Holiday Escapes – Tom Rossi

Good escapes and bad ones.

Ahhhh. Christmas was yesterday and we are in the midst of what most can agree to call, “The Holiday Season,” which includes Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan (in some years), and maybe others I don’t even know about. The winter holidays afford us an escape from the rat race. While it’s true that, for many, the year-round rat race is just exchanged for the holiday rat race, it still represents a change from the monotony.

If you’re lucky, the holidays are a chance to reconnect with family and friends. Planning these rendezvous can be stressful in and of itself, but hopefully they are worth it. The chance to hug your mom for the first time in months, to watch your new nieces and nephews play with new toys, and to catch up with siblings, cousins, friends, and the guy who has stood on the corner every day for 17 years hitting himself in the head with a dead chicken can be priceless.

This time of year presents the opportunity to revel in all that is really important and good about this human existence. It isn’t required that you go all Norman Rockwell on us, just smile, talk, eat, sit next to a fireplace with loved (or liked) ones, and maybe even get out and hike or ski among the trees (if you can find some snow, somewhere). This is positive escapism.

Positive escapism isn’t an escape from reality – it’s a temporary escape from certain, tiring elements of reality – the commute, the office politics, the everyday drudgery.

In contrast, everyday escapism is one of the things that, in my opinion, contributes to the deterioration of our socio-economic structure. It’s great to watch a movie or a hockey game or maybe play a video game, but if all of your free time is dedicated to things like this, you can basically tune out real information or just never notice it in the first place.

I think this is one explanation for people saying things like: “It was cold at my house last night, so there’s obviously no global warming going on.” If you spend all your free time entertaining yourself and you stop learning, you can just keep thinking whatever you want, right or wrong.

So again, sorry for this brief interruption to your holiday. Please go on laughing at the same jokes your father has told 175 times. Drink an egg nog (with rum or without). Cherish the great gifts that you have. It took a trip to death’s door to wake me up to what a great family I have and what great friends. I’ll spare you the details, but I’ll just say again, Happy Holidays.

-Tom Rossi

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Tom Rossi is a commentator on politics and social issues. He is a Ph.D. student in International Sustainable Development, concentrating in natural resource and economic policy. Tom greatly enjoys a hearty debate, especially over a hearty pint of Guinness.

Tom also posts on thrustblog.blogspot.com

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