Festivus for the Rest of Us

 I am told I have been named supreme ruler of the universe. My task is to create a holiday in my honor. A day. A festival. Rituals. Food. Decorations. Me Day.

I find the whole premise ridiculous.

Not because imagination is bad. But because the fantasy reveals something we have grown frighteningly comfortable with. The belief that we should be celebrated simply for existing. That the natural trajectory of a human life is toward godhood. That the ultimate problem with the universe is that it has not yet recognized our greatness.

This is not satire anymore. This is cultural doctrine.

We design personal brands. We curate identities. We gather followers. We celebrate ourselves loudly and call it self care. We crown our opinions, sanctify our feelings, and demand the world rearrange itself around our inner weather.

And then we wonder why nothing holds.

If I were truly supreme ruler, the first thing I would do is abolish the holiday. No You Day. No statues. No anthems. No carefully themed decorations. The universe already tried that once. It did not end well.

There is an old line tucked into Exodus that modern sensibilities find deeply inconvenient. “The Lord, whose name is Jealous.” Not insecure. Not petty. Jealous. As in unwilling to share the throne with impostors. As in aware that humans make terrible gods.

We overlook that line because it ruins the party.

If I had to declare a day at all, it would not be a celebration of me. It would be a fast. A silence. A reckoning. A day when all mirrors are covered and all social feeds go dark. A day when no one speaks in slogans or posts their greatness or pretends they are the center of the moral universe.

The decorations would be plain. Wood. Stone. Unpolished metal. Things that last longer than applause. No banners. No slogans. No gold calves cleverly disguised as personal growth.

The food would be simple. Bread. Water. Something earned, not indulgent. Something that reminds you hunger is older than entitlement.

The events would be uncomfortable by design. You sit with your family. You listen more than you speak. You remember people who built things you now take for granted. You acknowledge limits. You name failures. You apologize without qualifications.

In the evening, there would be a reading. Not from anything I wrote. That would miss the point entirely. It would be from the ancient texts that remind us we are created things, not creators of reality itself. That authority is borrowed. That power answers to something higher whether it likes it or not.

And then the day would end. Quietly. Without fireworks. Without merch.

Because the problem is not that we lack holidays. The problem is that we have crowned ourselves and forgotten how dangerous that crown is.

So no, I will not give you a festival in my honor.

The universe does not need another replacement god. It needs fewer people pretending they are one.

If I press you one last time, it is this.

Do you reject this fantasy because it is absurd
or because some part of the culture has already convinced us it is normal?

I write

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