Doesn’t it seem like we’ve got nothing really new to offer?
We (humans) have been everywhere… done everything. I mean, we’ve been to Everest so many times, there’s a trash problem. Ditto for Antarctica. Same for the ocean bottom and even the satellite-laden stratosphere. Hell, there’s even 20 tons of trash on the fucking Moon!
Look at the top ten movies right now — SEVEN of them are either sequels and/or based on old media. Bob Dylan does Victoria Secret ads. The Who played at the last Super Bowl. People travel to the Grand Canyon to sit in lawn chairs or visit the interpretive center. The top tourist draw is cruise vacations, promising safe simulations of real high seas adventure. Twenty five percent of all internet traffic is porn. Sixty seven percent of American households play video games. Do you suppose that grown men in 1864 spent their weekends reenacting the Revolutionary War? And, why do we give a crap what George Clooney ever has to say about politics? Why do we have a Historical Preservation Society? Could it be that we only produce crap?
Let’s face it, Preservation and Simulation is the new Exploration. We are the greatest distraction society ever — longing for either what used to be or what can never be.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Distraction is big business. I’m constantly fighting with my 11-year old about video games. We don’t have a “box” or DS or anything he says he wants. And evidently he’s the only one of his peers who doesn’t have one. I thought this was a lame argument until I found out it was TRUE.
Very interesting. I’d never thought of it that way before, but you are right. Being an advocate for halting human growth (not progress), if I had my way, more time and money would be spent on what we haven’t done and less on what we’ve driven into the ground. For starters, any kind of 19th Century, Industrial Revolution, or post-WWII baby boom-induced mentality needs to be flushed down the toilet. Many actions (and their aftereffects) that came out of that kind of thinking were rooted in an oblivious, fundamental lack of understanding. Because of that history, we live today in a fake, often regurgitated world, that in so many ways and so many levels is worthless. We have so much potential, yet the Earth would be better off without us. I see we have two choices: Re-invent ourselves or simplify. In other words, we can go back to being a part of nature, rather than a scourge, or take our hard-earned technological know-how and wisdom (that some have achieved), bring back the pride of accomplishing incredible things, while making the whole world (not just ours) a better place. Or a combination of both. Either way we need to start earning our value. Despite what political correctness says, we not only produce a lot of crap, we are becoming crap.
“Could it be that we only produce crap?”
My wife and I say “Why is everything shit?” at least once a day. It might not even be quite so bad if the distractions were of high quality, hand-made and cared for by people doing good work, but it’s all CRAP about crap.
The answer is in your previous post: “There aren’t more millionaires because the minority money masters understand the nature of fear, passion, doubt, hope — the human mind’s freeloaders.”
It’s that we don’t need ANY millionaires. Competition isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Most species survive by evolving to become a cooperative part of nature, sometimes through competing with their own kind, but mostly by constant adaptation. Competition for competition’s sake is in vain, but it looks great in the movies. In the post-WWII world of entertainment and planned obsolescence, competition means two people buy the same gadget instead of one, and a third goes in debt to buy the next better one. They all fall apart in a year and everyone buys another with an extra cupholder and the bank raises their credit limit when they make the payments.
I should send a picture of the “Luxembourg Culturalism Center” in Belgium, WI. The fuckin’ place is bigger than the country it simulates, in a town with a population of ‘no grocery store’. Sometimes, some royal dufus from Europe comes over for the annual parade. I’m the only one with an actual BELGIAN name living the frickin’ town of Belgium. The Belgians all live in: you guessed it, LUXEMBOURG, WI …fuckin’ eh.
Due to the miracle of the internet:
http://www.luxamculturalsociety.org/index.html
What Murray Neil said.
And the average stay at the Grand Canyon is four hours. They look over the rim, wander through the shops, then tool on down the road and tell everyone they’ve been to the Grand Canyon.
What a waste of everything.
Kind of OT, but here’s a good letter from Charles Hugh Smith’s blog (http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html):
K.C.
I can’t help but feel the “machine” has sold me some ocean front property in AZ. I recently took a new job in March for a big salary and title (director of IT for a publicly traded company). Somehow leaving my wife and kid early in the morning, sitting in traffic by myself in my BMW, working all day long for people who could care less about me, sitting in traffic on the way home by myself for a 12+ hour day doesn’t feel right. I fall asleep on the sofa with the laptop working. I dream about work at night and wake up early in the morning and start checking email.
I worked hard and had to pay my way through college. My parents didn’t have much money and I was going to be the one to “make it”. I’ve gone that extra mile for each job I’ve held and have advanced rapidly for my efforts. The higher I climb, the less rewarding the work and the more I question the sanity of the system.
Now at 32, I’m in the worst physical shape of my life (I’m one of those weird people who loses weight when stressed). I don’t get to spend as much time with my family and friends as I would like. But I have a BMW and can buy any toy I want (most of which go unused). I am supposedly the american dream come true. $200k a year but I have to trade my health, my family, and ultimately my happiness for it. Seems reasonable? Not when framed in those terms but from everyone else’s perspective I am living the dream.
Somehow we’ve gotten this way of life very very wrong. Endless supplies of pleasure does not equate to happiness. I would even argue that it ultimately corrupts and corrodes one’s soul.
My happiest moments are playing with my son in the park, not cashing that check or handing out my business card with my title on it. Working on the exit plan to do more of former and less of the latter.
I used to worry, until I realised (not that long ago) that we are nothing more than high functioning yeast. We will consume and shit until our home is no longer habitable and then we will die off.
Just like yeast.
Eases my mind a great deal, and while I do my thing for the environment, I no longer stress about my impact.
fdurst
The hell with authentic simulation…I suggest we all get going with some Authentic Stimulation – right here, right now…come on…just rubbed the cat’s paws while doing a friendly kind of purish-purrr (she liked it), eating a peanutbutter cookie that’s soft and chewy and sticks to my teeth yum, it’s hot I’m taking my tectop off, this office is stuffy > OPEN WINDOW > hi flowers, dancing around to George Harrison’s “I’d Have You Anytime” + more on All Things Must Pass which is vibrating through the house as old hard wood floors and raised foundations are good for that, GOD I LOVE the SOULFUL sounds of his guitar/slide guitar and you?
The only solution is to turn off the mind noise and go somewhere real.