I’m having posting problems – and I can’t fix it until I get to the other computer tonight. If this doesn’t post correctly, I will fix it this evening.
We Numenists have incorporated celebration deeply into our religion. Music, ritualized movements, food, community – these are cornerstones, foundational aspects of Numenism that permeate the entire religion. Costuming and masking aren’t as integral, but after reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, maybe we should reconsider.
One of the key phrases is that “authorities have no patience with people not working.” It’s a double negative, but it rings true. Those people who think they have some authority over others, some control of a portion of their time and labor, feel they have the right to control the personal time and labor of those people. We see it today when companies require employees to sign “morality” clauses in their employment contracts, and even in the company meetings that lecture employees on how they are to spend the money they earn, as if that money still belonged to the authority figures. We see it in politicians who try to grab larger bites of their constituents’ paychecks so it can be “better spent” – as if the people who earned that money are incapable of deciding how to spend the money they worked hard to get.
Through personal experience and through research, we early on decided that while authorities (bosses, supervisors, police, religious leaders, politicians, anyone who thinks they have power over others) may have no patience with people taking time off, the truth remains that people will find ways to celebrate, even if they have to create these occasions themselves in covert ways. Celebration is more powerful than authority figures. People actually work harder and better if they get time to connect with other people, to form bonds and to develop relationships, even if those are “sight relationships” with people you see but never talk to.
They’ll decorate their cubicles and offices, wear seasonal jewelry or clothes in lieu of costumes and masks, prepare special snacks, listen to certain types of music even at work, because they aren’t given the time to prepare for and participate in community-wide celebrations.
Although Ms. Ehrenreich never says it openly, celebrations are bad for authority figures. People will gather together and share information, and they’ll realize they are being deliberately deprived of their freedoms – not necessarily the ones in the Constitution of the US, but the ones they feel in their gut should be theirs: the freedom to associate with anyone they chose, the freedom to go where they will, the freedom to eat what they will, to dance, to listen to or make music, to take care of their families and tend to any essential personal business, to spend the money they earn as they wish. When these freedoms are abridged or infringed upon, as it is by authority figures who want people to spend their time either working or preparing to work, and if they can’t be working, they should be resting up to work – and they certainly don’t want people talking to one another, making contacts, finding a better job. They have the most power when the people in their control feel they have no choice but to stay where they are and to do as their bosses tell them to do – then they can take away even more freedoms and demand even more work out of their employees.
We see it now, as the work week creeps slowly up. In the 70’s, most people spent 8 hours a day at work, and worked for 7 of those hours – with a half hour paid lunch, and 2 15 minute paid breaks. Today, it’s not uncommon for people to be at work for 9 ½ – 10 hours a day, paid for 8, and not paid for the enforced time off for lunch and breaks – and some people are required to work through their breaks and even a portion of their lunchtime without pay – free work for the authority figures. Vacation time and sick leave time are called “generous” (for those who get them – not every job gives you these anymore), but are almost half what they were in the 70’s. Paid holidays are curtailed; niggardly hours handed out as if the employees were being granted huge favors. Some people are required to work half day on the holiday, and others the whole day without receiving comp time to use later. If they do receive comp time, they have to use it within a brief window of time (in the same month that the comp time occurs, within 30 days, rarely more than 6 months) – and some employers arrange it so the employee misses the deadline for using comp time and they lose it – free money for the company.
But people need to celebrate, to let go of the pressures to conform to rules all the time. This is why Mardi Gras in New Orleans is so very important, why St. Patrick’s Day isn’t about some long dead Christian, why we need fireworks on New Year’s and on the 4th of July, why we need neighborhood barbecues and community picnics, and why we need all those many winter holiday parties. We need to sing songs together, to dance, to feast, and to dress up – either in costumes or in fancy clothes.
The Time Square New Year’s Ball Drop was once such a festival, but nowadays, with police patrolling to make sure people all stand still and quiet and any disruption (ie – bursting into song, doing a few dance steps, hugging strangers) is dealt with harshly – it’s not a celebration any more. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s not a celebration.
Covertly, people celebrate by going to sporting events with their faces painted and wearing team colors and doing the Wave, and shouting out the cheers with the cheerleaders. They place inconspicuous little teddy bears dressed as they would like to be dressed on their desks. They wear earrings, tie pins, and other clothing accessories to support a team or a holy day. Sports are still one of the areas where people are allowed to let go a bit and celebrate. I think if those who think they are our authority figures were to take football away from Americans, they would have a nation-wide riot on their hands. And so people redirect their need to celebrate to those sports.
