Speed and Innocence Lost

Today, our lives are permeated with speed and efficiency. At work, we are asked to do more work with less resources. In our daily routines, we have to wake up early, rush to get ourselves and our families ready, to get the off to the daycare or school, and then ourselves to that 9am conference call, which we had to prep for the night before, since we were too busy stressing and sifting through the day’s average load of 100-plus emails and instant messages from 20 different people… who have their own agendas. Ahhh!!!

Then we rush back to the daycare or school, pick our kids back up and rush them home, so that we can make them something half-way decent to eat, listen to all their demands in stereo – when there’s more than one child, poke and prod them into tidying up their room or do their homework, all the while stealing glances at the sink full of dishes and your laptop bag, sitting at the hallway entrance, dreading the 10pm log-on to clear our your mounting inbox!

I know that these are all run-on sentences, that grammatically speaking, are incorrect. But really they are evocative of the kind of lives we lead today. Do we every really get any rest? Our lives are like run-on sentences, aimlessly meandering with one minor crisis after another, with seemingly no end in sight. Worst of all, this becomes the accepted standard with which we live our lives. And why?

Seems ludicrous, doesn’t it? But yet, it’s ‘normal.’ Everything is fast now. We live in a give-it-to-me-now society, in which nothing is sacred anymore. Our kids are growing up faster, we are moving from job-to-job faster, relationship-to-relationship faster, accumulating toys, fashions and useless trinkets of brash opulence faster than ever. Again I ask, why?

Seeing Michael Moorer’s film, Bowling for Columbine, I understood why. The main point her tries to make is that “fear sells.” When are scared or unsure of ourselves, we have gaps in our very beings that need to be filled. And when all else fails, what fills it in better than that cute pair of wedges from NineWest or that 65” inch Sony from Best Buy, or even on a more intrinsic level, an extra-large double-double from Tim Horton’s?

Therein lies the key. We buy stuff to feel better about ourselves. And to facilitate this behaviour, our society has generated a very insidious way of making us buy stuff: by putting fear into us. We get tired from hectic lives and demands that seem to have no end or relief in sight. Hope is lost and we give in, thinking that if I just get that new thing, it’ll all be worth it.

Gaps used to be filled with good time spent with friends, having parties in our basements. We used to be on our bicycles all-day or at the playgrounds. The key was that it was our relationships with people – our family, friends, lovers and neighbours, that put smiles on our faces and warmth in our hearts, so that we could go to bed at night with a sense of peace and fulfillment.

Problem is, that those things don’t generate revenue for anyone. How can anyone be at the stores spending money if they’re at the park, pushing their kids on the swings? So society has been slowly, but surely, pulling us apart… with more work, misdirected values and ass-backward priorities. Isolation is the name of the game. If have I no one turn to for companionship, I’ll just get in my car and drive over to local retailer or jump online and I buy something to make myself feel better.

I’ve noticed that cell phones and Ipods have taken over. When someone pops in the earbuds of their MP3 player, they tune out the rest of the cruel world. In order to make that happen, they have to buy the electronic gadget, buy the handy little accessories they come with and buy (or steal) the songs on-line. And when they get bored of listening to the same songs over and over again, buy some more, day after day, week after week, till their personal library is filled with tens of thousands of songs. All-the-while, who are they interacting with? No one… not friends, family or neighbours. But hey, purchases are being made and money is being spent, and that’s what really counts, after all.

It’s gotten to the point now that even taking time off from work or well-deserved vacation, almost impossible. Sounds dumb, I know. Who fears taking vacation? Reality is that getting someone to back you up while you’re gone is impossible, because everyone is too busy to take on anymore. And when you come back to the office a week later, you’ve got several hundred emails to contend with, even though you are working like you never left. Within a few hours, you are wound right back up and possibly even regretting ever having left the office. So, what do you do to cope? You cant very well complain to the boss, so you steal away to Tim Horton’s for a caffeine fix. Those few precious moments away from your desk will make the troubles of the day go away. “That’ll be $1.95 please.”

Or maybe I’ll check my Hotmail again – for the 10th time today, while unconsciously looking at the internet “real-estate” adds from Lavalife tempting me with “sexy singles” that are “waiting to talk to me today.” Oh, I can tell by her picture that she wants me and my life will be so-much the better once we connect… and for on $19.95 I can starting browsing and sending messages to the these sexy-singles today! Where’s my Visa?

As a society, we are letting this happen… guilty as charged. We are letting the values that we grew up with just disappear. I was just peering in on my parents, watching them read their Sunday paper, sharing a homemade cup-of-coffee, and light banter about the weather. And I thought: “that’s just crazy. How can they just be sitting there? Don’t they realize there’s so much to be done?” And then I realize, the crazy one is really me. I cant even just sit for a few minutes to read a book or watch a good TV program.

In the process of this conspired madness, families, friendships, relationships and our neighbourhoods disintegrate. Our kids grow up faster and we burn out quicker. And why? Just so we can buy more stuff and, voila… feel better about ourselves.

Happy shopping.