Waking The Dead 12

A lot of us have difficulty with quiet and solitude. Too much of it can be lethal. This is why there is a concerted campaign for banning isolation and solitary confinement in prisons. It destroys people. We are designed as social creatures, and to deprive anyone of human contact is considered, and rightly so, as a particularly brutal form of torture. The right amount of solitude is or can be therapeutic. it forces us to become introspective, and to get a sense of ourselves, no matter how unattractive the experience. I think it`s hard for most people to have to look within, to face their own void, to kiss their own personal abyss. I think a lot of us hate Christmas for two reasons: we have to spend it with a lot of people just because we are family, and not all families like each other; or we have to spend too much time alone, because we are not connected anywhere, as is the case with me. Though I can`t really complain too much, because I was made welcome at church, anyway, for services and a couple of meals together, Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, and later a chat on the phone with a friend whom I couldn`t visit for Christmas dinner because I knew I`d be tired from all the church stuff. Still, a lot of other people have chosen to ignore me, as always, and I am probably going to let go of a few of these friendships, since those people are for the most part emotional parasites who only want to see me when they need something. So, goodbye to all of you. Sad, and perhaps a bit of a Pyrrhic victory, but sometimes we have to prune our lives like trees or we don`t bear a lot of fruit. The hardest thing about the season is the obligatory joy and celebration, whether you feel it or not. I think this must put an awful lot of strain on people. Having a good Christmas is even more important to a lot of us than having a nice vacation. There is something about the season that brings everything about the year, ourselves, our families and loved ones, to a kind of frenzied apogee or climax. It also reveals the many cracks and fault lines in our community, because a lot of people are not connected, without family, without close or real friends to help them get through the crushing loneliness of Christmas, for those who don't have anyone. I have been told in the past, by persons whose friendship for me now is on the chopping block, that I have to get over it, stop being so needy, learn to be happy alone. Easy for them to say, because I have heard those cruel words from people who have never been without loving family or close and supportive friends at any time in their lives. So, I will probably be saying goodbye to them, or at least distancing myself for a while. I think that Christmas would be more tolerable for those of us who are isolated and unconnected if more people would take time to include us more, which also means inviting us into their homes Christmas Day, or visiting us, phoning or even just emailing or texting us. But they get so caught up in their own little family world that they forget completely that there are others weeping in the outer darkness, and they just don't seem to have time for us. I think I've done better this year than others, but it's still difficult. Very few of the people I thought were my friends seem to know or care that I exist. And I have really decided not to contact any of them, because they will simply think that I'm needy and will likely resent the intrusion. People are really selfish, you know. And a lot of you, my friends, are swine. Merry Christmas.