Christmas from the outsider's eyes - Day 536

This blog is not to make anyone feel bad or judged - it is about me sharing a point I observed today when driving the car.

It is always as the outsider that you are able to notice things that somehow are not noticeable when you are in it, as the insider. I don't do Xmas, never had - nothing against it, just not part of the religion I was born to. That's why I could see today things that I would probably not see if it was an holiday I was personally celebrating. So really, not here to judge anyone - here to make a note of what we are all accepting and allowing, including myself. Sharing it here today so that we can come up with practical solutions. So here it goes.

Christmas can be a lot of fun for many people - the holiday spirits starts somewhere at the beginning of Dec and you can literally 'feel' the excitement in the air. Shopping season starts and the malls are packed up and everyone just buy buy buy gifts for their loved ones.

Christmas can be a nightmare for others.. For those who cannot even dream of buying a gift, nevertheless a piece of bread. In South Africa, on a normal day, you'd see about one bagger per road-junction. Today, I saw a minimum of two baggers, sometimes three. And what broke my heart the most was seeing a 3 years old boy, sitting in between the roads, looking for an empty pack of chips, hoping something might have left inside.

I was looking at how many people we could feed with the amount of money spent on buying gifts for our loved ones. How many people could have celebrate Xmas today if they wouldn't have to bag for money in the streets. How many people are freezing to death cold nights (for example, in Europe and North America)  and how many people got over heated in today's super-hot day (Africa).

This is just food for thoughts.. To make us aware of what is really happening underneath our nose and how much of that we suppress and/or ignore.

Please watch this video - Fundamental Human Rights by Equal Life Foundation

Let's walk solutions together and change the source of the problem from within.

The Truth about Santa Claus and Christmas (Part 2) - Day 430

This is a continuation to my previous blog post - The Truth about Santa Claus and Christmas (Part 1) - Day 429 where we started to look at some fascinating points in relation to Christmas and Santa Claus.

 

Today, we will have a look at the relationship between Santa Clause and Consumerism - who is responsible for the Santa Claus Phenomena?  why Santa Claus is such a big thing and what's in it for the Elite in this world?

 

Many believes that Coca Cola is the driving force behind Santa Claus. Many Believes that Coca Cola created Santa Claus as we know it today. When I first heard about the involvement of Coca Cola with Santa Claus creation, I thought: "Oh well, I'm not surprise" as Coca Cola and other big corporations have shaped our wants/needs/desires via the media for decays as was well explained in the Documentary - "The Century of the Self".

 

So I did some research and I found another fascinating point - the tendency to believe information without investigating the sources and the consequences thereof meaning - we tend to believe the information that is in alignment with out pre-exited belief system and when we come across something that make sense to us, we just take it as it is without doing any effort in checking whether or not the information is valid and authentic. The Santa Claus and Coca Cola is a great example for how conspiracy theory is created as one pulls bits of information, create an idea within oneself instead of firstly investigate all things and accordingly, make informative decision.

 

This is thus to set the record straight - Santa Claus and his red white suit was created before Coca Cola; Coca Cola used what was 'here' to promote their product like any other marketing company does. The fact is that Santa Claus's suit was originally green back when he was known as St Nicholas (as explained in my previous blog) but over the years, the colors of his suit changed a few times until eventually, the red and white remains even before Coca Cola.

 

In the early 1930's, Coca Cola faced problem with sales in some European countries due to the depression after the War and in difficult economic times, it is very hard to market unknown product and infiltrate the product into a new market.

What Coca Cola realized is - if we get the children to like our promotions, the parents will buy the product and so, they investigated children's stories to see which one they can use to promote their product. St Nicholas fit with the requirement from 2 reasons -

1. What he stood as within that time - as someone who gives gifts and joy to children.
2. The colors of his suit that matched the Coca Cola colors.

The Europeans didn't know that Coca Cola used one of their stories to promote their product and for most parts, they believed that America has a similar story similar to their own and therefore, they embraced Coca Cola and started to consume the product. 

 

So this is how Coca Cola infiltrate the Market by using the Santa Claus symbol and obviously, when something works, you stick to it and so, Coca Cola pushed the Santa Claus symbol over time until Santa Claus was recognized by all as Coca Cola.

 

Realize that Just because Coca-Cola didn’t invent our modern image of Santa, it doesn’t mean that advertising didn’t had anything to do with these images of Santa Claus in our minds. Again, let me refer you to 'The Century of the Self' to gain a better understanding of how Corporation uses Psychological techniques to shape and mold our consumption habits.

