Whatever it is we are all experiencing we aren’t going through it alone. Our newfound mania is a world-wide phenomenon. Two stabbings in a week in usually staid, quiet, and homogenous Australia tell me that whatever anxieties are currently mainstream are being felt far, and wide.
Just as we stand before a microwave and watch the seconds go down, down, down tapping our feet anxiously, when we used to wait not seconds, but minutes for water to boil, or an oven to re-heat, technology appears to compress our unease. It heighten anxiety, and creates the feeling that some unseen force is pushing, pushing, pushing us all to hurry to a place we can’t see or define.
If asked we’d all probably say we are in no hurry to get anywhere, anywhere at all. But that is not the general mood or prevailing feeling. I’m old and past most of it but I worry for the kids. Leisure days in a swing outback of the house are as far gone as an episode of “Ozzie and Harriet”, a kid’s weekend is one big pre-planned event. Soccer at 10 AM, library for a reading at 1 PM, a 3 PM birthday party. No time for leisure, even at the tender age of eight. Wake up on the Lord’s day and no rest for the weary, there is a travel game in the morning, and dinner at grandma’s house. The entire weekend as planned as a school day.
Add in escalating prices and an inflation that is just smothering and everywhere one turns they feel unsettled. Hurried.
Thrust into a race they didn’t plan for, don’t want to run, and feel as if they are already so far behind it isn’t worth beginning to run at all.
And who can blame anyone?
You pass a Brexit years ago and still nothing has changed, nothing implemented. The powers-that-be just seem to ignore your vote completely. The same with the border in the good old US of A. The people clamor and scream for something to be done to close the border and the powers-that-be keep it wide open, and attempt to convince all that the influx is just great for America.
Powerless and broke can create an anxiety all on its own. Add in the undercurrent and ever-present vibrations pushing us from technological advances and we are a society coming unglued.
How many hours did you sit in a park enjoying nature last week, taking an hour to drink in the beauty all around, smell the changing of the seasons as it approaches, and to give yourself absolutely nothing to do for an afternoon on end?
The very idea is almost laughable. You have no time for that shit. There are bills to be paid, kids to shuttle, a schedule that makes demands. No one has time to stop and smell the roses. The only roses you’ve seen are bagged for $18 at Publix, sitting in smelly water and wrapped in cellophane. You haven’t seen one in nature in, well who knows how long.
You don’t want to admit that prices are beginning to actually scare you. And that the idea of making some changes to “the usual” might be in order to keep pace and not fall behind, far behind.
I was just sitting here thinking of a quick “fill-in” trip to the grocery store and realized that the $ 20 bag of Pupperoni for the dogs, the $ 28 case of San Pellegrino for me, and the two pack of steaks for the grill this evening at $ 32 puts me at $ 80 in three items and I still don’t have bread, bananas, potatoes, rice and the few fill-in items I was going to go get in the first place. Of course the dogs don’t need treats, and I could do with some store-bought version of bubble water, and chicken is cheaper than steak, but no one wants to be forced to curb the usual lifestyle. What kind of world are we living in where our quality of life has to go backwards? We are seeking a more affluent lifestyle, the very idea of going backwards is, well, uncivilized. I can’t, I won’t. Will you?
Just typing that last paragraph made my own anxiety level rise. But then I go to the store, pass you by as you shop, and you are smiling, wandering leisurely, not a care in the world.
Am I alone? Is it me? Am I an abject failure? Do I need a second job? We head to the parking lot my car is 12 years old and you enter a brand new Range Rover with bag after bag of groceries.
And my anxiety level rises once more, now even higher.
I thought I was fine. Clearly I am not. I bring up the computer and see it is possibly WWIII, but then again just below the article on Iran-Israel there is Tay-Tay at Coachella. Is the world ending, is this all real, do I need to go to TMZ next?
I’d like to climb out of this hole, find some time to relax, but the job, the costs, the schedule. If you are leading a parallel life how’d you get the Range Rover?
Somebody slow this whole thing down before we collectively lose our minds.
If those at the top are all so shit-happy with their affluence how come they seem to spend so much time convincing us all that everything is all right, that inflation is “temporary”, that the border is closed, that the economy is “booming”, and everything is just great. Have you seen the new jobs numbers yet, and crime is down!
Holy Jesus, do they live on the same planet? I just read murders are down in the major cities. I guess when you don’t count them and let people walk on serious charges and have no “statistics” on the serious event that just took place in the subway, then crime has to go down. No paperwork, no crime.
I’ve decided in my own meaningless life to slow things down.
To appreciate the little things.
To take the European Mediterranean attitude. A small dish of olives, a cold beer, a few slices of cheese, and no outside stimulation. Sit, relax, munch, contemplate. No computer. No TV. Not even any music. Just thought.
Thought is still free. Though they are attempting to criminalize it at the FBI.
If you see a day where there is a gap, and nothing published from me, I ran away for a few hours. A dish of olives, a hunk of freshly made bread, some cheese. A cold beer. Incredible thoughts. Lost in deep thought, or as deep as a kid from Parkville can think. A puddle not the Mariana Trench.
Sorry, but tomorrow I may just “think” a column that never gets published. I need an escape from life’s treadmill, the world set it at too fast a speed, I had to get off of it. For a little while.
You should too. Our collective sanity is at risk as this pace.
“New found mania”. “Powerless and broke”. I look around and wonder am I alone. How are you all walking around like everything is normal. While in line at the grocery store, I’ve mentioned the prices and the person shrugged like “ that’s the way it is” and then get into their new Range Rover. Meanwhile I’m slowly going backwards afraid of where it stops.