A few thoughts around Christmas and myself

Some semi-random thoughts that have gone through my head the last few days:

1. Christmas is one of the rare cases where I can feel a certain degree of loneliness: Normally, I am perfectly happy on my own;* however, the mixture of the family-centric holiday and a fair bit of nostalgia (cf. the next item) puts matters of family on my mind. Even so, it is only partially an actual (fleeting) wish for a family—the bigger part is a feeling of being too different and/or of having (in some sense) failed at an aspect of life.

   *For as long as I can remember, I have preferred books and TV (and later e.g. the Internet) to people.

   This is radically different from my thinking on regular days, where I tend to view the prospect of children and the associated responsibilities and problems with abhorrence, while being ambivalent* or even negative towards the idea of a wife. The one prolonged exception to this was a period of a few months after my mother’s death, when I seriously contemplated looking for a wife, likely as a reaction to the shrinking of my “old” family. (I postponed this until my sabbatical, but the urge was long over by the time that I finally was able to begin this, long delayed, sabbatical.)

   *I like the idea in principle and would be very happy, should “Miss Right” stumble into my arms; however, my experiences with women, current divorce rates, whatnot, make me seriously doubt my chances of finding someone with a sufficient long-term compatibility that we will both be happy for the duration—not just a few weeks, months, or years. Most women turn out to be obviously incompatible quite soon. (Going into the why would double the length of this text, but I stress that compatibility is not an absolute value judgment—it is a statement about how well two or more entities suit each other.)

   As for “being too different” (etc.): This is something that I normally consider irrational—I live by my own standards, not those of others. However, when I am exposed to how large the differences are, as with e.g. Christmas, it can be hard to not feel “off”.

   More generally, Christmas appears to bring out a similar contrast in life or a feeling of “being on the outside looking in” among people with no or little family. I can only imagine how it is for those who actually are lonely to begin with…

2. Nostalgia is by its nature bitter-sweet, being a longing for something lost and (usually) unrecoverable. Mostly, for me, the positive parts outweigh the negative, either be it through pleasance of recollection or through the opportunity to learn something about myself. Christmas appears to be different, because my main Christmas memories (cf. a text from last Christmas) are so far back that I was a radically different person (e.g. at age four, while I am now closing on forty-four), and I am not just faced with my-life-as-it-used-to-be but with myself-as-I-used-to-be. While I would not wish to go back and lose what I am today, I do have a strong feeling of loss, as if I had had a little brother who died or as if I somehow could look back into a past life* with the knowledge that this past incarnation was dead.

   *I do not actually believe in past lives, but the idea is quite useful in this context.

   This feeling also makes me re-evaluate my take on Time Lords (a potentially good further illustration): I watched a lot of “Doctor Who” a few years ago and was particularly fascinated with the idea of multiple (recollected) lives—imagine the understanding and wisdom that could be gained through having lived a dozen-or-so lives, all with a different personality, preferences, skills, experiences, … By now, I fear that the risk of pain would outweigh the positives—imagine having all that nostalgia and “self-death”.*

   *To which at least the extrovert must add the deaths of countless friends, companions, lovers, …, that simply had a shorter life-span—an aspect sometimes mentioned on the show.

3. I tend to view holidays as “nothing special”*. Indeed, I have ignored almost all holidays since I became an adult—no decorations, no special food, no special activities, no whatnot. My everyday life is good enough as it is, so what would be the point of going through the effort? Christmas and/or New Year’s** is a considerable exception. It is true that I go through less effort than many others;*** however, what I lack in effort must be weighed against the thinking that I usually end up doing. (Also see a much older text.)

   *And did just yesterday claim in an email that Christmas did not feel very special this year, with all the other free time that I had through my sabbatical—it appears that I was wrong.

   **After my parents divorce, I usually celebrated Christmas with my mother and New Year’s with my father, which caused both holidays to take on a Christmas character.

   ***I put up very little in way of decorations (or, like this year, never get around to them at all), have special food only in as far it can be bought ready-made, do not go to church, do not go caroling (not that a Swede would), etc.

4. When Christmas, other holidays, vacation periods, sometimes even weekends come, most people appear to stop writing and reading blogs, participating in online forums, and similar. This is highly surprising to me: They have the time and energy to do such things on work-days, but when they finally have a bit of spare time and really* should take the opportunity to increase their activities, well, then they decrease them or cease them altogether… Some might, obviously, be stuck somewhere without an Internet connection, but this is bound to be a minority. Some might be more swamped than usually, but how much extra stress does it take to outweigh not having to work?** Ditto those who want to prioritize family—push the freed work and commute hours onto the family and there will still be plenty of time to go around.

   *I assume that most of these enjoy such activities. Those, presumably a small minority, who for some reason force themselves are obviously given a pass. (Then again, if they have to force themselves, would it not be a better strategy to keep the post-work evenings free and reserve such tasks for weekends and vacations?)

   **A sub-category are those who do not have extra days free and just have the extra stress. However, this is again likely to be a minority, and does not explain the phenomenon during weekends, vacation periods and more low-effort holidays than Christmas.

   Each to his own, but, even after close to twenty-five years on the Internet, this still puzzles me.

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