Of course there are some problems that can't be avoided, like how much it's costing you to fill your forty gallon gas tank on your all-terrain pick up truck that you use to drive to work every day. You sit and fume about it every morning in the traffic jam on the way to work and watch the sky turn brown as the sun comes up. Two cents a gallon more today, what's a person going to do?
Oh well, American Idol is on tonight and the competition has been intense this time. At least there aren't any scandals about judges sleeping with contestants. Boy, that Simon Callow really gets you steamed though, he's such a prick. But the music is surprisingly good for amateurs. You used to sing back in high school with a band and were pretty good… better then that guy who won last week anyway. Shit, maybe you should enter next time.
Television is full of reality shows about unreal situations because no one wants to deal with reality. Hell, the government doesn't want to deal with reality, why should the population? Everything is great they say, the economy is booming. Then why are less people earning more and more people earning less money then ten years ago? What's so great about that?
As a continent we don't deal well with reality and when the real world comes knocking it finds us woefully unprepared. We have technology that allows us to do miraculous things but we use it primarily for mindless entertainment that keeps us from thinking about the world beyond our living room. If reality ever shows up on our 52" high definition television screen with surround sound all we have to do is find the right button on our remote to change our perception.
Tim Leary suggested society should "Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out". Somehow or other what we've done instead is to simply Tune Out. Welcome to the Age of Avoidance, where the credo is no longer it's who you know that matters, but what you don't know can't hurt you.
Article comments
1 - Christopher Rose
Nice work, Richard.
2 - Angeni Wyanet
Richard " while I agree with your assessment of reality shows, (I never wasted my time) I don’t agree with much else of what you’ve said. For starters, I think your reality is viewed through a very jaundiced and somewhat prejudicial eye.
Beginning with “the most recent”; turning to New Age religion for help. How is this any different than people praying for their lives to change and sitting back and waiting for it to happen for the last 2000 years? How is this any different than people going and speaking with their priest, their minister or a rabbi?
We have long looked to some divine intervention to change things we ourselves thought we couldn’t. Or a lot of times, were afraid to attempt or just too lazy to. It was so much easier to pray to something than actually take assertive action to change things for ourselves.
‘Too much debt? I’ll just pray that something will eventually come along to clear up that debt.’ It never occurs to us to go out and aggressively seek employment or find ways of doing that. Cut up those credit cards and use some self discipline to change our lives. Nah, just pray to god that it’ll go away.
My brother in law, (once removed), is a Methodist minister. He tells his parish that ‘the lord helps those that help themselves’. In other words, do it yourself. How many people do?
Also, how is buying a personal guardian angel any different than buying a St. Christopher metal to wear or carrying a fetish of some sort to protect you? Or any other amulets or talismans to guard us from bad things? These aren’t recent habits; these are ancient practices so are they valid simply because they're time tested?
You also unfairly characterize the person being hurt by high gas prices as a polluting, gas guzzling driver when in fact, there's a much better chance it’s a young mother who has to drive her children to daycare so she can get to her job. You know the one. The mother who’s family will suffer if she doesn’t work for that second income because taxes are so high?
She needs to pay her taxes so the government is able to pay out all that money keeping the people who are free loading off the system.
This mother can’t afford a new hybrid electric vehicle, and is stuck with driving her old Saturn and hopes, dare I say prays it won’t break down before they can afford a new one. Which is getting further and further into her future because gas prices continue to rise and suck up all her wage.
As for Ages. There were worse ‘ages’ in history than the one you’ve dubbed the Age of Avoidance.
How about two great European ages -
The Age of Empires " conquering and killing everything in your path.
The Age of Discovery " see above
Personally, while I totally disagree with your summation, if it were so, I would still rather be known as “one who avoids” rather than one who plunders, kills, steals, infects, and annihilates entire cultures and civilizations.