Christmas is awesome when you're a kid.

When you're an adult Christmas is a bit of a pain. There's a lot to do. Tons of obligations.

When you're a kid Christmas is the greatest thing in the world.

I remember being so excited that I couldn't sleep on Christmas eve. It was all about the toys. I wanted as much as possible. A huge, giant pile of toys.

This is actually a pretty good metaphor for our culture today. When we're sad we think it's because we're "empty". Therefore the quick and easy solution is to buy as many things as possible.

Things will fill us up and make us more happy. By the way, this isn't just my opinion. I got the idea from a great psychology paper I read called Why the Self Is Empty: toward a Historically Situated Psychology by Philip Cushman (1990) "American Psychologist".

He writes, "...the current self is constructed as empty, and as a result the state controls its population not by restricting the impulses of its citizens, as in Victorian times, but by creating and manipulating their wish to be soothed, organized, and made cohesive by momentarily filling them up."

He says that America, after World War II, became a culture obsessed with self-improvement. "As the individual's growth, enjoyment, and fulfillment became the single most valued aspect of life."

Merry Christmas!

We want to be afraid of things.

You know how sometimes you want to go see a scary movie? You get in the safe theatre and eat your safe popcorn, and then you watch this terrifying movie? And even though it's terrifying it's also kind of fun and exciting?

That's how we want it to be all the time. We want to be scared, but safely scared. We want to be scared for other people. We want to be told what to do by experts to lessen our fear.

The media has realized this and tries to make us as scared as possible. The media tries to satisfy our needs. Newspapers or movies or TV shows or news shows that scare you are rewarded more through attention, ratings, gossip and ultimately money.

The government is happy! It knows that we want to be scared so they gladly oblige. They pass laws and spend our money to protect us. This gives them more power.

Corporations are happy to scare us as well. They can sell more products and services if we're scared.

So it's pluses all around. We want to be scared and we ask the media, government and business world to scare us. The media, government and corporations try their best to scare us and, in turn, benefit through more attention, power or money.

That's why today there are murderers everywhere, wars, impending natural disasters, pandemics, terrorists, rapists, corrupt governments and a million other things that will ruin our lives forever.

Can you resist our culture?

Just read Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk, the guy who wrote Fight Club. It's a comic novel about an undercover operative living with an American family. He's from an unnamed terrorist nation and is planning to kill as many Americans as possible in a terrorist attack. In the mean time, he's billeted with an American family.



The book is written in the form of journal entries, in heavily accented and awkwardly phrased English. The writing style is a little exhausting, but pretty funny and quite effective at conveying a brain-washed terrorist mindset. Ultimately the book is about whether a young, brain-washed enemy of America can resist Western culture.



Is it possible to resist our culture of instant messaging, tall lattes, celebrity magazines, Internet porn, movies, music, television, make-up, Obamamania? I think it would be tough. Especially for a young person. Sure it's possible. Easier if you have an outside source of influence like religion. (Think of all the Islamic people who hate Western culture.)



But I think if you're on your own and you're simply bombarded with all that crap, every day, all day, 24/7. You will eventually cave and let yourself be absorbed into pop culture. Then you will no longer "hate" American culture because you're attached. Hating it will be like hating a part of yourself.

Why do people carry so much stuff?

The other day my sister asked if I had a murse (man purse). I told her I simply carried a wallet. If I had a lot of stuff, I carry a backpack. Why do we carry so much?

Years ago when I worked at GM Place I was always surprised that people brought backpacks to games and concerts. Unless you were sneaking in booze, why carry a backpack to an indoor concert or hockey game?

That's why we searched all the backpacks. Most of them had books or clothes or containers of stuff. Why not leave that crap at home?

If you look at people on the street, almost everyone is carrying something. A purse, shopping bag or backpack. There are very few people walking around who carry nothing.

I'd love to ask each person what they're carrying. Also, I'd love to ask each person carrying nothing, why they don't have something.

I think you're more manly if you don't carry anything. A metro-sexual, feminized man would carry a backpack and man purse, filled with junk. A real man carries nothing but a credit card wrapped in cash.