Tradition, tradition. Bob Dylan’s famous chant in 1963, times they are are changing. And it’s true, isn’t it?
Now, if I go back to when I was very young, Christmas and Easter, but especially Christmas, these were magical times, truly magical times.
We had Christmas Eve, and we had to go to church for midnight mass, and candles were burned, and incense was disseminated throughout our little church, and organ music was played, and then we would come home for a very late snack, go off to bed, and
wake up early to open our presents. Now, curiously enough, presents were given to everyone, but no one really thought of gluttony, physical gluttony.
Everyone received one, two, even three presents, maybe four, but they were all deeply appreciated because they probably continued some hobby or some habit that we each had.
I was deeply interested in trains at the time, I remember, and my mother and father bought me an electric train set, and it was an extraordinary thing because of course, you know, it was a time that I got television when I was six or seven years old.
So these were very, very humble times relative to the great consumption that we have today.
Now, when I lived in the United States, when I worked in the United States, I was actually there one time on so-called Black Friday in the morning, which is the beginning of the American commercial purchasing season to Christmas, Christmas Eve.
And we had to get there rather early, and the stores opened at five o’clock in the morning, and there was just a mad rush to buy things. So, consumerism really presented its vicious head, and it was blind consumerism.
Like, nobody really cared about the tradition of Jesus’ birth, in that sense.
And as an aside, I recently finished a book, I think I mentioned before, by Carl Jung, and he points out that in Western psychology, that Jesus is the archetype of the perfect man.
And of course, in his Sermon on the Mount, he spoke about peace and love and non-violence for sure, to care for our fellow human beings. And this message, of course, was quickly thrown away.
We very quickly got into a state, three or four centuries later, that we had just war, according to, of course, Saint Augustine. And that’s continued up until the modern day.
I’m quite sure the Russians and the Ukrainians think they’re fighting a just war, and I think probably Israel thinks is fighting a just war, and so does Hamas. But all war is bad, ultimately, isn’t it?
And so coming back to tradition, at the time I was growing up, non-violence, I mean, we were talking the birth of Jesus. I was raised a Roman Catholic. The birth of Jesus was a really magical, non-violent time.
And this extended to Christmas Day. We had a big dinner. Now, at the time, when I was growing up, it was a modest time in Canada.
The concepts of the war or the viciousness economically of the war was just over. And the economy was starting to replenish the lives of all the people, in a sense, though a lot of men, for sure, including my father, probably suffered from PTSD.
They were traumatized by the war. He was a soldier in the war, of course. But they held to this tradition for a very long time.
So when I had a family, I also took them to a Catholic church, and my wife and I would celebrate Christmas. It was a wonderful time. But my children, I think, don’t follow the tradition of Christmas.
And I think if you ask them, they would say, well, we’re very spiritual, but we are not religious. So the tradition is gone. They’re not unique, of course, at all.
Their generation has really done away with any type of formalized faith in that sense. And I’m not so sure that’s a good thing.
So I continue to attend a Catholic church, and I know this is true in Chinese families, that the tradition of Chinese New Year now is increasingly not really practiced in the glorious way, in the magnificent way it used to be practiced.
So we have the question, why should society preserve its traditions? Well, first of all, in a Judeo-Christian sense, it gives us cultural identity, a sense of historical continuity, doesn’t it?
And Christmas also, I mean, gosh, it was a moral guide, right? If you think of Jesus and his birth, and later the concept of the Sermon on the Mount, right?
And I think if we practice Christmas in a Judeo-Christian sense, it gives us some sense of social cohesion. And you know, it’s curious, you can ask yourself, we all have a routine, or at least we should. And this is kind of a tradition, isn’t it?
So I get up in the morning and I make a cup of coffee and I make my bed every day. I’ve done such since I’ve been 69 years old, right? Well, maybe not when you were one or two years old, but it was always a part of my life.
And I could not go a day without making my bed. It would be weird, I think. And it gives us, I think, honestly, a sense of stability.
At least it does for me. It’s very important for me to attend a church. And ultimately, I believe that my children will continue that tradition in some form, hopefully.
Now, the loss of tradition, of course, has its own perils, doesn’t it? Things disappear. Now, you think to yourself, when was the last time you ever handwrote a letter?
Now, they say if you do business abroad and you finish the business meeting, you fly home. And when you fly home, you, of course, will send an e-mail of thanks, but then send a handwritten card. It really shocks people.
But you will actually think enough of them to actually send a card. And this card is so unique that it will sit on their desk and they will be reminded of you on an ongoing basis. Now, this is part of your personal brand as well.
And to think of all the things, gosh, my parents used to can, my wife used to can pickles and salmon, all those things. Those are traditions that are totally gone. Craftsmanship, having a suit made.
I mean, gosh, very few people have their clothes hand made anymore.
So, as we slip away from our former traditions, what are the traditions that are replacing them? And that’s the kind of the frightening question, in a sense, isn’t it?
Because if you think to yourself, you walked on a street, and you look at people, and they are literally into their phones, they’re consumed by their phones.
I see people on scooters, the passenger is on the phone, and many times the driver is as well at a stoplight. You know, and this can’t be good, because very little that’s coming out of the phone is knowledge-based.
It’s usually just social intercourse, nonsense for the most part. It certainly is not enhancing our skills of critical thinking and time.
And this is a scary thing for sure, because if we’re supposed to eventually vote in democracy, if this is what we call our system, then we need to think. And thought is a learned process. To learn to think requires thinking.
Just like learning to read requires reading. Learning to write requires writing. If we don’t practice these skills, and the phone certainly can replace most of those, and so can AI to a certain extent, then the population will soon be enslaved.
We will have a modern day version of serfdom. I think we should ponder these things, because these new traditions could be very dangerous. But I trust people.
I trust young people. And I think in the end, there will be enough young people that will learn that they must develop some form of brand, of person. I don’t mean some sort of personal image.
I mean a personal brand, something that identifies them, if you will. And then, we will have new traditions, and maybe we’ll even integrate the old traditions. I read as well that there’s a tremendous return to organized religion, to the church.
And I think this is a good thing. Because organization, communalism, if you will, benefits all civilization in the end. We look out for our federal man.
And you know what they say. You know what they say. Critical thinking is everything.
Especially when it comes to tradition. And critical thinking is great. Truly great.
You take care of yourself. God bless. Bye-bye.