Merry Xmas from Nitrate Stock!
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I think I said it best last year, so I'm not gonna change a syllable. My Xmas wish to you all;
How powerful the word and time of year called Christmas. How potent the notion still, whether of savior or pagan pageant or excuse to indulge. How primal. How motivational. How, in some cases, transformative. How often we extend our generosity at this moment on the calendar, how often we reverse our philosophies, a full 180 degrees in some instances. How often we forgive, and in an abundance of cases so rightly so.
Christmas is an extension of a most base human instinct, which still serves to separate us sapiens from our lizard brains. We want to absolve, to provide, to understand, to love, to love on scales grand and minute. To love.
And in some combination of falling snow, gargantuan canvas sacks, red suits and white beards, bell tolling and scarlet kettles, donations, volunteering, the milk of human kindness, and the sheer urge to god bless us, everyone, we have concocted, for what I firmly believe to be non-commercial desires largely repurposed toward corporate greed's ends, a vibe, a mood, an idea anchored to a time annual, one that attempts to beat back our primal anxieties; nature dying for a time; the air growing colder, blisteringly so sometimes; the artificial human construct known as the calendar coming to its inevitable end, a reminder of our own end, perhaps of all ends.
Along wth the best of us inevitably comes the worst. This season also begs its fair share of detraction, of demythification, of outright desecration in some cases, and this can't all be chalked up to the nihilists, though Jeff Lebowski would surely support that charge. No, greed is as reliable an emoticon as generosity, opportunism as sure a human function as selflessness. There's no question that this time of year also brings out our sadder iterations. It's also a sadder byproduct of this fact that many of us find this time too painful to get through, and that tragically we lose some of the hopeless to their hopelessness. If you're looking for reasons to bash the Yuletide, they are regrettably legion.
There are many damning indictments one might make of this time of year, and Fritz Lang knows I've been responsible for much invective of my own. Yet it all comes from a place time immemorial and carried through our long and messy evolution; the need for each other. The desire for each other, whether platonic or otherwise. It reminds the optimist, the romantic actually, that we might be perhaps actually made of the finer stuff we like to believe in. It reminds that no matter how much worldly wealth we accumulate or how tempting the opportunity to profit from another's misfortune might be, there is no greater prize to lay claim to in this world than to embrace a true friend, to press one's lips against a sweetheart's, to hold the small of one's child's hands in theirs. To hold the safety and the happiness of loved ones above all else. This is what I wish for you all this day, regardless of denomination or participation, and it is, to paraphrase Linus, the true meaning of Christmas, Charlie Brown.
Merry Christmas, Stockahz. I wish you love.
Oh, and back tomorrow with the weekend's Picks! Excelsior!
-Joe Walsh
