Last minute errand run in the city done, beginner music book found, and soon the exciting "sauna scrub" is going to start. Wild times for sure. Though, I did get some brownie (I assume this term comes from skin color) points for doing the snow work last night, so my wife could go early to the graveyard and get flowers.
The flowers came from a florist, not from the graves.
It is one of the traditions to visit the departed around Christmas time, so my wife did that and then went to the florist close by. They make some great arrangements and the flowers are always quality there. Though most only use it for funerals due to its proximity to the cemetery, my wife's wedding bouquet came from them on very short notice - as we didn't have a "proper" wedding (we eloped), so weren't that organized, nor traditional.
I did the altering of her dress to fit her properly.
Despite the look of the picture, it isn't actually raining today, it is snowing. However, it is just under freezing, so the warmth of the car is melting it as it falls. Hopefully it will stay below zero, so that our yard doesn't become a slippery mess for the old people (and me) to walk on tomorrow.
I forgot to buy gravel to throw on the ice.
Always something...
My wife wants to go to the church for some singing, which is fine, except that not only are they in Finnish, but I don't sing in public. The only person that hears me sing, is Smallsteps. I wish I could sing, but obviously not enough to actually get some lessons to learn how to. In Finland, most people can sing "okay" as they do a lot of it at school - this wasn't a thing at my school at least.
What has been interesting around the shops this year, is that they are trying to get people to buy before Christmas, rather than after. With the dire financial conditions for many, a lot will wait until after Christmas when everything goes on sale at up to half the price. There are a lot of "presales" which is a funny term used in this way, as a presale is the possibility to buy something before it is released, like a new album, to guarantee getting it the moment it is released. However, what they are selling is already released, which means that the "pre" is a sale before the sale is released. That is just stupid. But,
Stupid is as stupid does.
We are generally quite stupid as consumers, making our decisions on how we feel, whether we believe that the thing we are buying will make us feel better, or will save us from feeling worse, like not giving a Christmas gift to a loved one at Christmas. There is a social pressure to buy gifts for certain occasions, and even though everyone knows it is a scam, we nearly all keep doing it, lest we feel like failures in the eyes of others.
Failure in the eyes of strangers, these days.
If it isn't suitable to share with strangers and get some likes on some social platform, it isn't good enough. How many people post their lives on social media and portray themselves as someone quite different to the reality. I was reading a story from the US the other day about a "mumfluencer" who was convicted of child abuse of a couple of her children.
As expected.
Essentially, all of these influencers finally get outed as something quite different to what they portray, because over time they have to keep upping the level to hold the attention of an audience that has an attention deficit disorder. It is impossible to constantly keep up appearances daily, weekly, monthly for years on end, when selling false glamor. It must be taxing on the soul too - performing like a monkey for the crowd, but looking into a mirror and seeing something quite different.
Unless they are a psychopath.
Around the holiday times there are a lot of lonely people, because either they have lost connection with their friends and family, or never spent time building them. There are a lot of expectations around this time of year, but people don't necessarily reflect on why they feel unfulfilled, often blaming external factors for their results.
There is a high sense of entitlement, but a very low sense of responsibility.
Everyone wants to be a unique snowflake, yet seem to forget that snowflakes only survive a very narrow set of conditions. Snowflakes are unsustainable and because we are constantly looking for whatever is new, no individual can sustain uniqueness, because once something sees a bit of success, it will get copied and become ubiquitous. That is what most of what these influencers deliver - average, if that.
Be like Water.
Perhaps rather than be a fragile little snowflake, people should aim to be like water, which can live under any condition, take on any form - solid, liquid, gas - and even break into the fourth state, plasma. Versatile in application, critical for survival. Trying to fore ourselves into a narrow form and expect to stay there indefinitely, isn't always going to lead to failure.
Failure is the best way to learn.
Maybe it will teach us that we need to change our form.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
