Against mass society
I recently returned from a whirlwind trip east of the Mississippi involving visits with good friends, burying relatives, and meeting with assorted publishers. It was too much, too fast but did remind me of quite a few things that are easy to forget when you are working the grind. It is not easy to make time for yourself, new things, writing, or anything but plodding through and watching your sharp edges dull.Some of the snapshots I took during that week
Singing - It is depressing that the only way most of us experience a singing voice is by watching someone else. By watching a performance. I wish I could participate in sing-a-longs where I didn't either feel like a heel or feel like the situation was embarrassingly contrived.
Refurbishing a house - Living in the big city you (or at least I) seem to sacrifice place for speed. It is nearly impossible to own a home here and as a consequence wherever you live is someone else's place. If something breaks it is someone else's problem. The flip side to that is watching people move to towns where it is possible to have a place to call your own but to watch your world view shrink to the size of a 1/16th acre.
Living with strangers - The phenomenon of living with strangers has accelerated. No longer are we stuck with annoying itches and people who we depend on the pay the bills. Now, sites like Craigslist make it easier to change up than to actually confront problems with strangers. If you live in a desirable enough zip code then interpersonal skills has become something you get paid for and need for little else.
Death - I have a new found respect fot the transition that death represents in peoples lives. Obviously it is great transition for person who dies but those near the death are abruptly changed also. My mother has not been closer to me in almost 30 years than she has been since she died. I have even gone so far as to think positively about the choices she made with her life which I would have believed was not possible before she passed. As an example here is a song I only discovered as I was looking for a proper eulogy for her...
Community - Is the people passing through for the time they are within sight. Anything more has made impossible by the alienation of our time.
Replies
Thanks for the reportback on your travels and for sharing the Buffy Sainte-Marie song. It is a weird phenomenon the whole house thing. It isn't the same thing as some might think--- "oh you have a house now so I guess you're stuck in one place"--- people leave town way more often and for much longer periods of time than I was expecting before moving here.
Write reply
This item is closed, it's not possible to add new comments to it or to vote on it