A Very Mundane War

The great irony of efficiency and technology is that they promised us an easier and better life, while we work ever more and the worries keep piling up.

Was this a fair trade? Not really. It was a rip-off of epic proportions.

I was one of the first to own a mobile phone in my circle of friends. It was a total novelty, and I still remember the crazy feeling of calling a friend while driving my car. It was 1995.

I didn’t need it. I knew exactly where the friends were every day and I would go meet them on a patio where we had cheap bagels and limitless coffee until the early hours, or late hours, depending on your temporal proclivities.

These patios and food joints are now gone. No one just meets up half-accidentally. 

In terms of the balance of tech and life, we probably had peak normal around 1999. The next 25 years have shown that technology, rather than simplifying life, greatly complicates it. The opportunities of time wasting, the paradox of choice. Not to mention the politicisation of everything, where everyone online has a strong opinion on everything.

No one is just chatting about the quality of bagels any more.

I am pretty sure people were less involved in politics before this New Age. They talked among friends over drinks. They did not feel the need to support or be against every issue in the greater society.

Life was a little simpler because we were not being pumelled with information. Information is no benign thing. The human mind has limits to how much it can process. The human heart might have a limit of how much it can care deeply about any number of issues.

It looks to me like lots of us have become desensitized while being fired up. It’s a strange combination. To seemingly care less about people while being vociferous about issues that affect other people.

SO WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT?

Let’s go back to simple.

The solution to this is the pub. Put the phone away, go to a pub and grab a drink with friends. Grab three. 

But isn’t drinking bad? No - not in good company and in good conversation. It’s the most natural thing in the world. Which is probably why the world is against it. Long live the pubs.

The solution is to go take a hike. An actual walk up a hill. Got no friends? No problem, you don’t need them for a hike. You might make some friends on the way.

Maybe you end up chatting with a proper tree-hugger, and maybe you will see that they are not completely deranged lunatics. Maybe you ARE the tree-hugger, and you might see that you can hug people just as much as trees.

You can invest in an old hatchback with no AC, no bluetooth and with a cassette player. Take a drive and pretend it is 1988.

Remember folks, those vinyl seats can be covered up with cool wooden bead seat covers that allow for airflow. And no worries about locking up your car. The wooden bead seat covers are a great deterrent against theft.

So, you see, it’s actually a choice.

It is easy to grab fast food, but you know it’s not food. It’s easy to grab the phone, but you know it’s not a phone. It is a whole other world that is clambering to get your attention and feed off your emotions.

THE MUNDANE

The whole thing has to slow down. I think that little tricks, little changes, can help set things in the right path. Deliberately taking time for mundane things is the secret weapon. It does seem like, in the most basic terms, the modern world is waging a war against the mundane.

What is mundane? It is something that is commonplace, ordinary, or quotidian, to use the French-Latin word.

It is not philosophical. It is not heavenly. It is of the here and the now. The bricks and the mortar.

We love to contemplate the higher levels. Many people talk of spirituality, while ignoring the mundane. But how could you talk about the higher-level things if the lower level is not sorted out?

Your kitchen knives are dull and need sharpening. Your rose bushes need a trim. The bath drain is not draining. The car is filthy. It’s springtime and you have not put fresh flowers into your home. The beef needs to marinate 24 hours. Your kids are playing soccer without you.

I’m echoing J Peterson here - clean your room, sort of thing. I think he said it for reasons of discipline.

What I am thinking is much more serious than that. 

This is war. 

The common, the everyday world, is under attack. It has been under attack for a long time. Inch by inch the territory of the common person has been taken, under the cover of shiny new toys and sweet, sweet promises. But the toys all break, with engineered precision, and the promises are empty and sweet. Like Aspartame.

Rise up, gentle soldiers of the commonplace. Grab your dull knives and sharpen them, and cut into your marinated beef over a slow dinner with the kids. Wash your dishes by hand (while the kitchen drain works perfectly). Put on a record of classical music, and then get annoyed 20 minutes later when you have to get up and turn the record over. 

And drop the needle.