Dear Santa,
You don’t know me. I know, you have your list, you check it twice, but I’ve spent years fighting against the surveillance state in it’s multitude of forms. Hidden cameras, microphones, astral projection, ESP, spiritual voyeurs, all of these have been noted and combated by my efforts over my short time on this planet, and therefore I am more than confident that you may know of me, but you do not know me. I will tell you, I have been naughty. Naughty is even a nice way of saying it. I have been down right belligerent! The whole of your moral outlook has been challenged on the daily throughout this year, all with one goal in mind; Liberation from Santa and his works!
Listen Nick, I may call you Nick right? Let me dial this back. I don’t dislike you. I don’t dislike the idea of being nice. I don’t dislike the idea of you rewarding people that do good in this Demiurge ruled reality of cruelty and dread, especially children. My issue is one of your metrics. Who are you to decide who is naughty or nice? You were a priestly man, I hear, and I must say, I don’t think the church has a very good idea of what we should be doing. Look at the last few Popes. I don’t think they were bad people either, but they certainly don’t give a very hard line of what’s good and what’s evil, let alone naughty and nice. What about your pagan analogs? Surely we can find some better moral standing among those, Have you sublimated them into your jolly gullette? Do you exist in a sort of cross cultural field of multiple forms? Are we to believe you’re judging the whole of the world by a shifting scale of what’s right for each culture? Are the Russian Orthodox children to be judged differently than the Atheist American ones? Santa, baby, I don’t see that working any better!
Its a few days after the big day, and the new year is coming. New Year’s Eve is always the death of the old and the birth of the new, so let me give you a bit of a resolution here. Could we just reward everyone? That’s a very egalitarian idea. Maybe we could change the list. “Alive or Dead”. If you’re alive, you get presents. If you’re dead you don’t get presents. Now that I say this, it strikes me that the dead could use some gifts as well. Death is tough on a lot of us. I died once and no one even gave me a grave. I rotted in a charnel ground. The closest thing I got to a gift was a Shivaite chewing on my jaw bone for some marrow and having an orgy by my rib cage. A yoyo would have definitely made me feel a little better, even without the muscles and ligaments needed to operate it.
I think there’s got to be something to be done. Even if we accept that someone’s got to get coal in their stocking, there’s got to be a better metric than not eating your vegetables and slamming the door when Mommy yells at you. Think of the billionaires destroying the world around us, or the power elite pulling strings. Surely they are more deserving of coal. Now that I say that, I think they actually own a lot of coal already and are doing pretty well with it. Coal isn’t as profitable as it used to be, but it’s hardly a detriment. Maybe coal is the issue. You should give out parking tickets or something. Of course that money just goes back to the state, and I’m not sure of what the economic system of the North Pole is exactly, but based on what I’ve heard about how you’ve organized production up there, I can’t imagine the elves are living in a worker’s paradise, so I can’t support you taking money from those you deem morally dubious to fuel the exploitation of the Global North.
It’s December 30th, so the formation of the USSR is on my mind as always. Was Lenin on the naughty list for the revolution? What about the Carbonari? Or the Barkers who told you Christmas was a pagan hersey? That’s a weird thought that’s come to me time and time again; if Christmas is about Christ(which, come on Nick, we know it’s not), what do you do about all the various sects of Christianity that think it’s a bunch of hookum and won’t dare to let your holly jolly ass down the chimney? Do you try extra hard to get them their gifts for being such moral and virtuous people, or do they go on the naughty list for daring to deny the reason for the season?
Look Nick, I already told ya I like ya. I wanna help ya. I want to get us somewhere that’s going to make the world a better place for you, me and all the struggling people out there who could really use a couple of Playstations and Lincoln logs, but we’re not gonna get anywhere until we get out of this moral question or ditch it entirely. How about we try and bring back the Solar worship of all of this? “The Sun is making it’s return, here’s a present Sonny Jim!” At least then we don’t have to get into a whole roast of issues over why anyone’s getting presents. I’m more than happy to say that Lucky Ole Sun that ain’t got nuthin’ to do but roll around Heaven all day is a good enough reason for a present.
Well, this letter is already longer than most of the ones you get, and with a lot more speculation than legitimate request. But hey, I’m sure you appreciate someone wanting to converse with you instead of a long list of demands from Sally Sonovabitch who put gum in her brother’s hair and definitely isn’t getting a solid gold Bugatti for her Barbie. So, I’ll leave you with a closing thought. If we really want to make a world of people who are nice instead of naughty, wouldn’t it be easier to try and make a world that’s easier to be nice in than naughty? It’s a struggle out here, Claus. Lotta people would rather steal some bread and get some coal than see their kids starve for a doll house. You can be a part of that. Next year could be the start of something wonderful for all of us. I believe in you, Santa Claus.
Your friend, comrade and possible partner in development of the revolution of the Holiday season,
Joel Engel
P.S. If you feel like making a late run, I’ll leave you a drink for New Year’s Eve, and you can get me that yoyo.
JOEL H. ENGEL
Joel Heinrich Engel was born in the deep south of the United States in the turbulent era of the early 80’s, growing to manhood at the turn of the century. This inevitably left him with an impression of a world primed for change. Despite the best intentions of his parent for a regular education, Engel instead committed himself to the path of an autodidicat, his schools of choice the abandoned buildings, solitary woods and cyber libraries available to him as a working class man in the early aughts.
He began sharing his thoughts and observations of life, society and the occult in the underdeveloped world of the blogosphere, to equal praise and sneers. By 2009, he was a regular contributer to several underground publications, with his column “The Magical Marxist” being syndicated to minor acclaim in radical circles. After a brief foray into studying with various gurus of the Tibetan tradition resulted in him taking a three year sabbatical from writing, he returned with a new purpose, presented in an ambitious series on the spiritual nature of the state, “Eden and Babylon”, which is currently on its third volume, but remains unpublished.
He currently splits his time between Atlanta, Georgia and Austin, Texas, working various dead end jobs and freelance writing gigs to support himself, his dog Ruby, and his own projects of alternative philosophical approaches to reality, political-spiritual revolution, and the reintroduction of magic to the masses.
