Don’t get me wrong. I’m not really a Luddite, well, not completely. I enjoy some of the gadgets and perks of the modern world. Just that it’s gone too far. Kids don’t roam free as we did in my day. The paths we carved into the forests are overgrown, the secret haunts we explored are hidden, awaiting another generation that can breathe the air scented with pine and wildflowers and shout with exhilaration at the sheer joy of being alive in a natural world. I never developed Hay fever or the long list of allergies that afflict most people I know who seem to have been cursed with an overactive immune system, that tries to kill, rather than protect them. Such a fate seems counter evolutionary to me, as if by shielding ourselves from Mother Nature, she has turned on us, denied us the comfort she gave our ancestors.
A virtual world is a poor substitute for a natural lover’s embrace.
I knew I was privileged in my semi-rural suburb, terrified that my parents would move us back to “the city” where sidewalks intervened between my feet & the earth. And yet the city chased us. My friends and I watched bulldozers tear down big chunks of our beloved woodlands to plant cul-de-sacs filled with strangers who never became familiar neighbors. Long before Eco-terrorism was heard of, we attempted sabotage, putting sand in the dozer gas tanks, but our efforts were futile. Only a few disconnected patches of the natural world remain of what we knew. I grew up an alien, a rebel, opposed to the course civilization was taking and determined to do something about it. And I was not alone. Many of my generation felt the same way, Hippies and Yippies, Freaks or whatever label was foisted on us, we recognized each other by our idealism and our discontent.
How about you?
Do you enjoy reading about life before cell phones & microwaves? Would you like to experience actual life, rather than the fake reality that fills our day on-line? Free love & social activism exploded into the wild sixties out of the staid fifties. Free Speech & Love, shared community, social norms and the rigors of fashion, short hair on men fell by the wayside. Get a taste of what you may be missing. Read on about a lost and found world that was the rebellious Sixties. No, it was not all Peace and Love. Dig it!
Chicago Rage is one slice of my perspective for you. Read it and see if it resonates with your spirit.
