Christmas Morning

December 25, 2024

It’s Christmas morning in Costa Rica. The sky weeps.  Yesterday a man was shot dead in our formerly peaceful pueblo, close to the bottom of the road near the highway.  They say he was a good peaceful soul, but who knows?   Guys don’t just shoot some random person and speed away in a blue Yaris for no reason, do they? 

This year has brought to an end my lifelong hope that we humans are making some slight progress in our evolution toward becoming more perfect beings, to my naïve faith in justice, integrity, and kindness.  I watch as a toddler tyrant screams for a “just” revenge for his petty peeves, cheers on cruelty for cruelty’s sake, manufactures lies powerful enough to render truth meaningless, and I know that he is the choice of my fellow citizens.  Throughout the world we tilt once more into darkness.

Shall I say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year even as I expect to live the remainder of my years watching my species work its way through another fascist epoch while making our earth uninhabitable?  Who will get what little clean water is left when the oligarchs jump in their space ships and take off for Mars? 

If ever we needed a savior, it's now.

No savior will come.  Only you.  Only me.  And I'm getting old, not feeling quite up to the job.

So no, I won’t say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Just this:  Today is Christmas Day.    A new year is coming, and it looks like it may be worse than the last.  I have no idea how I, as a fading human being, fit into all this, no idea what I should do.  Take a walk?  Throw a toy for my dog?  Show up and smile? Try to exercise more? For better or for worse I am here and have to live with myself and reality. How I do that makes a difference at least to me. It's not much, but it's all I have.