Perhaps best known (by me) for being the person on Facebook who complained about all these Personal Philosophy postings (see inset), Ms. Ryan is also known for her excellent sense of humor and her facility with plastic explosives. This personal philosophy has been commissioned for her by an elderly billionaire who is too shy to introduce himself.
Also, it should be noted, I'm making a point of putting up "real" posts in addition to these goofy things to recognize that Ms. Ryan's comment expresses a perhaps not uncommon if heretofore otherwise unvoiced reader compliant. To answer her question: this will likely stop when the Husserl episode drops, though I've toyed with the idea of going for 100 of these if ideas persist. There is sort of a philosophical point to this apart from my own creative self-indulgence, but I will leave it to my astute readers to guess at what that point is.
Kathleen M. Ryan's Personal Philosophy*
I hate Christmas. Why do I hate Christmas? It's not the crass commercialism that passes itself off for sentimentality. It's not the historically unfounded artificiality of jamming together pagan and Christian traditions on a day that was most certainly not Jesus's birthday. It's not the aesthetic displeasure I feel in beholding fake trees or real trees factory-farmed and ripped out of the ground and gaudily decorated, with the same dozen or so songs playing over and over with all the monotony of top 40 radio without at least the regular replacement of top 40 pablum with new top 40 pablum.
It's not the fact that in trying to bring us together, it rips us apart by excluding Jews and others, and pressuring them to inflate their own holidays to match the season or sign up for a tradition that flies in the face of their own. It's not the forced merriment, or the fact that emphasizing the specialness of one day in effect devalues all the others, conveying the impression that as long as you're generous on on Christmas, then you can go back to being a son of a bitch the rest of the time.
It's not the practice of lying to children about Santa Claus that creates distrust within the family and serves to make children gullible to the lies of religion and social myth, in effect promoting the patriarchy and dependence on magical forces instead of self-reliance and cooperative effort. It's not all the self-indulgent waste surrounding the season, when we should be putting those resources to third-world aid, such that every gift exchange in effect costs a child in a famine-ridden country his life.
No, what bugs me about Christmas is I never get what I want! All I wanted was that goddamn EZ-bake oven, but my mom said "NO! You'll burn yourself!" Well, I'm not incompetent, mother, and I wasn't when I was 8 years old either! Merry Fucking Christmas!
*This personal philosophy should not in any way be taken to reflect the actual, current views or predilections of this person, though, given that it was crafted JUST for him or her, he or she should really feel obliged to adopt this philosophy out of politeness if not actual gratitude.
-Mark Linsenmayer
YIKES!!! You’ve nailed me. Right on the bulls[(&$(#] eye!! I take back everything I said, and now humble myself upon your authority. I may even send you a modest contribution (Is a check acceptable, and if so, to whom???).
Never again shall I doubt your masterful wisdom.
I remain, but the mere pea and your obsequious servant,
KMR
P.S. You’re really GOOD!!! and “valued” once again.
Oh yeah: it wasn’t the EZ-bake oven; it was a sixth Barbie doll my mother denied me. I needed the sixth (a brunette) to complete the full cheerleading squad.
The check’s in the mail, Mark. Really. :-)))