What truly fulfills us at Year’s End (Hint: it’s not the presents)
Christmas holidays are a time for reflection and connection—a chance to share moments by the fire, enjoy quiet reading, and reach out to others. This doesn’t happen often.
This isn’t a great discovery. Sometimes, ideals fall short, and between shopping, travel, fears of missing out on something, and the need to manage work and our personal economy, the only “reading by the fireplace” some risk seeing is one portrayed in their social feed (if that’s what they’re looking for, skillfully associated with things to buy around the chosen topic).
Maybe the winter holidays should be that moment when we recognize the things that take so much time and energy from us but don’t give much in return. Once we recognize these aspects, we can make changes to improve our day-to-day, which is what accounts for “life.”
The things we think make us happy vs. the important stuff
Instead of waiting for a party blast to forget all the daily miseries once in a while, a better strategy would be to improve quotidian life and not only high-stakes, stressful celebrations.
It’s human and healthy to feel doubt and to try to improve things, and many authors have highlighted that trying to suppress doubt is the closest thing to a lack of freedom.
Like the song Riders of the Storm by The Doors, many people feel they don’t fit with their circumstances and place in the world, as if they found themselves “Into this world we’re thrown / Like a dog without a bone.”
The problem is that we may think that the bone represents all the things we can buy, and hence, by improving our economic situation, we’d be substantially happier.
It’s not as simple, and the only thing that buying beyond our means will bring is debt to be repaid (or else).
German philosopher Martin Heidegger recognized this aspect of our existence: we don’t choose the circumstances in which we’re “thrown” into the world: our relatives, or the moment in history. And, whether we like it or not, ours is an era of technological and utilitarian concerns.
“Having a good education to get a good job that will pay for things that our status in society assigns” doesn’t seem to be a very original life to be lived; no wonder that many people may feel alienated, craving a more authentic, back-to-basis and “rooted” life.
Our need for roots and authentic connection
Philosopher and political activist Simone Weil (to many, also a Christian mystic) believed that people were thrown into modernity, and the only thing they were expected to do was work like a machine and consume; as a consequence, they often felt uprooted and soulless.
And, like the Austrian theologian Ivan Illich, Weil criticized modern expectations, which can be a big distraction from our dormant goals: a longing for more individual autonomy that requires less superfluous purchases and the quest to build a fulfilling community around us.
Weil perceived a forceful disconnection of people living in industrial societies from the idea of the sacred and spiritual; to her, alienation is the modern failure to acknowledge that people need to feel the sense of having a higher purpose, which eventually can materialize in an elevated feeling of unity to one’s own religious beliefs, nature, and each other. Buying things won’t bring us closer to having more meaningful connections with others, which is something we can achieve irrespective of our purchasing power.
Some people may see her take as naïve. To the writer who convinced Gallimard to publish her book The Need for Roots, Albert Camus, it was a matter of common sense: many modern individuals feel “uprooted” by industrialization, urbanization, the promise of consumerism, and the commodification of all our actions —from our interests to the things we buy, to the things the neighbor of our relatives bought that we feel we should buy too, so we keep up with everyone.
Hearing our own drummer
The true roots, Weil stated, were not the ones of heritage or nationalism but the connection to community, tradition, a sense of transcendence (religious, ethical, altruistic, etc.), and what Ivan Illich called “conviviality.”
If everyday life is stripped of any real meaning and all we want is to feel numb and find substitutes (consuming, taking substances to cope, etc.) so, we don’t face the vertigo of emptiness. Knowing how this vicious circle works holds the key to getting out of it, to begin with.
Weil saw that many people felt empty, exhausted, and very lonely despite being constantly surrounded by people, at home, at work, or in the street. The apparent disconnect was everywhere: from people to other people; from people and work, now tied to the mandate and rhythm of machines and a constant optimization race; from people and reality, as superficial tasks and distractions like consumerism, entertainment substituted any other daily aspiration; from people and the divine, as the quest to cultivate a higher purpose was replaced by bitter cynicism.
There are many possible tales of the postwar boom: the renewed optimism that led to the rise of suburbia, the Red Scare, the Cold War, the turmoil of the 60s, the oil crisis, the rise of neoconservatism, the fall of the Iron Curtain, the rise of cybernetics, and now the decline of the values promoted during that whole period, or Pax Americana.
