Here we are in the modern world.
Our storytelling is all electronic, pretty much these days, unless you’re waiting in line at the cafe then somebody might say “Is that your bike?” and you would says “yes”, so pleased that someone would notice and embark on a story of your own, something short and pithy hopefully, and they respond with their own story, how they rode their bike 43 mph one time down a mountain, and even a little squiggle going at that rate would have been a disaster.
Or at the supermarket, you’re just leaving and someone says “Hi. So good to see you. How’s Mabel.” referring to your dog who just had a vasectomy at the vets. Then you can tell the story of Mabel and the vet and how she’s home now and feeling better. By that time you’ll be in the parking lot and she will remember the story of her uncle Joe who just went through a similar procedure.
Our transportation is all automatic. Horseless carriages. They convey ourselves and our goods over large distances quickly without complaint. Trains and airplanes and automobiles. Wasn’t that the name of a movie?
The whole planet, instead of being an unexplored and dangerous place, is known and mapped and accessible. Forget about the ancient ancestors wandering around looking for berries and trying not to get eaten by a tiger. We know where the food is and where the tigers are. Grocery store / zoo.
But in another sense the modern world hasn’t changed at all. People still have wars as if they were some kind of tonic, some kind of medicine, some kind of traditional way of making things better. We still speak in words. We still ask for the same things from each other. And the animals, they do their thing, as they always have, although in an altered world.
I wonder how much area is still wild and pristine and unaffected by the modern world. Not much. The North Pole, the South Pole, the bottom of the sea. Well not that, there’s probably a ship wreck or an old tire down there, a ripped up fishing net cast over the sea floor.
Studies have been done on the way humans remember. Stories are the way human beings remember. This is who we are. This is how we do it. Otherwise we might get really confused. Even more confused than we already are. Tigers don’t have to deal with that, they’re locked in. I have never once seen a tiger pretending to be a rabbit. In fact I’ve never seen a tiger except in the zoo. They always look bored to me, bored and frustrated, but still a tiger.
Another interesting thing about modern life is that this moment that we are in right now is the culmination of all history. Everything that has come before has led to this.
If the apocalypse wipes out society as we know it and we have to re-build, in a hundred years we would have cities and towns and governments of some sort, nations even, and they would carry on the same functions that they do today. Maybe a few modifications would be in order.
Thanks to Japanese Breakfast for the music. ‘Diving Woman’ and ‘Road Head’.
modern life