November 12, 2017
This expresses something I think all the time: I love normal days.
That video — from Forest Hill Church Charlotte, NC — went up went viral after Christmas 2016, but I'd never noticed it until just now (because somebody shared it on Facebook).
The man in the video is getting Christmas-excited over the normal things in his life, and normally, I loathe ads that show people getting really, really excited about something. I hate the ads for the state lottery and the local casino that show adults getting very excited.* And I reject ads that show children getting pop-eyed and hysterical over toys and candy.**
If you really got excited in proportion to the goodness of the things in your life, you would act like the man in the Forest Hill Church video. Which would be ridiculous. And therefore it proves — I think — that you shouldn't be getting excited about the deviations from normal, such as Christmas.
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* We mute the ads when we watch live TV, but I will not tolerate even the silent video, even when I'm looking down, reading, and only seeing it in my peripheral vision.
** I think in real life too, adults are often entertaining themselves — staving off their own boredom — by pushing children to get excited about things (notably Christmas). I'm not currently raising children, but if I were, I would maintain a calm, serene environment.
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29 comments:
Parker doesn’t explain what GISINQFEU means. Will you enlighten us?
Tag "Althouse killjoy"
"Parker doesn’t explain what GISINQFEU means. Will you enlighten us?"
You're being more confusing that Parker, since you put that in the wrong thread.
I'll answer your question there.
@Althouse, sorry for posting on the wrong thread. I had tried to get Google to explain and all they did was point me to today’s Rex Psrker column and the post on your blog. When I came back to Althouse.blogspot I didn’t stop to check that I was on the right post.
Maybe I should go back to bed.
I like it. Maybe Thanksgiving is a good time to remember all the gifts we already have.
This video explains the Bliss in nom de blog*. While the video is an exaggeration, it does capture my general approach to life.
*The Ignorance part should be apparent to anyone who has followed my commenting for a while.
I like normal days too. I don't like holidays when everything is closed, internet slacks off and tv is different.
Regular days are fabulous.
These two were good at reminding me of this.
I regularly mute the commercials, because they are assaultive to the ear. Visually, they are probably the most interesting things on TV. Strangely, they don't seem to refer much to the product or service sponsor; how often have you realized a commercial has run, and you don't remember the product? TV commercials seem to exist for the benefit of the directors; they try to cram as much of their art into them and don't even consider the point of the ad.
One reason I find old time radio shows interesting are the commercials, which usually were just the spoken word. Although direct and overt, they tried to make them pleasant to listen to.
Reminds me of an observation from a excellent illustrator on my staff who was going through the private hell of divorcing his bipolar wife.
In the middle of it all, he told me about a phone call to his brother back home in the Midwest, where he talked and talked, and finally thought to ask how things were back in Iowa. His brother, a loving husband and father of two, answered apologetically, "oh same old thing, kids are doing fine, work is same as ever, don't really have any news."
For my friend, hearing his brother's no-news was like a Balm that covered over all his hurts and fears to hear it: Normalcy! Oh, to have days and days of nothing new! He took refuge in the promise he might have that again.
his insight has stayed with me ever since, and makes me wake up in dulled-by-normalcy moments, and be quietly glad. ( Merry christmas )
Isn't this just George Baily waking up on Christmas Day in It's a Wonderful Life?
Retirement takes the magic out of long holiday weekends.
"One reason I find old time radio shows interesting are the commercials, which usually were just the spoken word. Although direct and overt, they tried to make them pleasant to listen to."
You get that in some podcasts today, e.g., Stuff You Should Know.
I'm pretty antisocial, so any occasion that brings friends and family together really sucks for me. I absolutley get giddy over coming home when nobody is there. It's an incredible feeling of well being and makes me joyous. Ever since I could first walk and leave the house, I would wake up hours before any of my friends so I could go out and enjoy the world alone. Once they woke up and came, out I enjoyed that too, but I really need my alone time. I love my friends and family, but I wish they were more like a vacuum sweeper. And all the talking and the words and the talking. Oh man, make it stop.
"Isn't this just George Baily waking up on Christmas Day in It's a Wonderful Life?"
Yeah. Good point.
"Retirement takes the magic out of long holiday weekends."
I'm such a fan of normal days that, retired, I like when the weekend is over so the feeling of being free from required work isn't interfered with.
Working, I always had that feeling during the summer break (which was 4 months long) and the winter break (which was about 50 days long). The weekends don't seem as good as the weekdays.
Althouse, how many work days did you have a year when you were not retired -- 112?! How can anyone retire from a job like that?! And the double meaning of that question is intended.
"Ha! Ha! Ha! My mouths bleedin', Burt! My mouth is bleeding!"
Visually, they are probably the most interesting things on TV.
Especially the drug commercials. As the low voice disclaimer warns of suicidal thoughts, organ damage and death, the people are enjoying a day at the beach,sailing on the ocean, fishing off the pier, dancing in the moonlight, dinner with friends and life is wonderful.
I feel that way all the time. Open the refrigerator and think oh my God I can just keep all the food I want in here all the time and it doesn't go bad. The ease of my life is extraordinary. And I am far from Rich. I'm just born at a time where these things are possible. I love that video
Tag "Althouse killjoy"
She certainly seems to have become a bit of a priggish scold the last week or so hasn't she?
What a Grinch.
Still would rather have a Lexus with a bow on it in the driveway.
I thought of the final scenes of the 1951 "A Christmas Carol" with Alistair Sims as Scrooge. But "It's a Wonderful Life" definitely works too.
Growing up, Sundays were always special, a structured social routine.
It was the ritual of it, I suppose, that made it special. Or more ritual than the rest of a life that was, in retrospect, very ordered by ritual. Very unlike the usual American life.
We went to Mass at either San Agustin, the ancient church in the walled city, or one of the Ermita churches. My dad always chose, and I still have no idea why he chose one or the other. I liked San Agustin best, it was the most interesting by far, being surrounded by the fortifications and war-ruins, and the most ornate, and where the dead, many our ancestors or those of our friends, were under the flagstones or in the walls. I liked popping in to visit the old conquistador, Legaspi, in his crypt.
Immediately after we would hole up for an hour or two at the Army and Navy club, the gracious old US officers club, where my parents had a drink or two with their friends, and where we swam, or poked around in their excellent (air-conditioned!) library.
Then home for lunch, which was almost always arroz a la cubana, why I don't know. A whim of our majordoma. Then siesta, and in the afternoons, usually, we would go visiting, to friends homes holding the usual open house for merienda.
Our own open house was on Saturdays.
The adults would gather and gossip, and we kids would entertain ourselves with the (horde, usually) of kids that happened to be there. We knew a LOT of people.
It was what was done.
It was the ritual of it, I suppose, that made it special. Or more ritual than the rest of a life that was, in retrospect, very ordered by ritual. Very unlike the usual American life.
I don't think so, if you refer to the 1950s when I grew up.
We went to mass as a family and almost everyone else we knew did so, too.
When we were kids in school, we sat with our classes in the same church but away from our parents.
Afterward, our parents would often meet friends for a drink or we would visit my father's parents, who lived nearby.
My mother's parents had died many years before.
That, of course, changed in the 60s. But I was away at college.
It's a heartwarming story of a man who woke to his white male privilege.
If you can't be happy on a normal day, you can't be happy.
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