 I love this period of time it's a it is a it is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful holiday. And many people look at me kind of weird and say, wait a minute, you're on. I thought you're kind of an atheist and originally Jewish by background, what's what's the deal with Christmas? Well, I mean, I think the beauty of Christmas and why Christmas is such a universally loved holiday is because of how secular of a holiday it is. I mean, this is the most secular holiday I can think of. I mean, what do you do during Christmas? You you buy gifts for people you love and people you care about. You get in touch with friends and family who you have a, you know, you you you like and you love and you respect and you hang out with them. And you it's great. I mean, think of all the of all the pleasure that produces you exchange gift. And then you light up your home. You you create this wonderful lit up environment. And when you go outside, the trees have lights on them and the malls fill the pretty pretty things that the displays in the windows are wonderful. And the lights are wonderful. I mean, New York City during this time of year, particularly if it snowed a little bit, is just so beautiful and so pretty. And and what what are all the lights and the and the, you know, the malls and the shops and the presence and all this, what does that all represent? What does that all symbolize? Nothing particularly religious. It all symbolizes kind of an embrace of life, of enjoying life, of celebrating life, of celebrating friendship and family and, you know, celebrating our achievements and the fact that we we can buy presents and hang out with the people we love and enjoy and respect and so on. So what a wonderful, wonderful time of life at time of the year. It's it's and it's exactly a wonderful, wonderful time of the year because of how secular it is, because of the fact that it is all about or almost all about, right, enjoying life. It's about enjoying life. That's the essence of what Christmas is about. So, you know, people complain, bitterly, oh, Christmas becomes so commercialized. It's terrible. Yeah, that's part of what makes it so wonderful. It's that it's so commercial because what is that? What is what is the commercial aspect of Christmas about? It's about going out and buying stuff. Well, we enjoy doing that when we're buying gifts for people we like, or we enjoy that when we're buying ourselves gifts. Why? Because it's a celebration of what I in Rand call the trade of principle. The wonderful aspect of life, which is trade, giving something and getting something in return, giving something of ultimately less value to you and getting something of greater value to you. That trade, that buying and selling, those are wonderful things in life. They demonize. They will get to why that is in a minute. But just think of the fun. Christmas is fun. It's not about. And it's not celebrated in a way that suggests that it's really the season of giving or the season of sacrifice or the season of altruism. No, there's nothing altruistic about giving gifts to people you love. Now, now, if you decided one year not to give gifts to your kids, but to send all the gifts to Africa, that would be different. But how happy would you be about that? How happy would your kids be about that? Would it still be the joy, the season of joy? Would it still be the season of goodwill towards man? Really? Is the goodwill comes at a cost of somebody else's sacrifice? Somebody else's misgivings? Hard times, your kids, for example, who didn't get gifts because you sent them all to Africa. There was a really good article published. Well, it's been a few years now, I guess, by Peter Schwartz. You can look him up. Peter Schwartz and it's called objecting to the season of giving. I don't think that's a title he chose. I think this was published in the Washington Post. You can. And Peter Schwartz is also the author of In Defense of Selfishness. So an excellent book that I strongly recommend. And Christmas is the season of celebrating selfishness, of celebrating, doing fun stuff that is not just fun in a superficial, immediate sense, but fun in the sense of celebrating the relationships you really care about in life, the people you enjoy and you care about, your children and the family that you enjoy and care about. That's what Christmas is about. It's about a celebration of your life and of the life of the people that provide you with the most value. People think of love, unfortunately, in the world in which we live. People think of love in terms of sacrifice, in terms of selflessness. Really? Do you love somebody out of a sense of selflessness? Is it a sacrifice to love your wife or to love your girlfriend or to love your spouse? Is it a sacrifice? Or do you love them because of how they make you feel about yourself? Do you love them because of the fact that they represent the values that you care most about? Do you love them because love is fundamentally a selfish emotion? It's about you. It's about your responsibilities. I think I've used this example before. I think I in Rand, this is an example, I in Rand once used. Imagine going up to you soon to be spouse on your wedding the night before your wedding and saying, look, this is selfless completely. It's completely selfless. I don't really care about what you do to me. I don't care about my own life. I'm marrying you out of a complete sacrifice. You do nothing to me. You are no value to my life. But since I don't care about my own values, I'm marrying you. I mean, the other person would slap you. What is love really about? You make me feel amazing when I'm around you. You project back to me all the things that I love about life and about the world. You represent the values that I cherish the most. All of that's selfish. All of that is about me. Love is the most selfish of all emotions. Now selfish, not in the sense of exploiting other people, not in the sense of being mean, nasty, brutish. No, none of that is selfish. That's just stupid, destructive, irrational, emotionalist. I'm talking about a rational selfishness, about thinking, about really pursuing your rational values, the values that you care most about, that you understand, that you have chosen, and pursuing them, and dedicating your life to the pursuit of them, so that you live the best life that you can live. That's what selfishness really means. It means making your life the best life that it can possibly be. And that's not about money. It's not about stuff. We'll put it this way. It's not only about money. It's not only about stuff. It's about the kind of life you live. It's kind of the kind of values you pursue. So I love Christmas because it's about the pursuit of rational good values. It's about the pursuit of friendship, the pursuit of family, the family you love. Don't go hang out with family you don't love. It's about the pursuit of presence and the sharing of gifts with people you love and respect and admire. Now, I know that much of what the conventional view of Christmas is about charity, it's about sending that money to Africa, it's about sacrifice. That's the story we are told. That's how it's presented to us. But, well, I'm going to take a break here. I'm going to take a short break. And then when I come back, I want to talk about charity and whether it is really the fundamental here, whether really when we think about Christmas, what we're really thinking about is charity and sacrifice. All right, you're listening to your own book show. The only place you're going to hear this kind of stuff on Christmas.