Open Writing

The January sales have started, although as I write this, Christmas has not yet begun. Naturally, they are dressed up as the ‘Winter Sales’, but the real reason is obvious, not enough money going through the tills. Everyone is waiting until they can buy it cheaper. And frankly the retailers have no one but themselves to blame.

The days when the sales brightened up the deadly dull days following New Year, are over. You can walk down the high street at any time and find ‘Seasonal Reductions’ and ‘Blue X’ days – stores have got plain greedy for grabbing market share and a fast turnover of stock. An invisible logo ‘Buy today even if you cannot afford it’ is etched into our shopping ethos.

I am not sure where this is all going to lead. For example, as soon as Christmas is over Valentine cards will start filling the shops, over-lapped by Easter eggs and all things spring like. One big supermarket has already had Hot X buns on sale! The list of early promotions goes on and on until we get back to Christmas. Cards on sale in September, festive lights switched on in town centres at the beginning of November and canned carols blaring out from public sound systems any time from October onwards. By the time an event arrives our boredom threshold has been reached, breached and we feel leeched of all anticipation.

Is this not true in many instances? Take booking a holiday; we no longer have to think about it, pick up brochures to talk about it, visit a travel agent to book it or plan it so far ahead we can save up to afford it. Now we can go on the internet, find a cheap last minute deal, pay by credit card and fly off tomorrow. Anticipation; even the cat’s sixth sense does not have time to twig he is in for a spell of cattery care and he should slink off to hide in the bushes.

Unfortunately, although there may be some advantages to ‘instant’ there are some very serious consequences too. Just consider childhood. Once a child remained a child until it became a teenager at around 13 or 14 years old and there was certainly no chance of being classed as a card-carrying adult until the age of majority. All that has changed. Children’s magazines have a lot to do with it. From a very early age children are urged to conform, to dress a certain way, support particular singers or music groups and persuade their parents to let them watch types of TV programmes that lead them even further down the path of ‘little adults’.

Where is the freedom of just being a child? Of playing childhood games, not worrying about the cut of your hair or whether you are wearing the latest look. I hear parents say “I know, but he’s crazed me for it” as their excuse. Sorry, I do not see it that way. More it is a case of pandering to parents’ own ego for keeping up with a scenario centred on commercialism, materialism and any other ‘ism’ that makes people into ‘must haves’ – they want it, and they want it now.

Anticipation is a wonderful thing, it should not, and frankly must not, be allowed to vanish. I fully appreciate that the ‘Virtual’ world is upon us, although having been thought up, it’s creators should be aware that its days too are already numbered. Reality can only ever be just that, ‘the moment’.

I was brought up to believe that you learn from the past, enjoy the present and plan for the future. Built into the very word ‘plan’ is the concept of anticipation.

It is not often that I resort to a quotation to make a point, however I think Oscar Wilde can do it for me this time. ‘Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.’

Woe betides any adult who dismisses those words as nonsense. Isn’t it time the gift of anticipation was given back? No one should be allowed to take it away.