Tel Quel

(Knock knock) “Hi, would you like to buy some roses?”
Sorry, I don’t believe in Valentines’ Day.
(Pause) It’s okay, in that case, there’s also another option: Maybe you’d like to celebrate Friendship week instead?
…Not really, no.

I think I came across as brutally honest and/or socially awkward, I should have lied in some other way. In any case, I would like to believe my sincerity as a friend or potential lover is worth more than a flower or the exchange-value of one, especially on the attention paid only to one particular day. I don’t need the sorcery of mass consumerism invading my room tonight, what I would have done instead is to distribute 118 to 128 of The Culture Industry to the source of all these (menacing) flower-peddlers. I really don’t understand, and even so, the mortality rate of flowers are completely abysmal. It’s not even about viability in the first place; how is it that such a faculty is reduced to an apparently purposeful conduit of the industry, is beyond me. I cannot even consider Barthes’ question of evaluating viability and it’s supposed Goodness, but I do find something deeply ontological of one question in particular, “Why is it better to last than to burn?”

Of course, the merits of what must be considered (with regard to Barthes) outweighs the feeble attempts to consolidate the cultural standards of modern affection. I would think I have the capacity to deliver promises, not flowers – and not just for one day (to compensate for three hundred and sixty-four other days of potential, therefore also permitted, inadequacies).