drag-on cultures

How many times have you walked past some little shop during the month of June and caught a "Happy New Year" streamer still hanging on the door? If you answer is 'never' then im sure you don't come from where i come from.

We're a culture that likes to drag on everything. Be it new year decorations, arabic pop music, or- my favorite example- the Titanic movie: we drain everything. I'll stop at Titanic for a minute. When it came out, it was in theaters for forever. We all saw it at least twice. When the whole population was at ease that everyone else had seen it too, Celine Dion's theme song blared everywhere. There were Titanic t-shirt, Titanic posters, Titanic car window shades. Hell, there was even a "Titanic Cafe" in the Maadi entrance, shaped like a big ship and everything. Meanwhile, the rest of the world moved on with the next movie that came out.

In Egypt we celebrate two Christmases. It is the perfect excuse for Christmas trees to stay up longer than they have to. Of course here, they stay up till Valentine's. Ramadan lanterns used to be hung at building entrances just for the duration of the holy month. More and more, people are finding it easier to leave the lantern up there all year round than to actually exert the five-minutes worth of effort it would require to take it down.

Break ups: we either rebound, or we take forever to get over ex-partners. Some people take years and are never really over each other. That is sick.

Online games and chain games: they're funny for the first few hours. People responding to chains weeks on is a drag.

And remember those virtual pets what were popular in the nineties? I bet we had them for longer than any other places, except maybe China. As our generation outgrew them younger ones were still excited to play with them.

Ahmed Zaky's death: Sure i will always admire his talent and acknowledge it from time to time, but he's dead. Move on cinema freaks.

There is so much more i can think of, the list is endless. The point is, we, as a culture, have got to learn to move on. Leave the past in the past. Acknowledge the end of an era, a fad, or even a movie. As long as we let the past drag on, we're missing out on new beginnings.