The Burden of Hope

'tis the season to be salty

Don’t give me presents. I don’t want your cards, your good tidings, holiday cheer, or any of that stuff.

All I want for Christmas this year is some peace and quiet.

I'm staring down a nine-day break from my day job that's going to carry my holly-jolly ass straight into 2025, and to keep it real, I don't want to see another human being during that entire stretch. Work has been madness. I'm about two or three more frayed nerve endings away from foiling up the windows and nailing the door shut.

The holidays are generally regarded as a time to huddle around with loved ones, knock back a couple of glasses of eggnog, and cozy up around the crackling fireplace. In reality, the season ends up being a time when you have to grit your teeth down to the gums in restraint when Uncle Randy starts working on his seventh can of Keystone Light, now in full freefall, howling uncontrollably in a pit of his own misery about how the gawt-daym Mexicans are taking all of our jobs away while uncomfortably eyeing your 16-year-old daughter in the stairway.

Cue up the boys slap-boxing themselves red in the garage as they step on the dog's tail, all while the second turkey you don't want to eat in the span of a month roasts away in the oven, and you have more or less what the traditional American holiday season has spun itself into in the year 2024.

Naw, I'm good, dawg. I’m giddy over the prospect of a low-effort Christmas. The tree stays in the closet this year. I'll just be cuddling up to the Cannon Films Collection and eating microwave-reheated Tamales from the Vallarta in my robe. Pure bliss.

2024 is marked as the year that I officially lost hope in humanity, or maybe it's better to frame it as I let go of my hope for humanity… because this was very much an intentional decision. I mean let's be honest, we're beyond fucked at this point. Before, there was always that seed of hope sitting back there, confident that we'd wake up and reverse course. The common folk would band together and rise, the evil and greedy who have commandeered and abused all of the power structures would be punished, and we'd eventually triumph because, despite our differences, human beings are essentially decent, intelligent, and strong in numbers.

Yeah, well that was a fucking lie. I've always found it a lot easier to deal with human beings on a one-on-one basis, but taken collectively, we're a bunch of dumb, grinning assholes willingly getting fleeced by the 1%. And although the year ended with a CEO no longer being where a CEO once was, I believe that was an anomaly, and don't think America collectively has the grit, the social consciousness, nor the appetite for sustained resistance to repeat that bold act. The authorities will continue parading this guy around like he's Bane to dissuade the copycats, the TikTok ban will fail, and we'll all go back to our normal pastimes like ignoring school shootings.

Yikes. Can you get any saltier, Dan? Let's reign it in a bit, because the point I'm trying to make here, believe it or not, is a positive one. You see, since letting go of hope and instituting a healthy regimen of willful ignorance toward all news (outside of Kendrick vs. Drake), my mental clarity, focus, and sense of purpose have grown exponentially. The burden of hope is a tremendous one, and after being forced to brunt letdown after depressing letdown, it wears the mind and emotions down. Just like politics and religion, that degree of daily investment tears you away from your true, untainted identity. Your hopes and dreams become the hopes and dreams of the tribe, and it's easy to lose sight of the things right in front of your face, that you once had a passion for, that you do have the immediate ability to nurture and grow.

And that's where I find myself in the tail-end of 2024. The world may be burning around me, but somehow I'm smiling more than ever and finding my small slice of peace in it all. I'm making the conscious choice to remove myself from the Big Game and am turning inward, working on my writing, my photography, and my language-learning journey. I’m spending time with the positive people in my life, recultivating my passion for reading, knowledge, and learning.

I've essentially become the This is Fine dog. And I'm OK with that. It's always been my favorite meme because, in these wild times, it appears to be the only logical way to forge forward without completely losing your mind. Honing our perspectives, and reclaiming control of those things in our immediate circle has become our greatest shield against this mess. Call it stoicism, call it whatever you want. Don't deny yourself the freedom sitting right in front of your eyes. Choose peace today... because fuck it, we all gon' die.