It’s Christmas morning. I would have been awakened by the coffee pot were it not for the Shih tzu standing on my face giving me ‘gotta pee’ eyes. It’s my morning so I dress as quickly as I can in order to not be arrested for walking a dog with no pants on. On my way out the door I wish Burke a Merry Christmas. The subtext: make me a coffee while I’m away. Uber-subtle subtext: Add Bailey’s.
When I come back, I am happy – maybe too happy – to find that Burke has received the message loud and clear. I use this sweet, intoxicating coffee mix to wash down cookies and a butter cake whose every bite strips away one or two delicious months of my life. After two helping – with a side of candy – nausea creeps in. I defy the nausea by eating another helping of butter cake. Another mouthwatering month gone. I pour another coffee with Bailey’s and plop into my seat like the Emperor of Rome getting ready to watch plebes fight bears. It is, after all, Christmas.
During the year, I live a life of somewhat rigid regularity. I am up at 5:30 each morning. I stretch and drink three glasses of water, the second one has creatine in it to keep my body from falling apart at the joints. Then it’s black coffee and work for two hours before exercising. I have to do a low impact one these days lest my downstairs neighbors come up and throw a coffee cup at me at 8 am. I follow that up with two eggs and wash that down with a protein shake with fruit and honey. I then go to work. I eat a veggie wrap at lunch and my dinner would make a meat lover cry and pray for my soul. The evening sees more work – depending on what I have doing on with one of my side hustles – and I come down from that with Bigfoot television or Unsolved Mysteries or Abbott Elementary. I get in bed at 10ish and read until I fall asleep.
Wash
Rinse
Repeat
This brings to our Yule moment an old philosophical argument: Are people basically good and corrupted by rules or do they need rules to rein in their selfish destructive selves. If the fifth commandment didn’t disallow it, would I be a complete prick to my parents? If the sixth commandment didn’t would my neighbors kill me for exercising at 8 am above their heads? If the tenth, ninth, and eighth commandments didn’t fully prohibit it all, would I desire my neighbor’s wife, have an affair with her, lie about it to her husband and then steal her away with not a moment’s hesitation or regret?
We’ll never know. Or she’ll never know. Whichever.
Hobbes argued that without rules or authority, unrestrained humans would quickly descend into fear, conflict, and violence. Big words, but I achieve all of these emotions within the same 80-minute class. Also, fear, conflict, and violence sounds like a breakfast cereal developed by the modern GOP. Rousseau, on the other hand, believed that humans are naturally cooperative and that it’s rules, property, and social hierarchy that introduce greed and corruption. Maybe. But it’s important to mention that Rousseau hated everyone, distrusted everyone, abandoned his kids, and was Genevan. So are we really going to take his word when it comes to the inherent decency of humans?
We are not.
On Christmas, all the little cogs that put together my daily life can be ignored. No working out. No work. No daily diet. Protein shake? Sure, the other 364 days of the year. Christmas should be a day when we let ourselves celebrate how we want. Have I worked out on Christmas before? Sure. Have I worked on Christmas before? Sure. But this year, I’m busier than I have ever been. So I need a day of no rules. I need a day to be the Real Me.
And the Real Me will have to get back to this philosophical discussion later on, because he’s currently making Bloody Marys.
Merry Christmas!
