Holidays suck. Sort of.

You be the light
London, ON
December 2018
This photo originally shared on Instagram

There are a lot of things I don't do on social media:

1. I don't post cut-and-paste entries about cancer, mental health, or any other illness or issue - if I want to share something, I'll write it myself.
2. I don't put frames around my profile pic whenever there's a terrorist attack or natural disaster - I don't believe in bandwagons or greenwashing or pinkwashing or anything else that purports to convince us we'll ever solve an issue by posting pretty pictures and colors.
3. I don't post two-word, "Happy Birthday!" messages because Facebook tells me to do so - I don't believe in shallow wishes that reinforce the fundamental disconnectedness of this allegedly social platform. You'll know when I'm moved enough to write something worthy of our relationship.
4. Similarly, I don't post generic "Happy [fill in your holiday here]" messages. See previous for why.

The common thread among all of these is easy to spot: We've made it so easy to share throwaway thoughts that barely demand any thought at all that what we're left with has little to no meaning.

So while Chanukah starts today - first light was tonight - I'm avoiding the happy-happy memes that have doubtless been clogging your feed. Yup, I'm a curmudgeon.

But there's method to my madness. Instead of a massively overshared meme, here's a pic I took earlier tonight, just after we lit the first candle. Notice the light. There's lots of it, and it'll only get brighter over the next 7 nights.

Whatever you do or do not believe, please focus on that light, its warmth, the way it banishes the darkness, the way it makes you feel. Think of ways, over the next week and well beyond, how you plan to spread it to places it currently isn't. How will you be kinder? How will you move beyond cut-and-paste slacktivism?

Maybe you're Jewish and maybe you aren't. Makes no difference to me, as we're all human, and we're all responsible for each other. Maybe we can all indeed make that difference that memes can't. Now that would be a miracle.

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