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Defeating Life's Object?
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| Last
uploaded : Wednesday 10th Nov 2004 at 00:11 |
| Contributed
by : Michaela Thomas |
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This is an Awards for All ' Voices' commissioned essay.
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I was a child of the 50s and 60s; a teenage follower of the Beatles. A fluorescent lipsticked, multi-coloured ?trendy? who liked to disco ?till 2am on a Saturday night in London and. eat smoked salmon bagels on the way home to Ilford in whosever?s car was going my way. Simple pleasures.
I?m a fairly moderate woman. I rarely partook of life?s excesses. Drink, cigarettes and wild parties were not my style. I prefer to use nature as a ?rolemodel? because I believe we can experience many of the thrills we need living in a gentler way, while not sacrificing our necessary crazy highs.
Now that I?m old enough to be a granny, I still haven?t changed my view that the simpler and more in accord with nature life is, the better it is. I think we have overcomplicated. life with modern technology, whereas it should be used to improve and simplify living conditions. A wealthy friend tells me that money buys freedom to do whatever you want, but how much freedom can you enjoy when you are working every hour to afford to retire early and to buy the astronomically expensive things many people crave; fast cars, mansions, holidays, memberships to top clubs etc.? All status symbols.
Happiness, to my mind, is actually a very different experience.It is within us, like security. Things don?t really make us happy and fulfilled. Instead they keep us on a rollercoaster of ?keeping up with the Joneses?. While we are all different, we only need so much money really. Happiness is peace of mind, a sense of achievement, having some financial security, a partner, friends and TIME to relax and do whatever you enjoy in your leisure time. Fishing, dancing, walking, eating out, travel and. sports are affordable and keep us young and healthy.
I?m sad that children today spend much of their time glued to computers, TVs, DVD?s, Videos etc. It?s not a healthy way to keep up-to-date. It ruins their eyesight and makes them unfit. It?s also often a solitary activity, whereas knocking a football around with your friends seems more fun somehow.
Computers may save time and provide information wonderfully well, but the flip side is that unless we limit their use, we?ll all be staring at flickering screens forever, fat and bespectacled......
Can anyone tell me why a sandwich in a leading Coffee House can cost ?3.50? A teabag in a plastic cup of hot water ?1.30? Inflation gone mad?
A sandwich is not the same as a main meal, so why nearly as expensive?
?One has to be seen in the right places, darling!?....
Finally, cars, love them or hate them. For some a convenient means of getting about but for many, an exotic, expensive, computerized status symbol. The top models rarely use their top speeds, guzzle fuel at an alarming rate and emit noxious fumes which join cigarette emissions in poisoning the atmosphere and peoples? lives. Roll on electric cars!
If God intended us to pollute the world and kill each other in the name of Religion, I?ll eat my 1960?s false eyelashes... I think He wants us to live peacefully with our neighbours, to defeat terrorism and to understand that we are not all created alike and. have the right to live and Worship in our own way. We need some intelligent, enlightened leaders like Gandhi to guide us toward a peaceful solution.
I wish we could still buy a smoked salmon bagel for 25p, a cinema ticket for 50p and go to Tenerife for a week for ?80. Doesn?t it worry you to think what things will cost in 50 years? It worries me, but thankfully I?ll be living with the Angels by then.
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