“What a person most expects is everything they shouldn’t. A gift can be expected, though only at the same level as offering a server a tip. It had been expected, that for the server’s excellent hospitality, they were given something for that reason. Although, what is a gift? What is ever defined as a true gift, besides what is given without expectation for a service done?”
– Modern Romanticism
Why do we love? There is no “why”. We simply do, not because it is expected of us, though because we can. Without love, there would be no air to breathe nor a sun to rise. Then, why do we feel depressed around the Holidays? That must be because of the expectations of material gifts. A clash of consumerism with the immaterial nature of family will trigger a psychological response of depression. That is because the human’s innate understanding of family is non-material. There is no materialism in love. There is only the sight of it, whom we love, with never the utility of those people.
As with all we place expectation upon, there is trust to its functionality. Nothing is perceived as more functional than what is expected to work, based on its mechanical design. During the Holidays where people’s families come together, consumerism would add a layer of expectation, of being used for a material gift, that is always against love and the immaterial. To ask it, once more, why is there depression? It is because of the innate understanding of love that those who are loved should not be expected to do anything for us. Instead, they will do it based on the test to their love. However, if an expectation of being used clashes against this, depression is the resulting feeling being an emptiness we begin to question.
There are no expectations with love. There is only the acceptance to the sights, not the utility of them when it comes to family. Depression is a factor of loss. Although, what have we lost? Have we lost our love? No, we have not. Our depression is resulting from the clash of expectations with material gifts and no expectations with the immaterial gift of family. Simply put, Holiday Blues must come from believing we must be expected to love, when such is not possible.
Modern Romanticism 