Do you ever feel that you might be enjoying life more and more liking the world less and less? That’s where I am right now.
The rate of change and what the changes are bringing at first feel exciting but then become disappointing, empty and eventually overwhelming. Many of them are based on saving money or streamlining a process, replacing a product or finding a new way of doing things. Very few, it seems to me, advance humanity, increase compassion or improve the way we communicate with each other at a personal level. Indeed many changes (I’m resisting calling them advances) are about distancing us from each other and isolating us more.
Every night there is news of more jobs lost as businesses close. I despair for those scores of people who have given many years to a company, shown loyalty through tough times who suddenly find they have no job to go to the next day, no pay packet to look forward to and debts up to the eyeballs because they have bought the latest ‘must have’ technology or mortgaged their McMansion, borrowed to pay the kids school fees let alone the mandatory second or third car.
Decisions are taken from us in benign ways. I suspect in a couple of years we may no longer have a daily newspaper in Melbourne; there will certainly be a news service from Fairfax or News Limited but only on line and users will pay for that by subscription or pay as you go. I have a weekend ritual with newspapers and now that is taken from me. I choose not to access news articles on line except for specialty newspapers or overseas publications. I like the battle with the broadsheet, doing the crossword or the nine letter puzzle and I like picking up the paper a day or so later when I remember there was ‘that article’ I meant to read – much more civilised than putting the name of the article (which I won’t remember)into the search box and retrieving it. By the time I do all that I could probably be half way through reading the paper copy.
Social network is just a mystery to me. How anyone can seriously believe they are having any sort of meaningful ‘conversation’ on Facebook, Twitter, Yammer or the various incarnations is beyond me. Yes you are exchanging words but there is no evident, obvious meaning or nuance to separate the rubbish from the quality. Everyone seems to be plugging something or showing their language shortfalls (the F Bomb is dropped with no regard for offence or context – very mature), exposing their emotional state or latest triumph. There’s a real sense of ‘look at me’ and yet there are cries of ‘I want to be alone’...have we all gone just a little bit mad? I just yearn for a good old chat, doesn’t even need to be deep and meaningful.
TV is full of dross, the quality stuff lasts a minute before it is dropped. We have to be judged or commented upon in some way to be a success – well it’s some kind of ‘reality’ I suppose. And for the love of heaven they’re bringing back Big Brother. How soon we forget why that show was cancelled just a few short years ago, perhaps the programmers know we will fall for it all over again and how sad does that make us?
Obama came to power in America on a promise of Hope and offering an open palm to ‘enemies’. In the four years he has continued to clench his fist...Israel and Palestine are no closer to co-existence, Iran is being lined up for the next ‘invasion’, Syria is a mess, Iraq is ready to fall apart, Afghanistan has progressed very little.
Meanwhile in Australia Parliament is a disgrace. All sides have demonstrated a lack of maturity or care for the parliamentary process and ignored the message from the last election – we want better. Labour is more intent on retaining power than improving the lot of the people, the opposition is hell bent on getting an election at any cost but offers no alternative policies. And they think we won’t deliver another hung parliament or minority government?
No-one seems to know what they are doing; it is hard to have confidence in our business leaders, our politicians, our educators, even other drivers. Young people seem lost and alone, being exposed to cruel and unjust things that my generation could not have coped with. They are undoubtedly smarter but I suspect softer and more sensitive and not in a good way. Is this because of the isolation and distance that our ‘advances’ have created?
So I’ll find a nice park to go to and have nature surround me, the bird song and the air to nourish me. I’ll take a book with me – a real paper and binding one – I’ll have a soothing beverage and maybe a sandwich I’ve made myself from fresh ingredients. I’ll sit quietly in my own thoughts for an hour or two. I’ll absorb the life around me and within me.
And I’ll take a moment...
To wish...
To hope...
And life will go on and the world will continue to turn.
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