We can tell the tale of the big trends in many ways, but one thing is certain: those who find how to live a fulfilling life do so no matter the surrounding trends, and they achieve so because they grew wary of what others think, and so found the way to, in Thoreau’s words, follow the pace of his own drummer:
“Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
Thoreau, H. D. (2004). Walden (J. S. Cramer, Ed.). Yale University Press. (Original work published 1854)
Is it a wonderful life?
This era of prosperity after World War II had many good things. It also reflected a turning point in popular culture, which, from that moment on, associated the bliss of life with stuff to buy.
In housing and societal models, the car became a symbol of individualism, and also the centerpiece of a new life of plenty, ease, and convenience: detached homes in idealized tree-lined suburban streets not far from strip malls where all services guaranteed easy parking. Though easy to forget, that world, depicted by the pop culture that shaped the world, was very different one hundred years ago.
Now, despite many proven dysfunctionalities derived from the universalization of the model, suburbia is one established reality that many take for granted and don’t question, even when the sense of community and “rootedness” has vanished.
If creating a sense of home relies only on utility—as measured in terms of distance to work, schools, and stores—there’s no question that modern living can cause many a sense of disconnection. Lives, like any suburban street, have reached a point in which they seem to be interchangeable, and their former uniqueness is becoming residual: the ties with the past, with a sense of community, and with what Simone Weill called “the sacred,” vanish.
Perhaps, the fate of lost conviviality has to do with the fact that there’s nothing to be won commercially in the values reflected in, say, movies like the 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life. Question: when was the last time Hollywood came up with a movie like this classic by Frank Capra?
Work and commercial spaces have also changed over the last decades, and it’s more difficult to establish relations at work or at the store if we need to sprint and make every moment count, as in constant competition against faceless individuals we may or may not see again. Suburbia, in short, has inherited many of the social critiques associated with life in megacities, from a sense of isolation to a design that often prevents the creation of a sense of community.
Daily meaning
There are many ways to recreate many of the things missing in current urban and suburban templates uprooted from any context or sense of community, and we’ve talked with many people over the years who shared some of these ideas. Perhaps the main strategy that has proven successful until now is creating suburban areas (or, most times, retrofitting them) so they work more like villages, using urban design to boost well-being when places are walkable, paths are made so they foster serendipitous encounters, and mixed-use areas are in proximity so people walk to services and stores, establishing a relationship with locals.
Simone Weil once wrote, “To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.” Her words echo through the sprawling suburbs and industrial rhythms of our time, urging us to pause and reflect on the sacredness of connection—to each other, to our work, to our places, and to the transcendence that makes life meaningful.
Rootedness isn’t just about geography or heritage; it’s about building a life where meaning is cultivated daily, through intentional design and mindful living. The suburban ideal, like all human creations, can evolve.
Perhaps by embracing Weil’s wisdom, we can rediscover the true essence of home, not as a utility but as a shared, sacred space of belonging.
George and Clarence
It’s a Wonderful Life tells the story of George Bailey (James Stewart), a kind-hearted man from Bedford Falls whose superficial dreams (traveling, then coming back and making it big) are repeatedly set aside as he selflessly helps his family and community.
Facing financial ruin and despair on Christmas Eve, George contemplates suicide but is saved by Clarence (Henry Travers), an angel sent to show him the profound impact of his life by showing George how a world without him would have been.
The film shows the interconnectedness of human lives and the real things that make us happy in the long term (which are the ones that have a real impact on others, by the way).
Few people know that, initially, It’s a Wonderful Life wasn’t in tune with the moment it was released, and became an early commercial flop. Over time, however, the box office disappointment turned into iconic status as people recommended it to each other, becoming frequent in TV airings.
Its message that “no man is a failure who has friends” continues to resonate, making it a touchstone of American cinema (wasn’t Hollywood in crisis nowadays?)
—George: Well, you look about the kind of angel I’d get. Sort of a fallen angel, aren’t you? What happened to your wings?
—Clarence: I haven’t won my wings, yet. That’s why I’m called an Angel Second Class. I have to earn them. And you’ll help me, will you?
—George: Sure, sure. How?
—Clarence: By letting me help you.
—George: I know one way you can help me. You don’t happen to have 8,000 bucks on you?
—Clarence: No, we don’t use money in Heaven.
—George: Well, it comes in real handy down here, bud!
The soundtrack of this article is Riders of the Storm.
I’m at the very beginning of a decision to move home, where I grew up, and be with my older dad. It’s nice to read a warm cup of tea about rootedness. Reading this tonight overlaps with beginning Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order today, which in the first chapter lectures that community and social interactions are what keep us sane, not permitting us to go so far afield. Thank you for the words this evening.