Dear Mudge,

I hope your holiday unfolded in a way that left you both nutritionally as well as spiritually nourished.

My wife and I drove to Corvallis, Wednesday, to pick up our son who has lived there for the last two years, post-graduation, to be with his honey. He’s struggling, economically, not being able to find employment that befits his degree. Our daughter and her beau arrived for T-Day festivities and the five of us (mostly me) proceeded to consume too much food ending with a creation of my daughter, a chocolate/Nutella pecan pie, the last of which I devoured just this morning.

Overall, a lot of cooking work for too short a gathering and too many left-overs. It was nice to see and chat with my son. We discussed the Absurd Universe and how it’s a theme he’s loosely explored through his Instagram account. I have to hand it to him on that regard; he’s dedicatedly posted daily for a few years now, growing his follower count to over 100k. Due to this, he’s now managing another account with 1m+ followers. Imagine having the temporary eyes and minds of a million people. What havoc could you wreak?

I broached that topic with him and expectantly, he admitted that he’d considered it. Lost sleep over it in fact.

I offered that were he to have a secret agenda, subtly must prevail. But what kind of agenda? We discussed the fact that all million-plus accounts, on all platforms, are no doubt targets for corporate and political influence. He’s just 26 now, so, though exposed to my overt biases, he’s yet to dream up his own evil plans. The venue now exists, however. We’ll see.

I wonder, given the opportunity, what agenda might you suggest? Kindness seems like a more hands-on incentive, one that would get lost or derided in the message. My son uses humor to success in his message delivery. Could we find some means to express humorous kindness? Could that even work? Satirical kindness feels like an oxymoron.

December is here. The month of guilt and giving-envy. I’m trying to bring back Saturnalia and other pagan traditions. On the trip down to get my son I spied loads of green nodule-nests in large oak trees—mistletoe. Only the pagans would celebrate Freya’s fetish for kissing beneath a parasitic plant. I love it!

Best,
‘Mole