civilisationReview

Throughout the year, humans exist largely as ‘employees’. This means that people generally engage in those characteristics that make us ‘human’, such as listening, acting on, exhibiting interest, exercising imagination, interacting meaningfully and striving aspirationally solely at work . Everything else is generally ‘compensatory’ or ‘recuperative’. That is, they do what they do outside of work not because it is an avenue via which they express themselves – or other aspects of their personas – but simply because it helps them to recuperate from the myriad of maladies they suffer as a consequence of their absorption within the work environment.  Hence, social life is reduced to the status of a reservoir from which they drink in order to be rejuvenated for work. In other words, life becomes little more than a means to work as opposed to the inverse. Christmas, ...amongst others, however, demands that life, excluding ‘work’, be celebrated. It demands that humans be validated as being...

   I remember a cousin of mine being troubled about his fiancee comparing the size of the diamond ring he was considering for her with her friend’s bigger diamond ring. ed: dei (an Indian version of ‘hey’ or ‘oi’) let me ask you something. Is she buying you a diamond ring for the wedding? cousin: Of course not what. We guys are supposed to buy it for them right. ed: Yeah, if you’re the bread winner and she just fell off a buffalo in some village and onto your lap, and you need to prove to her and her family that you can take care of her. But she’s earning more that you isn’t she. You are more on the blue collar side, and she’s on the white collar side. So there’s no reason for you to prove that you can ‘take care of her’ by buying her a diamond ring. I mean, in the past, men might have done such nonsense to prove to the woman and her family that he is capable of taking care of her, or showing her and her family that he is a big shot. But with the equality between m...