Moderation

I had a “moderately” horrible Christmas, and if I would have known what I know now, I would have followed my first and initial gut instinct…to skip it; to bow out and say enough is enough. I’ve walked into this particular booby trap once too often in my life. Old habits die hard, but die they do, and this old habit is in desperate need of a cremation or a swift burial.

I am delighted to hear that some people had a wonderful Christmas but I'm unfortunately not surprised to hear that my Christmas was not the worst. Of course not, after all my Christmas was only moderately horrible. This should bathe those of you in relief, who adhere to the simplistic yet dogmatic philosophy of moderation. Yes, it was only moderately nightmarish and moderately devastating; with equally balanced and moderate levels of inauthenticity and insincerity mixed together.

The proponents of this certain belief system (do not count me among them) insist that, one should always be moderate. But isn’t saying that one should always do anything, at all times, in a certain way, an extreme stance to take? It sounds pretty extreme to me. How much more extreme can one get than embracing the idea that one must always be moderate? How fascist is the absolute rule of moderation?

It is my belief that proponents of “moderation” are substantially more interested in the mechanisms of control than the actual appreciation of things moderate. They like excitement and extreme pleasure just as much as the next person. What they really desire to keep moderate is you and what they really mean by moderate is sedate.

I offer the following bromide: Simplistic catch phrases and bromides should be avoided at all cost lest one find oneself spewing nauseating tripe. Secondly, if you think that moderation is a virtue, I suggest you first make entirely certain that you have completely and utterly mastered authenticity before you go putting a lid on something that wasn’t very interesting to begin with.

And so a new day begins…with only moderate levels of bile and scorn.