Just yesterday, in a conversation with a friend, I bemoaned the fact that lost forever are the collective moments of our childhood....
...the empty oatmeal box Mom handed the youngest to play with.
...the excitement of going to the mail box to see if the long awaited letter from a pen pal came.
...the anticipation of piling in the car, unfettered by restraints, with Dad's arm to protect us if he slammed on the breaks.
...the hours spent making roads for our Tonka trucks , which actually were built to last for years.
We've become a throw away society and the first to go are the people we use to love and care about in favor of technology. Our phone, our computer and our social media presence will not be there when we lay dying.
Bravo, Steve! You, and the people you quote, hit the nail on the head. I recall Chesterton and other Catholics of old, complained that Capitalism and Socialism are both problematic. Not least because they reduce life to utilitarian calculation, and treat the human person as a means rather than an end. Our attention is just one more commodity.
I’ve never seen so many in my life as I have this summer. Was driving down my street the other day and there was at least two and almost every yard. One house must’ve had nearly a dozen all just circling each other for no obvious reason.
NC summers are exceedingly gross, as you’re finding out (you didn’t move to the Piedmont/western part of the state, ya dummy!) but there are good aspects too. I’m somewhat near your old stomping grounds from the first(?) 1P5 days, in District 1 unfortunately. At least the dragonflies aren’t cicadas, and remind me to pray for you and yours.
Maybe the worst part of the late Gen X experience is realizing how much we’ve given up on our lifetime, and how little we got to enjoy the old world.
An excellent piece, Steve.
Just yesterday, in a conversation with a friend, I bemoaned the fact that lost forever are the collective moments of our childhood....
...the empty oatmeal box Mom handed the youngest to play with.
...the excitement of going to the mail box to see if the long awaited letter from a pen pal came.
...the anticipation of piling in the car, unfettered by restraints, with Dad's arm to protect us if he slammed on the breaks.
...the hours spent making roads for our Tonka trucks , which actually were built to last for years.
We've become a throw away society and the first to go are the people we use to love and care about in favor of technology. Our phone, our computer and our social media presence will not be there when we lay dying.
Bravo, Steve! You, and the people you quote, hit the nail on the head. I recall Chesterton and other Catholics of old, complained that Capitalism and Socialism are both problematic. Not least because they reduce life to utilitarian calculation, and treat the human person as a means rather than an end. Our attention is just one more commodity.
I keep seeing dragonflies these days.
Wrote a long comment and somehow failed to post it. I’ll try to reconstruct later, though my wit and wisdom might not be appreciated on this one.
I’ve never seen so many in my life as I have this summer. Was driving down my street the other day and there was at least two and almost every yard. One house must’ve had nearly a dozen all just circling each other for no obvious reason.
NC summers are exceedingly gross, as you’re finding out (you didn’t move to the Piedmont/western part of the state, ya dummy!) but there are good aspects too. I’m somewhat near your old stomping grounds from the first(?) 1P5 days, in District 1 unfortunately. At least the dragonflies aren’t cicadas, and remind me to pray for you and yours.