… and suddenly its Christmas

There were a lot of entrys planned on topics like my last class or a discussion about being truthful I had in quite a drunken state in a bar last week which (not for the first time)  left me in doubts if its possible at all for me to communicate about philosophical questions with non-philosophers. But they all have to wait.

Because –  if you look at the date ( even though it shows already the 25th I assure you – its still the 24th. Which leads to a question: why does it bother me so much that it doesn’t show the corrct date? What is it with us human beings and dates and symbols?) you realize there are more important things happening – its Christmas again! Now, A. once told me about a friend of his, a former punk, who blogged about how we live from weekend to weekend and suddenly its Christmas again. Depressing thought from this point of view, no?

But since this is the first Christmas since I was a child I was really looking forward to (yippieh presents and maybe even more important: the goose tomorrow!!!) I thought it deserved an entry.  The whole last week I felt very Christmassy – interesting because I used to belong to those people who are really bothered by all this stuff. I can only speculate about why that is – maybe because I worked so much, or I am just more relaxed in general – or I am just getting old My guess would be anyway that people who are especially bothered by all this family stuff usually have some problems with their own life and thus with their roots and traditions. The more one feels relaxed about oneself the less these roots become something which ties us down – because we accept and approve of who we are.

Which leads me to another version of why I like it so much this year. Its very closely connected  with a major realization I made in the last couple of weeks: Through all those doubts about allmost everything concerning my life – my work, my friends, my relationship, my way of life in most aspects – I very slowly start accept some decisions I made with all their consequences. I think until very recently (and still at some points)  I called into question some decisions I made about going certain ways and ending certain relationships. The fear of missing something which would have been important and thus living a live of constant regret may have something to do with that. I always wanted all the ways to be open I guess – and so deep inside I refused to see and accept all that stuff that came along with it – I wanted it all without having to pay for it. But a process seems to start where I really make my peace with those decisions and the consequences and losses that came along in the wake. Its like really seeing for the first time that one can’t have the opposites at the same time – not in this world anyway. A bromide, I know Some people just need more time than others …

So – looks like I am growing up after all. Does that make me sad? Not really. It gives a new kind of freedom which reminds me somehow of Nieztsches Zarathustra: the most common way of life is that of the camel which accepts all burdens (also most claims made by society belong here I think) which are loaded upon it – this is the existence of a slave and most people are leading such an existence. The first step to freedom is the lion – but its a pretended freedom, because the lion has to fight the dragon on whose every scale stand the words “you have to.” The real real freedom doesn’t lie in rebellion or negations: its the self rolling wheel – the child who moves out of its own accord. Here we come to the amor fati of the stoics. You don’t answer to claims in any way but instead affirm ones very own existence. The only way to get rid of the boundaries and find out where freedom truly lies. Sometimes I think I never really wanted to understand what that really means. for in consequence it might imply that I might just be born to live a certain way of life – and be unhappy and dissatisfied if I try to operate against it and try stuff for which I am maybe just not born to…

So, what’s that all got to do with Christmas? I used to think it’s a very narrow- minded affair – like most traditions – and something one should get rid of … but more and more I understand the values of those traditions. Its like the fox in the little prince said: Its good that certain traditions are there, because otherwise every day would be the same. But the way it is - one day a week the hunters go dancing and so the fox can chase the chickens in peace.   Well then - let’s just enjoy what we have!

And so of the same tenor: Merry Christmas guys!