From the post:
"As I get older, I remember times like that more and more. I can remember the smell of the smoke from the sap being boiled, the wood waiting to go into the fire, the mud, the snow. The spring sunshine just starting to make the days a little more pleasant after a long winter.
I remember my grandfather, not a man to express his feelings in words, more by deeds. My Dad, always trying to teach us boys not to be idiots, he had his work cut out for him with me! Mom and Gram in the kitchen, cooking and/or baking something."
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That post - those words - resonate with me on a couple of levels.
One is simply the remembering of times long ago, something made more real by the fact that - sooner or later - a place I have a great many childhood and adult memories of, The Ranch, will pass to other hands. In visiting my parents' house, I have the memories of myself as an adult and Na Clann when they were children, largely suburban children in a forested wonderland. In visiting my Aunt and Uncle's house - the house that belonged to my Great Aunt and Great Uncle - I have my own boyhood memories, of chickens and walking through a barn filled with all kinds of weird and wonderful things, of watching my dad change his oil and going with him and my Great Uncle to burn brush in the Winter, of family reunions and sitting in my Dad's lap driving the Ford 9N tractor.
Is it fair to call them simpler times? Perhaps, although I am sure to adults living in those times, they likely seemed no simpler than my life today. Much of what for us is automated was for them manual, meaning more time spent doing things. You could not have anything you wanted drop shipped to your door step within a day, so you made do with what you had and what your local retailers had. The health issues we consider resolvable today were not then; we take cancer cures and artery cleanouts for granted when in those days they were death sentences.
The second thing that resonates with me is just the noticing of details.
Modern life, in that aspect, does a number on us. For many or most of us, our lives are largely defined by the buildings we work in. Our time outside is a walk from the house or apartment to the car, from the car to the office or light commercial building or industrial site or store we work at, and then the reverse when we go home. Too often what we see or experience of The Real World is seen through glass or screens, temperatures only experienced in the moments where we do not have climate control. Communications with others - especially significant others, like friends or family - are too often words on a glowing screen or the odd electronic voice through a phone call. Food is both abundant - and the same; we have strawberries all the time instead of in season.
One could argue we have gained fresh (but not necessarily good) fruit and on-time delivery at the cost of our souls.
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Am I calling for some kind of return to some sort of pre-Modern era?
Not necessarily, no. I do enjoy climate control. And frankly, the health benefits alone in that so many formally fatal diseases are now treatable and curable are, in my mind, a pretty strong reason to be thankful.
But it does make me ask two things of myself:
1) Am I creating those memories for others that were created for me? Arguably in our transient world of commercialism and virtual reality (instead of in-person reality), it is harder than ever to get the sort of Real World memories that are not things like shows we watched or games we played.
2) Am I taking time to appreciate the world in its beauty and complexity as I can? Do I look at the sunrises and sunsets for a moment instead of rushing to my car? Do I rejoice and even look wistfully at the clouds and rain (outside my window right now), or consider them a nuisance to be moved through as quickly as possible?
Do I enjoy and make use (in that sense) of the Real World, or is it simply a place that I inhabit?
Can't remember how many times the parents and I went camping when I was growing up TB, pitch the tent, set up the cots (no sleeping on the ground no sir) and sleeping bags, visiting how many state parks in my home state. Then there were the times Dad took me grouse hunting when I got old enough, day trips ending in the dark upon returning home, tired out from walking miles of old lumber trails and woods Up North in the state.......good times. How many people now spend 24/7 with their horizon completely surrounded with man-made structures? As a result too many think Man > than Nature. Excuse the old man rant......:)
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