The Panda Bear on Thanksgiving, Literature and Modern Repression

Next week is Thanksgiving Day which is a day where Americans are supposed to be grateful for what they have. The Panda Bear can accept that for one day in the year we can take time to appreciate what we have. However, there are some people who feel we should now have a gratitude month where we spend the month feeling grateful for what we have. The Panda Bear has tried to follow some Facebook pages which for everyday in November its followers are supposed to list something for which they are grateful. After a few days of these upbeat pages the Panda Bear will get impatient. Why can't people just admit that life is nasty, brutal and short? The Panda Bear starts feeling pressured to be happy which she rebels against. She will start feeling that it is her right to be grumpy
and gloomy if that is what she feels.

In a similar overly optimistic vein, the Panda Bear read an essay by a literary critic which stated that no more great novels could be written because we modern folks did not experience tragedy and repression like they did in the good old days. The Panda Bear was wondering what on what planet this critic lived. The United States right now experiencing war, random violence and high unemployment rates. Probably many people in the United States lack basic human necessities. Many people are in physical pain (Mr. Panda has had a toothache for the past three weeks and Mother Panda hurt her leg so the Panda Bear has recently been hearing of people complain about being pain all the time). People still die. There is much corruption in politics. In the United States do we have any privacy at all with the NSA spying on us all the time? We are still experiencing the stuff of great writing.

 However, the Panda Bear things one reason people like old books is because it is safer to experience the emotions that come with yesterday’s problems then come with today's problems. Our present chains are still invisible to usand to function we need to repress some of our conflicts with modern society. The Panda Bear knows what bothers her about modern society. She dislikes the constant rushing around; she wants more leisure to enjoy life. She thinks there must be more to life then jobs that have grown stale and chores that she dislikes to do. The Panda Bear wants to relaxed and creative rather than busy and organized.