Not Everything Is a Commodity. Not Every Human Interaction Has to Be a Deal.
This Christmastime, I hunger for something that exists only for its own sake, something that cannot be coined or bartered. I am tired of living in an emotional counting house.
_By Charles P. Pierce
Dec 24, 2020
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...-own-sake/
(Note From The Landlord: there will be no VIP section this week. The newsletter is dark for the holiday.)
It was cloudy here where I lived, so I missed my last chance to see The Great Conjunction for at least 800 years. Time to hit the gym again, I guess. Goddamn 2020 anyway.
They say we're going to get this massive windstorm on Christmas Eve into Christmas Day. Warnings were posted on Tuesday. Batten down the hatches, I guess. Goddamn 2020 anyway.
Every year, I post my favorite passage from Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It is the speech given by Ebenezer Scrooge's nephew, Fred, the son of Scrooge's beloved deceased sister, in response to the first time Scrooge gives him the, "Bah, humbug" rap.
This year, which is ending in so much corruption and deceit and avaricious privilege, it echoes in my soul with surprising power and depth. To wit:
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
God, I am tired of the transactional. I am exhausted by it. The cynicism and obviousness of it have drained me. The lack of creativity and the dearth of imagination has enervated me, body and mind and soul.
I hunger for something that exists only for its own sake, something that cannot be coined or bartered. I am sick unto death of calculating the cost of every small action and every minor event—who's up and who's down, how will it play in Congress, or in Iowa, or on the cable news programs that evening. I am tired of living in an emotional counting house.
I think that's what made Scrooge vulnerable to the Spirits. I think that's what Fred saw in him that Christmas Eve afternoon. His entire life had become transactional—literally, as far as his business was concerned. He was a played-out human being. There was nothing left behind his eyes. Fred wasn't stupid. He believed in things that were valuable in and of themselves, and not because of their value as fungible commodities.
Not every human interaction has to be a deal. Not every human emotion is an instrument of exchange. Whatever art there is in The Deal is crude and obvious, without nuance or subtlety. The art comes in the space between two human beings because they are human beings, equal in the eyes of Whoever and under the law. Power and influence are cheap materials. Humanity, stumbling and flawed, is the indelible medium through which the true art of living is rendered.
Anyway, may you all have the rest and peace of this mid-winter holiday season. Nollaig shona, as my grandmother would say. May all your whiskey be mellow and may all your lights shine. And may there always be a candle in the window, calling you home
This Christmastime, I hunger for something that exists only for its own sake, something that cannot be coined or bartered. I am tired of living in an emotional counting house.
_By Charles P. Pierce
Dec 24, 2020
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...-own-sake/
(Note From The Landlord: there will be no VIP section this week. The newsletter is dark for the holiday.)
It was cloudy here where I lived, so I missed my last chance to see The Great Conjunction for at least 800 years. Time to hit the gym again, I guess. Goddamn 2020 anyway.
They say we're going to get this massive windstorm on Christmas Eve into Christmas Day. Warnings were posted on Tuesday. Batten down the hatches, I guess. Goddamn 2020 anyway.
Every year, I post my favorite passage from Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It is the speech given by Ebenezer Scrooge's nephew, Fred, the son of Scrooge's beloved deceased sister, in response to the first time Scrooge gives him the, "Bah, humbug" rap.
This year, which is ending in so much corruption and deceit and avaricious privilege, it echoes in my soul with surprising power and depth. To wit:
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
God, I am tired of the transactional. I am exhausted by it. The cynicism and obviousness of it have drained me. The lack of creativity and the dearth of imagination has enervated me, body and mind and soul.
I hunger for something that exists only for its own sake, something that cannot be coined or bartered. I am sick unto death of calculating the cost of every small action and every minor event—who's up and who's down, how will it play in Congress, or in Iowa, or on the cable news programs that evening. I am tired of living in an emotional counting house.
I think that's what made Scrooge vulnerable to the Spirits. I think that's what Fred saw in him that Christmas Eve afternoon. His entire life had become transactional—literally, as far as his business was concerned. He was a played-out human being. There was nothing left behind his eyes. Fred wasn't stupid. He believed in things that were valuable in and of themselves, and not because of their value as fungible commodities.
Not every human interaction has to be a deal. Not every human emotion is an instrument of exchange. Whatever art there is in The Deal is crude and obvious, without nuance or subtlety. The art comes in the space between two human beings because they are human beings, equal in the eyes of Whoever and under the law. Power and influence are cheap materials. Humanity, stumbling and flawed, is the indelible medium through which the true art of living is rendered.
Anyway, may you all have the rest and peace of this mid-winter holiday season. Nollaig shona, as my grandmother would say. May all your whiskey be mellow and may all your lights shine. And may there always be a candle in the window, calling you home
