LVIII. Christmas: A Reflection on Ourselves

This has always been my favorite time of the year. A good many of them have been in wintry weather that fit the entire tradition of playing in the snow or being too cold to go anywhere but stay inside with family and friends. This is the time when you think of the words joy and giving and you truly remember the past and embrace the present. But Christmas is also a story of risk, birth, and rebirth, and serves as a reminder of what we lose when we fail to appreciate who we are and what we already have.

If you’ve read Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, you know the ghost of Christmas Future ultimately arrives to show Scrooge what a lifetime of singular pursuit of wealth ultimately leads to; a forgotten grave and a poor reputation. And just as the Bible relates a story where Christ tells Peter he will have three opportunities not to deny him, the ghost of Christmas Future was the third and final chance for Scrooge to awaken. Dickens gave Scrooge the opportunity we often miss.

The actions we take in life are often a mirror of our inner dilemmas. We either give in or we grow. Much like Christ's warnings or Dickens's writing, the problems weren’t out there. They’re in us, and until we realize our own power and promise, we will continue supporting efforts that cast shadows where there are none.

Consider our economy, imperfect yet robust. Despite its flaws, it has been an engine of growth and innovation. The unemployment rate is low, a testament to policies that fostered job creation and economic stability.

Yet, here we are.

Proposed isolationist trade policies will make everyday goods more expensive and disrupt global supply chains, potentially leading to job losses and economic instability.

Imagine supporting policies that put your neighbor out of work.

Immigration, a cornerstone of American identity and economic vitality, faces similar challenges. The narrative of an "invasion" at our southern border belies the fact that immigration from Mexico has been at its lowest point in decades. Our universities and tech sectors have long benefited from the influx of international talent, even individuals like Elon Musk who came to the U.S. as a student. Though he keeps quiet on his immigrant status and the government bailout that saved his ailing company, he created companies that employed thousands of Americans and drove innovation in solar, rockets, and automotive.

These proposed policies to check non-whites (that’s what it is) threaten to slam this door shut, potentially depriving the United States of the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators. If you don’t think America benefits from the blend of people we have, go down the list of staff at the top companies in America.

Let’s talk about our healthcare system. While far from perfect, it has made significant strides. For all its controversies, the Affordable Care Act expanded health coverage to millions of Americans. It ensured that people with pre-existing conditions couldn't be denied coverage, a protection now at risk. And if you’re growing a family, this is the law that lets kids stay on their parental health insurance until age 26. Believe me, that’s a big deal. And US health leadership around the World? There’s one place everyone knows when shit hits the fan: the CDC.

But these achievements are now threatened by policies based on ideology rather than science, risking American lives and our standing in the world. One would think that the goal of an advanced nation was to root out health threats from anywhere and that we would consider the health of our neighbor more important than profit.

Environmental protections, painstakingly put in place over decades, now face wholesale dismantling. The Clean Air Act, which has dramatically improved air quality since its inception, saving countless lives, is under threat. Climate change initiatives, crucial for our planet's future, are being rolled back at an alarming rate. We stand to lose not just cleaner air and water, but our position as a global leader in combating climate change. The selling of doubt, capturing American’s emotions over scientific validity, has won.

Civil rights, hard-won over generations, are also at risk. Voting rights, LGBTQ+ protections, and women's reproductive freedoms face unprecedented challenges. The very fabric of our democracy, protecting individual freedoms, and changes woven through years of struggle and progress, is being strained by policies that seek to restrict rather than expand rights.

It’s about as un-Christmas as one can get.

Like George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life," we are being given a glimpse of what our world might become if we give the keys to a thief masquerading as a man of business. Mr. Potter, though a successful banker, was in it for the wrong reasons. And he played the part of a do-gooder while singling out opportunities to get rich off of others’ misfortune. He almost conned George Bailey with the famous handshake of the devil.

That story is real today.

The meaning of Christmas, in this context, is a call to recognize and cherish the progress we've made and not get caught in make-believe problems. It's an invitation to look beyond immediate gains and consider the long-term consequences of our choices. It’s a reminder to admit we’re wrong when there’s still time and work to get things right.

The greatest gift to future generations is not what we accumulate on Christmas day, but what we work to improve in ourselves.

That’s the genuine moment that America grows and prospers, and angels get their wings.

• New AI tool Gemini 2.0 will talk back to you.

• Everything in life is circular, cradle to cradle, connected. No reason a Christmas tree wouldn’t be the same.

• I love thinking about colonial times during Christmas, and this story of a Founding Father you’ve never heard of is exceptional.

There is nothing new here. We’ve all seen it, read it, accepted it before. I go back to my middle school years and remember kids who never needed to be around weapons of any kind. In high school, I had friends and schoolmates who hunted regularly. This was the age when we went rabbit and squirrel hunting. There were deer and turkey seasons. Having a rifle in your truck was common.

We must severely curtail easy access to handguns and larger, repeating weapons. We have consistent outcomes that prove we do not have the mental or social capacity to handle this many weapons. The logical conclusion is it’s all for political gain and greed since no nation at peace would accept the constant violent death of its youth. The response to adding more guns, more police, and more security simply supports the psychology of violence and adds more debt and fear to society.

The simple path to violence must always hold an equal parallel path for peace.

I continue to ponder the response to the killing of the healthcare CEO and the current state of American healthcare. As mentioned earlier, our system functions, but it is not sustainable in its current form. We’ve all been through some delays and paperwork with getting healthcare. We have become conditioned to accept it.

We can do better.

With all of our modern technology, the need to go through files, fill out forms, and duplicate the duplicity is unnecessary. If there is one place that modern technology can help, it is to reduce the paperwork and the number of middlemen.

We can figure this out.

“Whatever happens, stay alive. Don't die before you're dead. Don't lose yourself, don't lose hope, don't lose direction.

Stay alive, with yourself, with every cell of your body, with every fiber of your skin.

Stay alive, learn, study, think, read, build, invent, create, speak, write, dream, design.

Stay alive, stay alive inside you, stay alive also outside, fill yourself with colors of the world, fill yourself with peace, fill yourself with hope.

Stay alive with joy.

There is only one thing you should not waste in life, and that's life itself."

~Virginia Woolf

I typically end each week with a favorite song that fits the moment. This may be my favorite Christmas song, which dropped for a good cause during my high school years. I recall a party in the basement of a friend’s house on a cold and snowy high school weekend with the radio blasting.

Good times.

Be a good human. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.