Secondhand Ideas

"It's probably best for all that you should consider everything you write to be, in that moment, the most important thing you've ever written."

Here in our reality based community nothing is new. Every TV show is a rerun, every meal is leftovers, clothing and fashion is on a design loop, every plot and policy is a carbon copy, every tune has a familiar melody, all our friends look like us now, warranties and patents have run out. Cats and dogs have grey faces. That was just before the machine stopped ...

From an old diary page with worn corners: "Some people feel sorry for those who lived in the past, as if they missed out on something; the higher standards, the education, the developments and the security we  now enjoy. But there are days when I'm not sure what I really enjoy because maybe it's only what I've been trained and conditioned to enjoy and so maybe deep down I'm not really enjoying it. It's just a learned bit of behaviour without heart. Trouble is I know I wont enjoy it at all when the machine stops ..."

"I saw a farmhouse burning down, right there, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. We rolled right past that tragedy until we came up on the roadhouse lights".  

We were travelling and that quirky old-school music was playing, all sounds and visually stimulating words. I could have been asleep. The dials flickered as the beat and volume changed. I hadn't been out for a while or tuned in much. I didn't really understand that nobody travels very far these days, "there's no need" say the government. It's too risky, you no longer should take such a chance, now that the machine has stopped.

In those occasional conversations you share over a meal, someone is slowly chewing their food. While I speak I cannot help but read their jaw and head movements as a nodding confirmation of whatever point I'm trying to make. As the evening progresses I slowly realize that we really agree about very little regarding anything that actually matters to me. (It was always my choice not to use brackets in this final paragraph).