Chocolate-egg-laying-bunnies…

…a slow-moving caravan of people, some carrying an idol that usually lives in that one old building—you know, the one tied to that priest scandal years ago—carefully following a flamboyantly dressed man in robes (a look society has fully accepted, though, personally, I still find less entertaining than a good drag queen. Safer around kids, too.). Elderly women lead the low hum of chants, a soft chorus of whispers from the faithful—people talking to themselves, but, importantly, not in a dementia, collective psychosis, or any other clinically concerning way. And, of course, all of this in honor of that one guy who, allegedly, pulled off the ultimate comeback about 2,000 years ago—the one zombie story where witnesses and apostles become the brain-devouring creatures, while the one walking dead mysteriously… walked away.

I confess, i got baptized catholic—but that’s where it ended as far as my family was invested.

Just so you know, I’d probably be any kid’s dream godfather, but my charming personality seems to have served as a warning to family, friends, and acquaintances alike that, yeah, maybe not such a great idea—especially given my long-standing questions about religion. You know the kind: how is it that people who are otherwise perfectly capable of clear thinking can slip, almost frictionlessly, into an entire system of magical beliefs and base their ethics on it, while spectacularly sidestepping the more difficult question of what it actually means to be good? And, in the process, easily overlooking the real impact organized faith has on millions of lives—so long as it offers a place to belong. Or at least, a role to play.

In my case, by pure geographical accident, I grew up within the Catholic sphere. It could have been any other. I looked. As a teenager, I realized my brain couldn’t quite reconcile the real world with that other one I sometimes wished were true. But then again—Wonderland, Neverland, Hogwarts, the bible—they all belong to the same category. Meanwhile, there’s more than enough hate coming from the self-righteous believers of this one. When hate becomes a village’s main strategy for community-building, it should push anyone with a moral compass to question the use of a book as justification to wage war on people simply for being different.

What surprises me most is how well all of this continues to function. The duality: the finger pointed in public, the irreproachable posture—and then, in private, the comforting idea that there is always forgiveness. So, in the end, everything passes. Or worse, no belief at all—just religion wielded as a weapon.

The “flock” starts to feel less like a community and more like a forest falling in slow motion: trees collapsing all around, yet no one willing to acknowledge the sound. Like that old thought experiment—if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, did it really fall? Here, it’s as if everyone hears it, but collectively agrees to pretend they don’t.

And yet, the structure holds. Like a parking lot built where a forest once stood: no one really witnessed the transition, but now it’s simply what’s there.

Uff. Tangent.

What I actually meant to say is that I take advantage of these dates that the social contract—that code I still haven’t fully deciphered—has chosen to preserve. A secular state, yes, but still religious holidays, because traditions endure, celebrations matter to some and other’s need time to party or rest, and, of course, certain senseless random diets must be observed because you are what you eat and you’ll go to hell otherwise.

For me? Diets make me hungry. I’ll pass.

But i’m totally sold on having peace and absent-mindedness for a couple of days enjoying time off societal obligations.

Just ignore public gatherings where behaviors are weirder than any tweaked raver dancing wildly for an undetermined amount of hours spotted at every Coachella-like festival around the world. Praise the actual celebratory joy and experimental awareness that those grinding teeth represent, all missing from regular run-of-the-mill self-hating flagellating religious zealots preaching fear while enumerating every way you’ll bleed and suffer through hell. Because let’s face it. You will not repent.

Still, I mostly miss forests actually being there.