With Christmas rapidly approaching our thoughts turn towards those whom we recall of at this most traditional season of the year. Friends, relatives, acquaintances, oft seeming forgot for twelve and a half months come to mind, are suddenly sorely missed, beloved and cherished. Cards are ceremoniously writ and posted, gifts dispatched, messages heartily proclaimed verbally and phonetically, calls placed or taken, suggesting that from one Yuletide to the next nothing and no one changes. That is of course decided poppycock.
Everything and everyone transforms, thoughts alter, emotions change, like can turn to dislike, disappointment, disillusion, and pain. But we are human, so we hide our revised opinions, so much better to lie, disguise and obscure true feelings behind a privet hedge of platitudes, after all ‘tis only once a year, and appearance and good cheer must override all else. We have all attended festive parties that are filled with the last collection of souls we would ever choose to mingle with, yes there we stand, being polite, felicitous, superficially joyful, and of course deviously two faced.
I hold or place no criticism for this annual duality, having in the past been as much a theatrical artist as any other. Rather I take moment to admit that much of the discomfort is of mine own making, I can and have been a most irascible chappie, barely deserving of forgiveness, acceptance, even on the three celebrated Christmas days. In memory of my fault, I hoist most deliberately a flag of truce, a short but complete moratorium, as near as ‘tis possible for me a mere human beast to represent the untarnished spirit of the message of the moment.
My firm intent is to extend the armistice beyond the start of the new year, a resolution to be a better neighbor, friend, acquaintance, individual in each and every facet, throughout a coming year that will undoubtably be difficult and trying enough without the added weight of unneeded acrimony.
Let us all choose to be the best we can be, if only for our own peace of mind.
Daily Abstract Thoughts 