sneak @sneak@sneak.berlin

Or there needs to be a better list of Relays for people to add. The one that is on GitHub, most of them aren't responding.
#mastodonadmin #relays

Might be a controversial take or a "non-issue" for many, but lately it became more obvious to me how there haven't been really any celebrations or traditions in my life that aren't rooted in Christianity. Though "rooted" seems the wrong term, considering how "surprisingly" many Christian events happened at the very same time where locals back then non-christian countries had their own... There is nothing specifically iconic for a certain religion in celebrating spring, reflecting on the past year or coming together in winter or honoring the dead, but thanks to eager and quite violent missionary work we're now celebrating the birth of Jesus at Christmas and the death and rebirth of Jesus on Easter Holiday and so on.

And for me as an atheist this feels just so wrong, especially considering what the Christian Church as institution has done in terms of war, oppression, cultural eradication and law. Not to mention all the so called Christians who are involved in all sort of abuse or using their religion as a shield for their racism and bigotry. I don't want to celebrate any of this when I come together with my family, share cookies etc., just because this tradition only exists as a big "all inclusive" package.
(Yes, I know, Hasthag NotAllChristians, but like it or not, this is part of the history of your religion.)

Some people tried to look into pre-christian traditions and modern pagans are celebrating them nowadays, but it is very unclear how much of these traditions actually existed because there is just so little info about all of this for obvious reasons. Even if they would be 100% correct, they have never been a part of my life in the same way and celebrating them would feel just like suddenly celebrating Ramadan or Dia de los Muertos, an appropriation of a culture I am not part of.

There was also never real traditional German clothing or anything, like in other countries. And before you say "but.. Dirndls and Lederhosen!" Dirndls etc. are a) Bavarian and Austrian, not for all of Germany and b) have their origin in the 18th century. On top of this their original design was altered by the Nazis in the 1930s, I really don't want a part in any of that.

And nobody cares, because this didn't happen last week but over 1000 years ago, nothing you can truly do about it.

I usually don't give a damn about patriotism or having a big need for traditions or anything. Especially around here "tradition" is a very common argument used by bigots for their bigotry. (Not saying all traditions are, not even saying the things they claim to be traditions actually are traditions.) But I like the idea of coming together and celebrating just being around, celebrating life, seasons, family or friends, being thankful for each other. We have birthdays but that's about it and for obvious reason they are not a big official holiday or anything that's on the same date for everyone.

Considering how diverse the society we live in is, wouldn't it be nice to have a few "neutral" holidays that celebrate the people and society instead of any deity? People can be freaking awesome and who knows, acknowledging this once in a while and how important it is to work together or support each other might even spark a little bit of empathy in all the self-centered people who are so adamant they have to hurt vulnerable people for selfish non-reasons. We certainly have more than enough of those.

Well, so much for that. Happy Holidays I guess?

(Not sure why I wrote this in English, maybe because it might be interesting for people from elsewhere as well? Or because I just like writing in my horrible-grammar English.)

@sneak
Yeah. My two 'facepalm moments' here in Germany were, why is everything monopolized by DT and why is no one using overhead lines (not horrible visual sores like this, just going through attic spaces of connected buildings).

At home I had three carriers in my building, two of them routed into my apartment, for barely $15/mo. Mine WERE visual sores tho, because i lived in a tall building among single story stuff.

If there’s any librarians stumbling across this cartoon, I’ve recently been told that there’s a new server here for librarians, if you’re looking for an instance to join. Here’s the post:
Fellow library workers -- please pass around word about @libraryland.social - a Mastodon instance set up for public librarians, academic librarians, school librarians, archivists and other library workers to share ideas, inspirations, questions, announcements and the like.