When I was a kid, I remember times of celebration being truly special.
Even going out to eat was special, because it was a treat reserved for birthdays, anniversaries or maybe parental job promotions. Mind you, I grew up in Denmark, where "eating out" remains somewhat unusual, even in 2019.
Pink speckled rhododendron
The Plethora of "Special Holidays"
This coming Sunday is Mother's Day, here in the US of A.
Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I found myself sitting here, contemplating all these various holidays and "celebrations" we have: It was just Easter, and then it was Beltane, and now it'll be Mother's Day, and then it will be Memorial Day and soon enough there'll be some other special day.
Maybe I'm just turning into one of those grumpy old guys who sit on the front porch telling neighborhood kids to "get off the grass!" but it seems to me we have so damn many "Special Days" that they feel more like a pain in the ass to keep track of than something joyful and celebratory.
It's more like it's just one long string of obligations, and that's really not a whole helluva lot of fun!
Dandelion gone to seed
When "Awesome" is Actually AVERGAGE...
Reminds me a bit of several people I know who overuse the term "awesome."
Every person they meet seems to be awesome, and everything they DO is awesome and every meal they eat is awesome.
Well, seriously.... if everything you ever do is "awesome," then awesome is the normal standard for everything, which effectively means that awesome really isn't all that special... it's actually pretty average. You could argue that we are looking at "awesomeness inflation" to the point where the value of an "awesome" has decreased to where it is merely an "average."
And since "awesome" has been reduced to "average", what do you call something that IS truly outstanding?
Multi-bloom pink cherry blossom
The Pervasive Overuse of Superlatives
Maybe I'm just seeing a patterns where none exists, but it feels like our world is increasingly "addicted" to superlatives.
Doesn't matter whether we go back to that person I know who thinks every person they meet is awesome... or a completely unrelated fact like many fast food restaurants serve neither "small" nor "medium" sized anything. You can only get a "large," an "extra large" and a "jumbo," where small has magically become large because — God forbid — anything should actually be its true self rather than an inflated self.
Of course, this is where many of my friends admit that they can totally see my point, and then they dismiss said points with a comment like "you just THINK too much!"
It's the sort of "dismissal" that makes me feel like we are rapidly heading towards "Idiocracy."
Well, now that I have gotten that weight off my shoulders, I'm going to go back to my perfectly average day!"
Thanks for reading!
How about YOU? What do YOU think? Do people use too many superlatives? Do we have so many "special days" that they have actually LOST their specialness? Is everything TRULY "new and improved?" Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 190508 21:08 PST
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