Personal:

Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States. Here in France it is just another day.

For some, it is a day of warm memories and joy to be with loved ones. A day of relaxation, a day to watch football games, a day to enjoy the bounty that is not truly appreciated for the gift it is, even on a holiday dedicated to giving thanks.

For others, it is just another day.

The banality of our bounty causes us to seek meaningless contests played out on a perfectly manicured, level field shielded from the elements by a huge dome; we mesmerize ourselves in a feeble attempt to overcome the lethargy of surfeit, to somehow satisfy the fundamental drive towards the hunt and struggle for survival imposed on our rational minds by animal instinct.

Elsewhere in the world, it is just another day, and in more places than we realize the day that dawns is another day of struggle for survival, a struggle for food, a struggle for shelter, a struggle to hide from others who seek to kill them, a struggle played out on a rugged field that is tilted towards death with no instant-replay review. Just another day.

The sudden shiver from the cool that accompanies a sunset on a perfect late-summer day warns of the approach of winter. The images we turn away from, the images that flicker past on the news stations as we surf the channels for more artificial stimulation, the nightmare visions made real of starvation, of cruelty, of inhumanity, of murder and blood and death, what do they warn of?

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States. In the rest of the world, it is just another day.