The "true story about Columbus Day" is that it is the part of our mythological pantheon that allows us to believe that America is something to be 'discovered'. Like success in capitalism, it is part of the American story because it perpetuates the belief that life is discovered, not inherent in you being born. If we told the story that America had always been here, we might get interested in what happened in pre-columbian history. A dangerous time of people living their god-given life, not having their right to life chartered through the church or corporation or other organizational entrapments.

The fact that Columbus Day is part of the myth should, and has, made us question our relationship with the world we live in. Most people don't get all giddy about Columbus Day, but children are already looking past the minor Halloween holiday and counting down the days to Christmas.

These three myths all tell the same story. If you are good enough (Christmas), smart enough(to read Greek and know the world is round, not flat like it was convenient for the Catholic Church to say), or properly dressed for the occasion(Halloween -- any surprise women are expected to dress slutty???), your life will be handed to you. You will be given your life. These are all lies. Life is given in moment of conception.

It is taken away at the beginning of Western Education.

The first thing a child learns is non-sense play. This prevents them from participating in life as they learn abstract concepts. Children do not go to work with their parents, they do not participate in life and fantasize about things that are also an abstract educational experience. Children are isolated from learning life skills in favor of learning how to play legos and Xbox and doctor and other professions they will have little chance of actually becoming. This is on purpose. Every kids is goaded into being a fireman for the exact purpose that the chances that will cannot be a fireman. But what is more important is for you to learn that you must have a job. And that some jobs are more important than others. And that your job must be an important one. 

Stories like Columbus and Halloween and Christmas disconnect us from life and hand us abstractions, abstractioins to lead us to believe psychologically that we have to perform in the masquerade in order to be given life, that we cannot give ourselves life. That life is something external that happens to you ( if you are good enough, smart enough, and properly attired ), not something internal that YOU ARE A PART OF. Only the self-sufficient Americans, in the deep south or rural plains or the true Appalachians have been able to subvert these myths in exchange for being able to give themselves life,

The goal of people in Columbus' day was 'to be a person of leisure' which meant other people handed you life, with which you handed them a myth that they get their life from handing part of theirs to you. These holidays are a holdover of the myth of slavery and that life is external and something that happens to you.

These holidays aren't a celebration of anything other than the fact you don't the difference between a wild yam and poison ivy.

So cheer up! Spend you Columbus Day making a paper pilgrim hat while it is wet and cold outside. It may not keep your head warm, but boy aren't you crafty?