The Useless Tree

Still Against Valentine’s Day

     We’re getting ready for a big snow storm here (I ran out today to buy a new snow blower to replace my broken one).  Tomorrow will be taken up with digging out and trying to do what is possible with two feet of snow all around (that is what is predicted).  So, I am going to reproduce below my Valentine’s Day post of last year.



Against Valentine’s Day

    I think I have always been against Valentine’s Day: so obviously
constructed to play upon our romantic insecurities to sell cards and
flowers.  And when I see stories like this one, from today’s China Daily, I am only confirmed in my opposition:

Florists, restaurateurs and jewelry makers have pounding hearts waiting a
year for this huge business opportunity.

Romantic gifts at astronomical prices are popping up in China’s big cities –
commercialism is in the air, overshadowing the love.

In Beijing’s Guohua shopping mall, a rose made of platinum was priced at
199,999 yuan (US$24,691). The life-size rose, weighing 258 grams, attracted
curious buyers but no buyers.


     Ah yes, the sweet smell of commercialism in the air.  It’s really
rather pathetic.  If you have to buy things to demonstrate your love,
then that love does not run very deep.  Confucius would surely scoff.
For him, love must be performed everyday in the fulfillment of our
duties to those closest to us.  And Taoists would shrug.  For them,
love has a natural flow that cannot be altered by an array of material
goods.  So, who do I call to complain that taking on the claptrap of
Valentine’s Day runs counter to deep Chinese traditions?

    Of course, after all of my
protestations, I am trapped by the social expectations created by the
"holiday," and I will buy my wife a plant, a flowering plant that she
can put in the ground outside as soon as spring is far enough along.
But I am still against Valentine’s day…

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3 responses to “Still Against Valentine’s Day”

  1. Dave of the Coonties Avatar
    Dave of the Coonties

    It was pleasant to visit Taipei this past week, with New Year approaching. One publication even provided a list of restaurants that would stay open for the family holiday.
    The city government seems to have bought a huge number of strings of new LED lights, little pinpoints, blue and white strings mingled. Since the white LEDs are rather blue anyway, the effect was lovely.

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  2. Stacey Avatar
    Stacey

    I find that we can often find it easy to scoff at the materialistic aspects of today’s society. Modern rituals such Valentine’s Day or trips to Wal-Mart are viewed as support for a corrupt system. As a Taoist, I struggle constantly with my need to classify and polarize. Over and over I remind myself that these are merely names and labels – the classifications are not real. No matter where I go, I am in the Tao – it is all the Tao. Therefore, the Tao is also Valentine’s Day, is also Wal-Mart. Our ‘job’ is merely to be this experience on this journey. This time and place includes Valentine’s Day and Wal-Mart and Christmas and paper plates and 20% off sales. I experience it all as an expression of the moment and the infinite. On a less cosmic scale, as questionable as the corporate holiday motivation may be, why is it a bad idea to take a moment and remember how much someone means to you and be grateful that they are in your life? On V-Day, I delight in the idea that these beautiful little trinkets are dangled around me to remind me how much I am loved and love those around me.

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  3. Sam Crane Avatar
    Sam Crane

    I agree, Stacey, that it is a good idea to take a moment and remember how much someone means to you. But why on a particular day, and why in a routine form? Why not at more random moments and in more personal ways? As to the materialism that surrounds us, you’re right, some of it may be Way. But I am always intrigued by passage 53 of the Tao Te Ching which tell us that Way is “open and smooth,” but that people “adore twisty paths.” It goes on to criticize “elegant robes,” and “lavish food and drink,” and “luxury,” and ends with “it’s vainglorious thievery – not the Way, not the Way at all.” (Hinton translation). Thus, it suggests that there are some materialistic human activities that are not Way.

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