Going Postal

Do you see what I did there? I've incorporated the word post, which is what a blogger does into the larger term "going postal," which means being really upset. Jokes are always funnier when explained in detail. In this way jokes are like long stories that you can't wait to tell all of your friends, guess what, unless the story ends with you pooping your pants in delirium it's probably worth abridging. Don't worry (name excised), your secret is safe with me.

I heard the most interesting story on NPR the other day. (Don't worry, my initial reaction to hearing anyone offering an anecdote based off an NPR story is also to rip my ears off and dance around a fire while chanting in Syriac)The story seemed like an apt metaphor for modern life. I'd link it here, but I couldn't find it in two seconds. And, as we all now know, if it can't be googled immediately it probably isn't worth knowing. Digression complete. Maybe. Anyhow, the story was about the Chinese discovering how amazing fast food is, welcome to the club my dear friends. Unfortunately, as a result of the increased consumption and increased creation of trash they have started to develop really unsightly and incredibly smelly trash heaps near cities.

Solution:
A) Employ a band of renegade raccoons to scour the trash heaps at night in order to reduce the wasted food. The obvious drawback being that raccoons are notoriously unpredictable.

B) Assume that continuing overconsumption is going to present a long-term ecological disaster, and that you should begin to draw back from these short-term easier comforts in order to maintain at a stable state for generations to come.

C) Throw all of the trash into rivers. The rivers are pretty large, and now that the dolphins are gone, who cares anyway? The fish will grow back. Do fish grow like plants?

D) Burn it. Nothing says modern industrial power like burning heaps of trash and creating an even more intense smog to form over your country. Added benefit being that if you get a good enough fog going foreigners can't spy on your country with satellites.

E) Get a bunch of huge industrial fans and mount large perfume bottles in front of them and intermittently spraying something fresh over the rotten stench of garbage. Added bonus: Who the hell knows what vast amounts of perfume will do to the populous. The science experiment is just for funsies.

F) Pretend like it's not there. Tourist: Is that a giant trash heap I'm seeing right there? Guide: What. I see a skyscraper.

Choose one.

If you chose E, then you know the way that our modern world is headed. The best way to solve a shitty problem is to cover it up with something that smells pretty.

Incidentally, the whole going postal thing has nothing to do with my day, and I'm now regretting the title, which could have been used more effectively on a day when I actually got angry, perhaps at the post office. Who knows? Endless possibilities. It's like having a handful of tokens at Chuck E. Cheese. Only good things can happen from here.

Added bit of existential sort of dread that occasionally characterizes these otherwise droll blogs.

I was talking with a friend today about the inability of human beings to remain present to the moment. He confirmed that human beings future tense thinking was both a great source of strength and weakness. It strikes me as a particularly Western view of the world, whereby, the only thing that keeps us going is what we will be doing in the future. Occasionally it just strikes me as odd that we have to remind ourselves as a species (and I realize that this is probably most relevant in the West, particularly America perhaps) to be actively engaged in the moment and not dreaming of where we'll be next. I suppose that's why I've been a fan of the Eastern monastic tradition, the strict attention paid to each breath.

Why is it so hard to be here though? Are we that unhappy with our present state or have we been trained to only think of our futures, money, cars, marriages, children, so that we can't actually enjoy the moments we are in. Or is it a blessing that we aren't satisfied? Perhaps we'd still be wandering around chasing herds of buffalo if we weren't filled with dread that we could be doing something better. These sorts of questions really aren't appropriate to bring up in a blog post, so let's just forget the whole thing and talk about some things I know.

As I've aged I've become more partial to the color red. At night sometimes when I hear creaks in our house I am still certain that my death is imminent. Cooking for one person is a giant waste of time. I eat too quickly. I don't pay enough attention to important things. I am highly internally mentally motivated and externally lazy. Life does actually pass by faster with each passing year. It is a good thing to be warm, perhaps a holy thing.