It is inevitable
I was in a store the other day and since it is after labor day, there was Christmas music playing. The particular song that was playing was Bobby Helms’ masterpiece “Jingle Bell Rock”, which, as we are aware, contains the line “Now the jingle hop has begun“.
Now, I can’t be alone in feeling that the next line should be “…and we are powerless to stop it”. It just flows. It’s a statement that implies some inexorable, epic, monumental event, some blind capricious will against which humanity is powerless and insignificant.
“Now the jingle hop has begun, and things will never be the same. Should we attract its notice, God himself cannot help us. All of humanity - our dreams, fears, kings, peasants, wars, loves - all are hubris and folly in comparison to the jingle hop. We cannot reason with it; it has no emotion or logic. It is blind power, and we have as much chance at halting the stars in their paths as averting the jingle hop.
“Some of us may turn to prayer, to family, to love. Others may choose panic, hedonism, chaos. In the end, it will make no difference. Humanity - all of existence - is living on borrowed time, standing on the precipice, staring into the void. Elliot was wrong. It will not be a whimper. It will be the jingle hop.
“And it has begun.”
