Petite Etoile, 2/15

Our society has a never ending thirst for something new, something exciting, something that’s never been seen or done before. We constantly crave entertainment, and we cant spend more than two minutes without turning on the TV or the radio or getting on our computers. We can never just simply be. And on top of all this, we have the attention span of a 5-year old who just ate a few spoonfuls of sugar. Something can only keep us happy and retain our attention for a short while before it becomes old and boring, even though not to long ago it was the newest and the best. It’s sad really, how easily tricked we are into this cult of the new. We have perfectly working cellphones, tv’s, cars, computers and so forth, but when the newest and most improved version comes out we simply must have it. Even though they aren’t that much different at all from their perfectly functioning predecessors, except for their large increase in price. This happens a lot especially with cellphones. We don’t really need cellphones that can take pictures and play games and count backwards in Chinese from 345. But because of all the hype of the brand new and better model, everyone buys into it and spends a lot of money they don’t have. I think this is the root of most of the problems in our society. We don’t buy out of necessity, we buy out of frivolous desire. And this leads to debt, over consumption, and a lack of political and social justice. We would rather spend all of our money and time on stupid entertainment than trying to help people around the world who are suffering. We’ve become lazy and selfish and are not willing to give up our toys to help others or to try and save the environment, because it doesn’t affect us directly and we would rather have what we want fast and cheap. It was only until gas prices started directly affecting the American public’s pockets that people suddenly started being eco-friendly. I think we need to take a step back and re-learn what it is to be ourselves, without any music or games or entertainment. I think we need to re-learn what its like to have a face to face conversation without any technology or music or movies to distract or alcohol or drugs to make it better. I think if we could somehow all just take a day off, just pack a picnic basket and go out onto a grassy hill and lay back and look up at the sky, maybe we would realize that the best parts of life really are the simply joys and the real relationships.