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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsYesterday I showed two kids how to make little houses out of sticks...
Yesterday I showed two kids outside my local laundromat how to make little houses out of sticks and stones. They lunged at the task and asked me endless questions about what it was they were doing. Had no one ever done such things before with these children? Is physical craft and simple acts of community building so foreign to us all now?
Where once we were self-organized via local culture, family building, nearby jobs and civic life, now we seem to be hidden inside cars, lost behind screens and passively consuming corporate products in malls populated by strangers.
Our own ability to cook, teach, entertain and contemplate the universe is taking a back seat to the mass-produced. The personal neighborhood life, where children play outdoors and grandparents watch over them from the porch and provide the occasional moral quip or encouraging hug, is giving way to isolated childhoods buried behind screens.
We have built an infrastructure where highways bypass small towns and rob them of social and economic relevance. And we've rerouted our attentions in the same way. These screens seduce 50% of our attention into ghostlike virtual communities located everywhere and nowhere. The other 50% of our attention goes to ads and corporations far from our home towns. Actual, in-the-flesh-evolution-approved community has become increasingly too difficult as many have lost the art and craft of do-it-yourself living.
The breakdown of society begins with corporations, their new fleet of mind distracting machines and governments which support the rerouting systems in our midst. Trump and the Russians are merely adding salt to the wound.
In the end we serve invisible masters. We are moving our attention, roads, and financial resources up the economic pyramid to corporations and oligarchs, not to a local biome. The gap is as much our own fault as it is those who are rigging the system.
So stop reading this entreaty my friends. Walk outside and do the unthinkable: talk to your neighbor or that bright, but equally lonely coworker in the next cubical. That is where the revolution will begin. We must reroute our spirits while rerouting our roads and wires.
malaise
(267,811 posts)Rec
DemocracyMouse
(2,275 posts)And the crazy thing is, the brother of the two kids, when asked to join the activity by both me and his mother, decided to stay inside the laundromat and play video games on his "smart" phone. 10 minutes later, as I was off in a corner distracted by my own bloody device (and probably glued to DU), that boy had gone outside and knocked over one of the girl's creations.
So who was to blame? The boy for being a brat, me for abandoning the activity area, or the corporate distractions all around?
To the girl's credit, she rebuilt the house. (I'm looking forward to Warren or Harris doing the same to the White House)
malaise
(267,811 posts)On Friday one of the young boys was dropped off by a family friend but his mom wasn't home and he didn't have keys. We talked about his football practice and then we did some math tables. I showed him the tricks of the nine times table. He asked me if he could keep the paper to show off to his mom when she got home. Yesterday his mom asked me how I got him interested in math tables. I did laugh.
All kids want is some of our time. Love what you did there
Control-Z
(15,681 posts)hunter
(38,264 posts)My wife always carries paper for this, and hands it out generously to anyone, mostly kids, who are interested.
It's sad to see so many children who don't make things.
Watching televisions or playing games on a phone or tablet isn't the same.
Making things is a superpower.
DemocracyMouse
(2,275 posts)"Making things is a superpower."
Nice... it's true. And the reason is that it takes place in outer, enviro-social space! .... where eco-community is formed