Our Slow Downward Spiral.....

Recently I was lucky enough to escape the claws of corporate america, school, and my other job long enough to have what we Americans call a "Vacation". Vacation to us is really any time where we are not involved in some sort of activity that involves thought. To the rest of the free world a Vacation is called a "Holiday" because you are actually gone long enough to break free of the mental imposition created by the mundane actions of everyday life. Fuck yeah! Celebrate! Its a Holiday! If only we were so lucky.

Anyway, back to my point. On my "vacation" I found myself sitting among a few folks out to catch a drink in the early afternoon hours at a family resort. Hell, its a vacation.

As I sat there quietly enjoying a lovely cocktail, immersed in the words of Steinbeck, a man next to me leans over and says, "Whatcha doin'? As if I was invovled in some sort of intergalactic learning activity unknown to the human kind.

So, I swallowed my disgust, leaned over, and politely but sarcastically said, "Reading. You know, words on a page, they form sentences in which you put together to form stories."

As I waited for some sign or recognition, I began to feel less normal and more like a social outcast.

And then came the words.............

"People still do that?"

I am not kidding.

I laughed politely again.....this time swallowing contempt and replied, "Yep, yes we do."

The point of this whole story is that I never realized how far removed people have become from books. And it scared me.

And it wasnt just that guy. My other afternoon drinking companions began discussing the last books that they had read.....................in high school.

I guess living in a city I take for granted that most people do not read. Everday I am surrounded by people glancing across pages on the trains or buses. And to me it doesnt even matter if they are reading a "Youth directed" lower standard newspaper, or a jaquelyn steele novel, the point is that they are reading.

So it got me thinking. How much more educated would we become as a whole if everyone was forced to travel public transportation, therefore creating more demand for reading materials to cure boredom?

Of course now with gas prices being as high as they are, that doesn't seem to be such a bad idea.

Screw our government, lets get the people from Disney to come in and build monorails connecting every town to every city in every state. They seem to have a pretty efficient system working for them.

Then again, I dont know how much travel imposed happiness I could take before getting nauseaous.

Well regardless of gas prices and our lack of vacations, I think we are struggling with a larger problem in our midst; Generations of people motivated only by visual stimulus, who call exercise lifting the T.V. controller from the sofa.

For gods sake people, Read a Book.