Mourning a Merry Christmas

I'm in mourning.

I'm in mourning, because I see a precarious house of cards about to topple on so many Canadians and I cannot look away. Instead of a regular playing deck, on each card is an image of a manufactured need – a desire made in China, priced in Canada and the proceeds in the pockets of some wealthy offshore investor. We are pressured to believe that an overpriced cardboard home – condo or mcmansion, that jacket – Canada Goose, that newest techno-gadget – Ipad – that all of these will make us happy, show our worth, demonstrate our success.

On each card face are the manufactured ideas of happiness and success that block the light instead of letting us see each image for what it is – an image. Not only are we blind to the external forces that control our most basest desires, we are also blind to the fragile foundations on which we stand. This house is not built upon the rock, but built upon slavery – what most call debt.

Our average personal debt-load is higher than the United States even as we ironically celebrate our supposedly stable economy in a moment of misguided Schadenfreude. We are not more free than the most free nation on earth; we are buried up to our necks with our eyes closed to the mass of red ants, who hurry to eat us alive. We citizens as well as our government have misplaced our sense of reason in place of foolish irrationality. In such a flurry of desire, we spent an average of $800 dollars per person on gifts at Christmas in 2010 and probably just as much this year. What else could explain lowering the down payment amount needed to buy a new home, as this conservative federal government has so kindly done.

You may be asking why I say I am in mourning. The house still stands. Yet, it is not as secure as it once was – it's crumbling at the edges, and I have seen it in my family. Both sides have been touched by a sudden loss of income during this recession from which they have not been able to recover. While both their situations sadden me, one does not worry and anger me like the other.

One side has cut back on spending and has managed to replace the lost income to a certain extent. They have savings which they have only minimally cut into and have prepared for their retirement. They own a home, which they have spent over 15 years paying off and are living comfortably, despite the cut in income.

The other side of the family came into some money quickly, felt rich, proceeded to buy a new home, fill it with stuff and then lost that income. So far – a little foolish, but not so bad. Instead of, however, cutting their losses and trying to salvage what they could for the future, they continued to rack up credit card debt with the hopes that lightening would strike twice in a dry recession. Stuck with their heads in the sand, they lived pretty much as they had lived before. Their health started to deteriorate under the repressed stress, but they still believed they would be able to save it all. Finally, with credit card debt well into the six figures, they began to try and sell their house, but they couldn't. No one was interested in buying the oversized home they had lovingly created for themselves. When they did sell it, they received barely enough to pay off the house debt, but not enough to save them from bankruptcy. This fall from comfort into welfare has not restored their reason. They still continue to spend beyond their means, leaving us to pick up the tab.

This morning I woke early, sick and pregnant, thinking of the latest example of their money mismanagement. I couldn't sleep, knowing how easily this story could become the story of so many others, who live in this precarious house of manufactured dreams. We are without reason not only at this time of year, but all year round, and this foolish enslavement needs to stop.

I lay there awake and thought over and over again – I am in mourning. I am in mourning for our loss of reason, I am in mourning for we live as beasts of burden.