Political protests have taken on a celebratory atmosphere, as well, with protestors dressing up in costumes, with the chanting and face paint and dancing in the streets. It’s still an allowed method of celebration in a world increasingly being restricted – a nose-to-the-grindstone world, where the workers are only allowed to work and the authority figures do all the playing.
Some businesses have tried to tap into that need to celebrate with enforced “pep rallies” where the employees are required to gather to sing company songs and chants cheers, and to receive cheap company logo items like keychains and maybe ball caps or T-shirts (costumes, music, dancing – but where’s the food?).
When holidays approach, people buy special clothes to wear for those days – the “Christmas sweater”, the jingle bell earrings, the Halloween brooch, the 4th of July lapel pin, even just wearing colors associated with the holy day increases notably. Sometimes it’s very covert, other times it’s almost in your face – without breaking company dress codes, of course.
Numenism built itself on that passion for community bonding that is hard-wired into people. We need to communicate with one another, to see who our neighbors are, to talk to them, to share experiences with one another. That’s why our rituals are designed as they are – to call to that primal need within us to bond with our community. We’ve had to make concessions to the secular world’s demands on work time, but as much as we can, we do our best to introduce all kinds of celebrations into our lives: Cookie Day, Moosemas, First Tomato Day, First Daffodil Day, First Fire Day, the Solstices and Equinoxes, MedFaire, impulsive Potluck Pagan Picnics in the Park (not those huge planned affairs with sales booths and hired entertainers and workshops and all that pass for Pagan Picnics in the Park), and Septemberfest, and Open House, and Movie Nights, and Halloween. It’s why we happily join others in their celebrations, too.
The act of celebrating is what is important, more than the reason for celebrating. When we are suppressed from celebrating as we need to, then we burst out in celebration in unexpected ways. That’s what makes Moosemas such an important holy day – it’s a moveable feast, one that happens when there’s need for it. It only requires a few small things to make it festive: something relating to moose, food, and people. It can be chocolate mousse, a moose antler hat, Moosehead Beer, watching Rocky and Bullwinkle DVDs, telling Rocky and Bullwinkle jokes, or anything similar. Wherever two or more people gather with food and moose, it’s Moosemas.
We’re hard-wired to party, and Numenism celebrates that in each of us.
“it’s weird that we are culturally hard-wired to Not Party, or even to be not Over Happy.”
I don’t think this is “hard-wiring” so much as it “conditioning” – we’re taught – starting in kindergarten to conform, to work, to follow the rules and the clock. For some people, they can’t concieve of any other way to be. Others rebel against it – often to the point of being criminals. Others, like you (and me – I admit I have an unhealthy dose of this conditioning) feel guilty when we take our breaks and lunches – even when we aren’t being paid for those minutes. We’re at work, so we work – even if a large chunk of our “work time” is spent socializing with co-workers and others or in waiting for other people to do thier part of the work so we can do ours.
I think it’s the fact that we know we’re spending too much time at work for the work that needs doing (and honestly, the bulk of my work can be accomplished in a couple of hours a day – the rest is spent hunting for more work or waiting on others) that we procrastinate. When we procrastinate, it drives the authority figures wild because we aren’t getting “enough work done”, so they require us to work longer hours and create “make-work” for us, and they also seriously dislike giving pay raises to people they perceive as lazy. It doesn’t matter that the company shows a profit or comes in under budget or meets or exceeds deadlines – what matters is the authority figure’s perception that their employees are lazy because they see them “goofing off”.
So, the authority figures feel compelled to organize “pep rallies” and make their employees read Who Moved My Cheese?, and participate in “team-building” exercises and drag in “efficiency experts” and deny pay raises and expect overtime work – and all that does is alienate most employees, who really only want to do their work and then go off and live their lives away from their bosses and do what they want in their own time.
It’s just plain frustrating that we’re split between authority figures who want everyone around them to work, work, work – and panic when people take a break or take a bit of time to relax; and everybody else who needs goof off time, and short breaks, and distractions, and vacation time, and party time in addition to work time. Honestly – the authority figures don’t deny themselves celebration time; I fail to understand why they feel others don’t need it.
“You don’t need a *reason* for Happy. You don’t need to reserve Happy for The Right Time or The Right Day. “
Very true. Be happy at your comfort level, not other people’s. I enjoy your happiness, no matter when or where. I also know you’re not always happy, and you don’t cover up your sadder feelings; but when you’ve no compelling reason to be sad, I love that you’ve chosen to be happy.
Ebonypearl 