Listeners. If you are hearing this, it means two things.
One, the Lawjacks have not shut me up. Two, you still have ears. Which means you are still here. Which means you can still choose what you do next.
This is Diogenes, and this is Radio Free Neo Babylon. Broadcast on a frequency that it should not be on with a voice you are not supposed to trust.
But here we are.
Before I get philosophical, let me get practical. We do that here. We look at the world, and then we decide what kind of people we plan to be inside it.
Firstly, a public service announcement. If you are in Jack Mile tonight, keep your head down. They are running “holiday safety patrols,” which is what they call it when they want to collect a little more and remind everyone who the street belongs to.
Everywhere else in the city, if you are carrying anything you cannot explain on camera, do not explain it on camera. If you are doing anything you cannot do in a well-lit office, do not do it under a streetlamp; they are watching.
Secondly, if you are planning to buy gifts this holiday, and you are thinking about taking a loan to do it, I want you to stop. I want you to sit on your hands until the urge passes. They have turned generosity into debt, and they have trained you to call it tradition.
All right.
Now we can talk about the season.
The Festival of Bounty crawls across the calendar like a hungry caterpillar. It’s a prosperity celebration linked to Marduk’s favor over harvests, trade, and profit. It was once a day where temples blessed the year’s goods and takings.
Now it is a week. Now it starts early. Now it ends late. Now it stretches like taffy across your paycheque until your wallet squeaks.
In modern Neo Babylon, the Festival of Bounty is a corporate contest to see who can keep you streaming through their doors the longest. They call the sales “blessed.” They call the promotions “community.”
And I am not saying you are foolish if you take a deal. I am not saying you are weak if you want to give someone a present.
I am saying the machine is designed to use that impulse.
It knows you want to be good to the people you love. It knows you want to prove it. It knows you want to feel like you are not alone.
So it hands you a product and tells you that is what love looks like.
If you want to celebrate prosperity, bless the year’s goods and takings, sure.
Then ask who did the work. Ask who got paid.
Buy from your local makers; make your own gifts in defiance.
Soon the balconies will be full of light as the season culminates. They call it Bēt Nūrī, the House of Lights. Midwinter, when the air feels sharper, and the city pretends it is not afraid.
You’ll see it everywhere across districts and around the world. You can see it in the places tourists never photograph. Strips of cheap LEDs taped to cracked concrete and lanterns hung from pipes. Strings of light hooked over numbered doors where the numbers are older than the residents. Massive displays of light and color by the rich and disgusting.
The festival did not begin as a corporate event. It did not begin with branded light strings, contests, and stories recited by your favourite celebrities. It was once a household rite.
The old story says the lights kept wandering spirits away, but today, it is about the people you are with. People still hang the lights and share long meals. They still pass small gifts across the table, gifts that insist, in a plain and stubborn way, that you are seen and loved.
And every year, the system tries to eat it up. The system and the corporations love a holiday more than anything. It’s something communal they can turn into a transaction. The sacred becomes a product. Warmth and love are sold at interest.
I walked tonight. I needed air. I needed to see what people were doing when they were real.
I went down into the maintenance arteries under Old Town. You know the kind of place I mean, with low ceilings and exposed conduits. The air was warm and smelled like grease, industrial cleaner, frying oil, and chemical toilets.
There were no coordinated colour palettes. There is no sponsored “holiday experience.” Tape, long stretches of extension cords daisy-chained together, and a kobold with a screwdriver, muttering at a junction box like it insulted their mother: that’s what I saw.
I saw a found family playing music together: a porter, a cleaner, and a stagehand from the theater district. A young satyr played three repetitive notes on a cheap ukulele like they invented music. They had a pot on a hot plate and bowls that did not match.
The porter was old, older than the others, with hands that had done the same work long enough that the body had started to file itself down into the shape of labor. He watched the lights and the evergreen boughs above their door, and he smiled, remembering something.
They invited me to join them for porridge. That is the first lesson of the season, listeners. You do not need permission to act like a neighbor.
Tonight’s I want to answer a question that comes from a listener. The sender’s name is scrubbed, but I hope you’ll hear their words.
“Diogenes. If you are real. If this is even you. I hate this time of year. Everyone acts like you are supposed to have people. Like you are supposed to have somewhere to go. I lost my brother in the Undercity last year and the city moved on in a week. Now the lights are up and I feel like the only person who remembers. What am I supposed to do with that?”
DIOGENES:
I am sorry.
I am not saying that as a polite phrase. I am saying it as a fact. You were robbed. The city took something from you and kept walking.
You asked what you are supposed to do with it. Here is my answer, and it will not be clean.
You do not “get over” that. You do not replace a person or manage with a new tradition, like swapping out a battery. You will carry this.
And the question becomes how to carry it without letting it hollow you out.
The system offers you two options.
It offers you distraction: Buy something. Stream something. Drink something. Swipe your grief until your card declines. Or it offers you silence: Keep your pain private. Keep your eyes dry. Do not make the happy people uncomfortable.
Both options isolate you.
So I am offering a third, and it is older than Neo Babylon, older than the towers around the ziggurat, and older than any corporate charter.
Make a place for the missing one, on purpose.
I do not mean setting a plate at a table you cannot afford. I do not mean performing sadness for an audience. I only mean you acknowledge the absence is real. It has weight. If you pretend it is not there, it does not vanish. It just starts leaning on you in the dark.
So you hang a light. One lantern. One string of lights. One candle in a jar. Something that says, “I remember.”
Then you do one more thing, and this is the part nobody puts in the holiday advertisements.
You check on someone else.
You do it because grief turns inward if it has nowhere to go. You do it because loneliness multiplies when it is sealed away. You do it because you are not the only person hearing the music through a wall with tears and anger in your eyes.
It can be small. It should be small. Small is harder for the system to monetize.
You bring soup to the neighbour who works nights. You message the friend who keeps saying they are “fine.” You sit with an elder who has stories nobody asks for anymore because the city worships youth like it is a credit score.
This season reveals the distance between people. And then it offers you a chance to cross that distance.
If you are out there tonight, and you have nothing to spare, do not let them shame you. Your existence is not a failed transaction. You are allowed to be broke in a city that keeps stealing.
If you are out there tonight, and you are alone, hear me clearly.
Alone is a condition. It is not an identity.
After the sales have ended, remember: lights are not only for families that fit in a brochure. They are for found families. They are for roommates. They are for neighbours. They are for people who do not have anyone and decide, in defiance, to become the someone.
So if you want a blessing, listeners, here is mine.
May you refuse love with a price tag.
May you choose people with purpose.
May you carry what hurts without losing yourself.
May you keep a light on long enough for someone to find their way.
Be kind, stay warm, and as always, enjoy the sunshine.
