It is December 25. A time of joy and holidays with families celebrating with gifts and banquets. Decorated evergreen trees are everywhere. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but it isn’t. A quick Google search uncovers that Christmas dates back to ancient Babylonia, where people worshipped the sun-god Shamash and named Christmas so that the Roman population might convert to a decadent ‘Christianity’.
Enter commercialism and the Australian Retailers Association estimate that Aussies will spend approximately $63 billion in pre-Christmas sales this year despite economic challenges. This reveals much about the importance we place on a religious – not necessarily Christian – celebration of which most of us know little of its origin.
However, this column is not about religion or traditions. It is not even about Christmas. It is about our tendency as humans to adopt something we like into our lives without knowing, or even caring about, the true meaning. Yet these origins are so easy to find if only we would use the power of the internet to educate more than entertain.
Religious celebrations, our vocabulary, fashion, songs, ancestry – when did we stop considering the meaning behind such things?
Words have changed meaning over time. Considering we have approximately six generations all sharing one planet, the word you use may not be appropriate. The term ‘sick’ may mean ‘cool’ to you but a severe illness or disease to another. B*tch derives from the technical word for a female dog. It was then used to refer to an unliked female and is now often used in a friendly way among social gatherings. What do you hear when you hear this word? Is it was the other person means?
Fashion is another area in which we take history for granted. For some generations, knee-high boots and stilettos clearly indicate that you are associated with the sex industry, not the fashion industry. Many tattoos are closely associated with gang, prison or spiritistic cultures and have deep meaning. Does your ink say something about you that you are unaware of?
It could be argued that we should care what others think. So long as we like it and it makes us feel good. But how could wasting our resources on things that take us far from our authentic selves possibly make us feel good? It only takes a moment to search the history behind aspects of your life to decide if they align you with something you genuinely believe in.
As Robert A. Heinlein reminded us, ‘A generation which ignores history has no past – and no future.’