Whither we go?

Perhaps this post is a form of Requiem Mass for Bed, Bath and Beyond. Further, a favorite local branch of the department store Shopko, also has passed. There is a mall in a good-sized town nearby that was the center of a shopping beehive fifteen years ago. It stands empty, stark testimony to a time gone by.

Mariner walked down the main street of his small town noting the sparse retail presence. When he first visited sixty years ago, the town was the business heart of the county and enjoyed a farmer shopping invasion every Saturday. It’s hard to believe this small town once hosted three farm implement shops and two car dealerships.

Today, rural society suffers great duress – which is reflected in national politics.

But the issue goes beyond small towns and rural living. Society, as a phenomenon, is tied to resource management, specie sustainability and a balance with the greater environment. This is the intended lifestyle not only of humans but all types of species – especially our fellow primates.

As mariner has lamented many times, the tribal culture is a solution to the above-mentioned phenomena. Tribal association has proven to be a sustainable lifestyle even in tumultuous times like war. Today, extended families and tribal economies are shredded and spread around the world.

Whither we go? There are two movies to recommend. One, of course is Matrix, an oft-touted movie about the distant future when humans lived their entire life in a coffin supported by automated life sustainability and a three-dimensional, interactive reality fed to them electronically. The other movie, which reflects the conflagration of society today, is a dark comedy about life. It’s called “Little Murders’. Check it out on YouTube.

While it is true that mariner is an old fogie and well past his generational prime, he is not unduly stupid. He once watched a young person put on one of those face masks that supplanted visual and reflex behaviors with a Matrix-like reality. Add to this the dissipation of extended family, de-socialization of public schooling with laptops, smartphones, home delivery of anything and everything, cashless economy, robots for anything from cleaning house and cutting grass to the most private pleasures, and one can say, “Who needs limbic response?”