Where are We Going?

Times have changed. This we all know. I can run the gamut and talk incessantly about the differences between yesterday and today – why the 60’s and 70’s were a more powerful era than today…….civil rights for all mankind, there done. However there’s more to it and I’m sure in this short little dialogue I won’t be able to really explode my sociologic episodes all over you, but I’ll try.

I can dissect our apparent need to always be connected. Just the information highway and all our forms of communication alone can throw one into a tirade of debates. But I won’t go there. Why you ask? Its way too huge an argument. Information is cast upon us by the truckloads – friggin 10 year old kids have cell phones for Pete’s sake! And we all know that today’s youth is so much more preoccupied with life than our parents were. “Have to be connected at all times, can’t miss anything” Is it the media’s fault for having our youth grow up faster succumbing to the harsh realities of life by blatantly advertising thug life on the news and entertainment fields? – Again, another discussion.

The point I’m trying to make is this. Kids certainly are growing up more and more self advocating. Fads and fashion are more important than who the senator of your state is.

The United States has brought us up to believe that we are the biggest and the best world power. Are we? History says we are. So why worry? “Someone else will take care of things so I’m not worried. Some other schlep will be coerced into enlisting in the Army, I’m not getting my ass shot at by my own free will.” Have we all adopted this new attitude that the guy next door will take care of it so why fret?

There is no cohesiveness in this democracy. What one school teaches and advocates on the East coast is certainly not what is being done on the West. We are overpopulated, come from one too many backgrounds to really have the common interest that our parents had. Our grandfathers and their fathers were here to start a new and better life. We were smaller towns, smaller cities, smaller lives – less complicated more unified. People went to church, had Sunday dinner – there were social norms that everyone abided by. Our families talked more to each other because basically there wasn’t much else to do. Hell most of our parents didn’t have a television until they were around 9 or 10 and even then there were only 4 channels.

Our minds are all over the place. With today’s technology one can have loads of channels in the household – how could a kid or even adult’s attention span be regulated to normalcy? And I don’t care what the “professionals say” the media (Magazines, Television, Radio, internet) push thoughts into our already over cramped minds – the rise in crime and violence, who’s shooting who and why. Our selfish over burdened minds have way too much to worry about – schools, college, Burburry bags, being thin and beautiful, clothes, and will Brad and Jenn ever get back together. Way more important than what is going on for our future social security.

Have we been swallowed up by technology? Does Darwin theory apply in any shape matter or form? It is still fundamentally survival of the fittest, but now it micromanages our lives and we are not thinking as a whole. Too much to worry about in our own personal day to day lives, who has time to agonize over anything else. Who’s fault is it that we as a society have become like that? Because, oh yes, we have.

Our parents rallied for equal rights. Me, I get angry when McDonald’s changes the value meal menu. Ok not really, but you get what I’m saying. There are so many committees, self help groups, organizations and such all fighting to be heard and wanting a piece of each of us to contribute, give, care - that I think most of us, who have not been traumatized by something like Cerebral Palsy, Save the Amazon or AIDS, really don’t hear it. Its there, its all out there but we have all been taught to be selfish, to be the best and its affecting us so that we don’t hear it all, our blinders prevent it. Its like static on the radio when changing stations – I don’t notice it, but its there.

Its not going to change, its too hard. I don’t care how many book clubs Oprah starts, it ain’t going to change the fact that we are becoming incredibly self absorbed. By time I’m ready to retire, there will not be social security. I’ll have paid into it, yet it won’t be there. I can’t even get angry, you know why? Because I’m too lazy and personally obsessed to do anything about it. Sure I might actually write a letter to Congress, but I’m not about to haul my cookies to Washington to demonstrate about it. Perhaps I already know the end result and that’s why I won’t bother or perhaps I am just that indolent. Or perhaps its because there are so many interesting causes to dedicate myself that I can’t sit and choose just one. I’m no Joan of Arc, that’s for damn sure – I care, I’m willing to do my thing, but for the love of god, which do you choose? I’ll think about it later when I’m trying to decide if I want to watch 'Real World' or VH1 'I Love the 80’s' while downloading free music, talking on the phone with Trixie and receiving a fax about the menu specials at Big Jim's pizzeria.