumbed by greasy fingerprints that the X's and O's and squares penciled in by my brothers and myself were hardly recognizable. Whether it was Stretch Armstrong, a Shogun Warrior, or the latest talking GI-Joe it didn't matter. Usually we never got anything that was in the catalog anyway, but we were always happy with what we did get. It was the mere thought that we might get it that kept the mystique of that catalogue alive.  These days, however, things are different. The internet and cable television have provided an almost unlimited amount of advertising that reaches our children no matter where they go.

      Of Course, Holiday advertising is nothing new. Stores and merchants have been promoting their wares with an added frenzy around Christmas for generations. I try not to shop at the big chain stores. This is especially true around this time of year when people are trying to find order out of chaos. I was finally able to make the left hand turn out of the Arby's parking lot. When I did, the impatient driver behind me shot around me into the other lane as if to make a statement. I glanced over to see the shadowy image of a soulless and nameless human form propped behind the controls. "You're free!" I thought. You're free of the imposition known as ME who was for but a short time an obstacle in the way of you're journey through life." A short time later as I drove home I noticed another shadowy image of a shabby looking human, holding a cardboard sign, on which, because it was dark the writing could only be imagined.  Free... I thought, who was truly free.