In the wake of something new...

Twenty-fourth of December, Christmas eve.

Every year we wait. We wait for the first day of school/work, we wait for Valentine's day, for Easter, our birthdays, Summer, Winter, Christmas, New Year's Eve and the list goes on and on. We seem to have a routine that 365 days a year we are waiting. Society is never happy with what they got until they lose it. Some may call it the excitement of life, the reason why people want to be here; there is always something coming up that we must be excited and happy for, however, the truth is: we only realise what we have until we lose it! Every single year I hear the same things: "I just want it to be Summer already, it's so cold and I hate it!" or the classic "I miss Summer!" subsequently, when Summer finally arrives the statement is the same, however, the nouns and adjectives are replaced by their antonyms: "I just want it to be Winter already, it's so hot and I hate it!" and "I miss winter". Fortunately for me, today is Christmas eve.


It's a beautiful day, the city is crowded, people are fighting for a car park and fiercely grabbing the now low stock in the stores and not to mention the constant social media updates reminding us that today is Christmas eve. Christmas finally arrives and we brag to everyone about our presents, and just like any other day, after 24 hours the day is gone and quickly we forget about it. Personally, I always thought Christmas was a little hypocritical and materialistic. Why are we giving presents to our loved ones when we should be celebrating the birth of Baby Jesus? Due to the fact that it is God's son's birthday we should be giving others presents? So does this mean that because the Second of February is my mum's birthday she should be giving me the presents since she is God's daughter? If you ask random children why they receive presents on the 25th of December I assure you they would reply saying something about Santa Claus and sadly for us, not the birth of Christ and being grateful for our fortunes. Society has become so consumed into their own materialism that we forget to teach our own children why we celebrate Christmas.

Likewise Christmas, Easter is a holiday meant to celebrate Jesus' rebirth. Society blindingly taught itself that the Easter Bunny is somehow more important and we simply must celebrate Easter for the exchange of fatty foods and chocolate.  Is this really what we want our kids to think of our "secreted" holidays? Atheists - people who completely reject religion as a whole - celebrate Christmas and Easter, and ironically, some Jewish families have adapted themselves into also celebrating Christmas. Are we adapting ourselves into losing faith in our religion and creating a whole new religion of our own? A materialistic and self-centred religion with bad habits?

In the mid 40's the Nazis had killed over two thirds of the jewish population in Germany. The Holocaust, such a banal term in the German population which even in the 21st century - a century where everyone is supposedly free - has made its way into the shadows of Germany and the society itself has made it impolite to mention it in public. However, the Holocaust was nothing but an idea of a country restarting a whole new population; and honestly, the Germans were pretty damn successful at it and just as easily Christianity and Catholicism in thirty years time will most likely be dead with its remains explicitly alluded in the television ads of Big W and Target.

Do we really believe it is O.K to kill a tradition and get away with murder? Is it alright for us to reinvent a whole new standard of living? If we believed the end of the world was near, what makes us believe that the end of the world hasn't already occurred? We may be to proud to assume it, however, maybe the world ended when we became dependant in the conventionalities of fast food, smart phones and social networks. And maybe, just maybe, the Maya civilisation didn't predict the end of the world to be like the big Hollywood production of 2012, however, their prediction was the present day.

- Issa