[...i'm back...]
I would like to ask why there were so many people outside in the streets today. It was so full, one could barely walk without being pushed or hit by the others, or by one of their thousand bags they were carrying while also trying to get through the human mass floating and flooding around.
I am nowhere normally associated with a mass of people, like an Indian or Chinese metropole. I am in the downtown of a small city, but today is the third-but-last saturday before Christmas. As here on Sunday the shops are closed, this is basically one of the last three days in which everyone can go shopping, or better, Christmas shopping. No matter that everywhere lies snow and we are far below -10°C.
So, frenetic cumuli of coats and hats and scarfs and gloves roll around to get more bags than what they already have. Distracted kids are attracted by the newest colorful candies, they lost their parents and start crying. Older people do not see their relatives in the crowd anymore and just stand in the middle of the narrow aile waiting for inspiration, a phone call or a familiar "pat pat" on their shoulder. And everyone looks at the windows, the lights, the people, and what to buy next.
I could start the game of asking "why?" at every answer one would give me. Why do these people need to buy stuff - because it is not that you need the stuff, you need to buy it, there is a difference! - ? Because it's Christmas. How is Christmas related to frenetic shopping? It is a way to show people you love them. WHy can't you show it in another day of the year, or actually, every year? Why do you need such external impersonal motivation for this? And, is it really a present the best form for this? And why are we all so full of useless stuff while, somewhere else... ?
It is always being weird all this to me. This year, it is even weirder because my house is empty, as all my furniture is on the way to another continent in a ship container. And I absolutely can't buy anything, because I have no space anymore in the bag I am carrying with me. I am going into a kind of ascetic part of my life, I suppose. But that's not too bad. Do I really need a decoration hanging on my door? Do I really want another cake or chocolate type? Do I really know what to do with ... ?
Is this now our tradition? The Christmas or the Christmas shopping?
I would like to ask why there were so many people outside in the streets today. It was so full, one could barely walk without being pushed or hit by the others, or by one of their thousand bags they were carrying while also trying to get through the human mass floating and flooding around.
I am nowhere normally associated with a mass of people, like an Indian or Chinese metropole. I am in the downtown of a small city, but today is the third-but-last saturday before Christmas. As here on Sunday the shops are closed, this is basically one of the last three days in which everyone can go shopping, or better, Christmas shopping. No matter that everywhere lies snow and we are far below -10°C.
So, frenetic cumuli of coats and hats and scarfs and gloves roll around to get more bags than what they already have. Distracted kids are attracted by the newest colorful candies, they lost their parents and start crying. Older people do not see their relatives in the crowd anymore and just stand in the middle of the narrow aile waiting for inspiration, a phone call or a familiar "pat pat" on their shoulder. And everyone looks at the windows, the lights, the people, and what to buy next.
I could start the game of asking "why?" at every answer one would give me. Why do these people need to buy stuff - because it is not that you need the stuff, you need to buy it, there is a difference! - ? Because it's Christmas. How is Christmas related to frenetic shopping? It is a way to show people you love them. WHy can't you show it in another day of the year, or actually, every year? Why do you need such external impersonal motivation for this? And, is it really a present the best form for this? And why are we all so full of useless stuff while, somewhere else... ?
It is always being weird all this to me. This year, it is even weirder because my house is empty, as all my furniture is on the way to another continent in a ship container. And I absolutely can't buy anything, because I have no space anymore in the bag I am carrying with me. I am going into a kind of ascetic part of my life, I suppose. But that's not too bad. Do I really need a decoration hanging on my door? Do I really want another cake or chocolate type? Do I really know what to do with ... ?
Is this now our tradition? The Christmas or the Christmas shopping?
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