At the end of the film Scrooged, (a modern comedy version of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, released in 1988,) Bill Murray, who plays the leading character, Frank Cross (Scrooge,) has an epiphany after being visited by three ghosts.
If you don't know the story, the short version is that Frank is a big shot TV exec who treats everyone around him like garbage. He is visited by the ghost of his mentor and friend, followed by three ghosts of Christmas, past, present and future. In their own way, they all offer him redemption, wrapped in the threat of his impending doom should he continue his wicked ways. It's Bill Murray and it's very funny.
Back to 'Frank's' epiphany. In the end, he chooses to mend his ways and articulates that with the following words...
"It's Christmas Eve! It's the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we...we...we...smile a little easier, we....we.....we cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped we would be."
I'm not a religious person and I don't like the commercialism around public holidays, but I love the gathering of families and friends....the time off work, the wintery weather. I love the idea that Christmas has the power to mobilise the best in us, if only for a day. In the end, Frank accepts the offer of redemption and changes his ways in part because his heart is touched by acknowledging the plight of others, by acknowledging his own misery and all backed up by the threat of impending doom. That's pretty good of Frank, tortured soul that he was but I think we can do better.
In part, Frank was the product of the system around him. Thankfully, not many of us are corrupted as far as he was, but at a systemic level, resistance is generally futile. To a greater or lesser extent, we all tend to compromise, one small act of selfishness after another. These are small things, but they amount to the world around us....an unnecessarily dark place for many.
But Frank tells us, reminds us, that we CAN be who we wanted to be. We can do something about it, especially now. We can behave towards one and other every day like it was Christmas Eve. We don't even need the big stick. Now that we have Steem, a network built upon a foundation of integrity, we have a chance to redefine who we are, to find redemption for the selfishness and greed within us all, no matter how small.
"It's Steem! It's the one economic platform on which we all act a little nicer, we....we.....we smile a little easier, we....we.....we comment a little more. For the rest of our lives, we are the people that we always hoped we would be."
Will we be perfect? No. Will anyone ever disagree and bicker? Probably. Will all the spectrum of human behaviour occur, the good, the bad and the ugly? Definitely. But there's a chance now. Frank took his....
"it's a good feeling, it's really better than I've felt in a long time."
Will we take ours? ;)
Happy Steeming