Santa Claus is associated with Joy, Happiness and the Holiday's Spirit and by associating Coca Cola with these components, unconsciously we expect to feel these feelings when drinking Coca Cola.

 

So for the Conspiracy theorist among us - understand that with spreading such rumors without a solid foundation, you are missing the most important point. Here, is it not so much about Coca Cola and its involvement with Santa Claus - it is about us as a society that lost any form of equality as a practical living application wherein, what St Nicholas originally stood for, as a principle of 'Give as you would like to Receive' , was missed due to the use of a symbol that was taken out of context for profit purposes. Over the years, there was nothing left of St. Nicholas' message but what was created was a consumerized society that is driven by propaganda, fear and manipulation until nothing of importance is remain. This is a concern for all of us and I strongly suggest that you become aware of how we were manipulated into becoming consumerized robots without any real value and what is our responsibility within it all. Understand that pointing fingers and blaming the big corporations will not make any change because it was always us who accepted and allowed ourselves to follow our feelings and emotions as the foundation from which we allowed ourselves to be manipulated from the get go.

 

The Truth about Santa Claus and Christmas (Part 1) - Day 429

 

 

Have you ever wondered what is the Santa Claus story and how it is related to Christmas? Have you ever wondered why Santa Claus outfit is Red and White colors? Have you ever wondered about the relationship between Santa and Consumerism? Brainwashing?

 

Well, I have and therefor  I decided to do a research on the phenomena of Christmas, Santa Claus and what I found fascinating stuff.

 

I didn't know a thing when I started to investigate the point because as a Jew, we don't have Christmas or Santa Claus and fascinating enough, when I asked non Jewish people no one actually knew the history of Santa Claus nor Christmas. One person said to me that they are not really sure what Santa Claus is all about but there is defiantly something to do with Coca Cola in how they branded Santa Claus to be associated with the Coca Cola product (Which I will expand on in blogs to come); so I decided to start looking it up on the internet and here is what I found:

 

The Story of Santa Claus:

 

“The very beginning of the phenomenon known as Santa Claus of course all started with the famous Saint Nicholas, of Myra, a priest in the 4th Century...

..There was a family that lived near (not yet Saint) Nicholas that was so broke that the father decided to sell his three daughters into marriage. The eldest was to go first but Nicholas felt sympathetic for the girl and he tossed money down the family's chimney so they would not have to sell her. When the second daughter was old enough to be sold, he did the same thing. Finally, when the youngest daughter was in danger, the girls father stayed up to catch Nicholas in the act. Nicholas became a Saint and years later people began exchanging gifts on SainT Nicholas Day, December 6. This however eventually changed to the 25th to suit Jesus.”

http://www.cracked.com/funny-3470-the-origins-santa-claus/#ixzz2mt3MPlDe

 

Here is a nice story about a nice guy that decided to give a secret charity to one family so that they won't have to sell their daughters into marriage as an accepted action done for the sake of survival within the economic system. So already back then, poverty played a huge role in our society and yet, instead of correcting the source of the problem that is rotted within our historical economic system, a costume was created to cover up the mass by giving the people hope as something to look forward to, to the spirit of the holidays, to momentary happiness or in other words, a costume was created as a smoke screen of the real problem so that we could all focus on celebrations, parties and gifts while the poverty is a status-quo we have all accepted as integral part of our society.

 

So now, 16 centuries later, no one even know what is the Santa Claus Principle is based on, the principle of Give as you would like to Receive as a fundamental structure of Equalized Society but we rather limited the principle to only Give Gifts, Receive Gifts on a specific day/time and at the same time, completely ignore the entirety of what the principle of Give as you would like to Receive is as a living expression of ourselves wherein it is not just our loved ones that will be receiving what we would also like to receive from them, but primarily, to  give each and every being in this world the birth right to live as a basic human right.

 

The picture of Santa Claus within this blog is specific - we will talk about it more within the next blog though have a look at the colors of Santa Claus' outfit - it is Blue and Brown. Interesting stuff ahead - stay tuned.

 

 

Niklas Nydahl - Scary Christmas - Slave Bells are Ringing

The North Whole Crew - Santa is an Illusion

 

Investigate other options of living - LIG - Living Income Guaranteed - http://livingincome.me/