We all have hopes about how cultural celebrations, rituals, traditions, or holidays will play out. Even the most cynical and hopeless among us can imagine the extravagant delivery of a gift that says they really know me, can envision feeling the handsomest we’ve ever felt, can see ourselves sitting at a decadent candlelit dinner with joyful, loving people, can feel what it would be like to receive a long-awaited expression of love or pride or affirmation. These are the fantasy. For some, those hopes are based in an idealized version of our real experiences: that perfect christmas when we were young, the best hannukah we ever had, a solstice celebration we’ll never forget. For others, these hopes are projections of the holiday we’ve seen in movies or on friends’ instagram accounts, but have never had.
Lovely newsletter! Just wanted to point out that Aung Suu Kyi has overseen the recent genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
Thank you Maddy, I knew I should have looked up a more recent source for that. Corrected.