The Gift

In the days after Christmas, I’ve never had very good stories. Peers ask the inevitable “whadya-get,” but my list of new possessions never brings much amazement. My parents are very practical people and give practical gifts. Its not that they are cheap gifts- one year I got new tires. The gifts just aren’t traditional in that they are unextravagant.

In the world of gift-giving, somehow traditional gifts are the extravagant. And by extravagant, I mean useless or gratuitous rather than just expensive. Traditional gifts include a fancy item of clothing, flowers, a piece of jewelry or a new electric gizmo. The less likely the individual is willing or able to purchase the item makes the item more appropriate. If the individual can easily live without the item, it is somehow the best gift to give.

For instance, say for a birthday, everyone chips in a pays someone’s rent. It is very practical, expensive and yet inappropriate. An I-Pod is more likely to be chosen. I remember an old episode of “Valerie” (before it became “Valerie’s Family” and then “The Hogan Family”) when Jason Batemen brings home his girlfriend. She brings Valerie a bottle of Windex as a gift. “Everyone has windows” was the dim-witted girl’s reasoning. It was very logical, very practical and yet the wrong thing to do socially. Flowers, which have little use, would have been the right thing to bring.

Christmas is, of course, the time of impractical gifts. Lexus and bazillion other car companies try to convince viewers that getting a luxury car with a big ribbon is the thing to do. Jewelry stores convince you that true love is only possible through trinket exchange. Would the Sharper Image even exist without Christmas?

How did society get to the point where the expensive and useless become the socially approved gifts? This isn’t new; society has always had exercises of ceremonial inefficiency. Crops, children and money have always been given to the gods illogically as an exercise of devotion.

Post-modernists who role their eyes at consumer culture have it all wrong. Society isn’t consuming at Christmas; they are wasting at Christmas. Those new products bring little, if any, self-indulgent joy. Gift-giving is and has always been about sacrifice. Pointless sacrifice (just like Jesus’ martyrdom). .

Maturity

Human beings grow and develop. At least, they’re supposed to. Still, despite the increased aches and the decreased hair on my head, I still feel like a boy in many respects. That’s a good thing, though. There are still things to learn and experiences to be had.

I imagine we all feel this sense of immaturity. It explains why many of us act “mature” instead of acting like Peter Pan. When people are 14, they want to drive. When they are 18, they want to go to bars. Then they want to live on their own, buy their own place, get married and have kids. Everyone is looking for the next step up to prove that they are an adult.

“Maturity,” though, seems to be largely an exercise in conforming to social norms. In America, people that live with their parents are seen as immature, but globally, this is the norm. An unmarried twenty-somethinger is immature in the Middle East, but normal in DC. Unlike fruits, maturity in humans is sometimes very much based on perception.

Some of these social norms are logical. Much of maturity is about taking on more responsibility. Earning one’s own wage and learning new skills are unarguably more mature than not doing so. I wonder, though, how many of these new responsibilities are taken on purely for the social perception. Would more Americans live with their family if it were not so embarrassing?

Perceived maturity is also about ceasing activities. Teenagers no longer play with toys. Forty-somethingers no longer dance on tables at bars. People like to “act their age” which includes shying away from activities associated with the younger.

The primary advantage of ushering out the old is that it frees time so that one can replace it with a better activity. For instance, I used to ride a bike, but stopped when I got a car. Playing with toys was replaced with sports and worrying about girls. My parents don’t play video games because they prefer to garden. Many grow from selfishly hording like a child to being noble and charitable in their old age.

Many people, though, get the maturity thing wrong. Many people stop going out only to replace their activities with T.V. watching or shopping. Social juvenile activities are replaced with anti-social crosswords, knitting or golfing. Perhaps these activities are actually more fun than what the individual was doing before, but somehow I doubt it.

Maturity is supposed to be about gaining something. The young can be incredibly tedious to talk to because they have little life experience and knowledge. But, I’m finding many of the old are also tedious to talk to because their “maturity” was an empty act of ending activity rather than changing activity.

Society is not incorrect in demanding maturity. Maturity is about responsibility, enrichment and trying new things. It is too bad that so many people choose to like the dead in order to seem mature rather than to act like the growing.

Offense

The world has social rules and, as a member of society, we are forced to adhere to them. If we don’t, society rejects us. For this reason, we do not yell racial slurs in public, we do not cuss in business meetings and we do not talk about shmegma or vaginal farts with strangers.

There are two reasons why we strive to be non-offensive. The first reason, sensibly, is that we do not wish to cause harm to others. Joking about having sex with someone’s recently dead relative or pointing out someone’s deformity is likely to hurt feelings, thus we refrain. The second reason is merely social convention. Saying “fuck” in a meeting is not likely to hurt anyone, but it is a tacit rule, like not wearing shorts to the office. If one displays that they do not understand basic social norms, their basic judgment on other issues is called into question. For instance, at a good friend of mine’s rehearsal dinner, his future brother-in-law showed up in a Harley Davidson t-shirt. I know little about him, but I probably wouldn’t let the guy borrow my car.

What is odd about offense is that the second rule takes precedence over the first rule. For instance, tall people hate talking about their height, yet, in many places, the social convention is to make small talk with strangers. The stranger does not want to be rude, so they bring up the tall person’s height. Had the stranger taken the time to attempt basic level sympathy, he may have realized he was annoying the tall person, but rarely is this done. In this case, social norms usually prevail.

Vulgarity about sex and death are clear social no-nos, and yet other painful speech is left unchecked. The SNL character Debbie Downer satirizes people who bring up depressing thoughts, thus ruining the enjoyment of others. Speaking the word “Darfur” certainly brings more pain than the word “blowjob,” yet one is deemed inappropriate. Depressing speech is checked in certain social environments (Debbie Downers end up with few friends), but it is certainly not to the same avidness as other speech.

Without a doubt, the most unchecked offensive people are the boring. Every day, we are greeted with an onslaught of people who have nothing to say, are bored themselves and feel it is socially appropriate to speak to others about their mundane existence. Because social convention is to listen and because we do not want to hurt their feelings, we endure the grating pain of speaking to the banal.

Boring people and downers are actually more clueless than the traditionally vulgar. They fail to sympathize with others and they fail to assess their surroundings and determine what is appropriate. They show poor social judgment and a poor understanding of human nature. The traditionally vulgar, on the other hand, often do understand the social environment and choose quite consciously to violate its rules.