Life As A Boardwalk Carnival
Okay, I’ll see if I can resurrect these cold notes and complete a thought started over a week ago. It’s a half-baked idea at the moment; hot when first sketched out here on my yellow pad, but not now. I love analogies. They help me see more clearly; help me describe my thoughts in telegraphed form. But, things die by the wayside, when a day gets too busy to tend to all these little shoots. The next thing I know, that budding plant has wilted. I have a very lazy drill sergeant; I’m afraid, which sometimes means the blogging gets ignored altogether. Let’s see if this one can be revived.
Okay. Imagine a boardwalk on the Jersey Shore. There’s been a long-standing carnival going on and crowds have been enjoying it for years. This would represent life as it has been lived up till the time of the New Millennium, and I’m thinking of the changes that are afoot in these new days… not yet all THAT obvious, because “nothing happened” at the turn of the century, if you were looking for the four horsemen, or if you expected that y2k computer bug to shut everything down. Piece of cake! Nobody talks about those things any more, but they sure did just before New Year’s Day, 2000. Remember?
Still, think of all the gadgets that have come into use since 1999, just ten years ago. Think of the websites you can’t live without – YouTube, Twitter, and whatall. Was social networking even around a decade ago? It’s been so subtle, who can remember?
But, changes…they are occurring, all quiet-like. The warming of the planet is winning believers, as northern seas remain ice free and chunks of coastline fall into the water.
Confusing stuff is going on in economics – both public and personal. Things shift, but what else is new?
Really and truly, history has been full of all sorts of changes, forever. Nothing really new here, is there?
Not exactly. But, there’s the possibility that a “new carnival” has come to town. Unless we discount all of the “news stories” represented by prophecies of old, contained in many more than one spiritual source; or dire warnings by scientists about our old, polluting behavior and its dreadful effect upon our planet-host; or signs warning of a coming paradigm shift, even End Time movies and books. All are still very easy to ignore and to argue about.
Let’s look at our earth life as if it’s a Boardwalk, which has enjoyed a long run, a true heyday. People always bought their season tickets and got them punched for entry to the many venues and exciting rides and food stands. Their dog-earred ticket books are testimonies to the votes they cast for all the best places, in their estimation. Patrons could even suggest new ideas for attractions and if they proved popular, those were kept beyond a trial period. In this way, the Boardwalk stayed in tune with customer-demand and kept the people happy and returning.
It was all lined up, according to tastes, with the Opera House and Symphony Hall on one end and sleazy bars and dance halls on the other, with everything else in the middle. Plenty of family, Disney-type attractions, too. Something for everyone. That was life and It went smoothly for a long, long time.
But, what if the place burned down? Or got bought-out by a corporation? Or whatever? What if change occurred?
What was going to crop up in its stead? Could we keep the lifestyle that we’d all become accustomed to? We’d worry, wouldn’t we? Hoping that our favorite attraction would come back, even better than before.
Let’s imagine that the new owners would have a way to total up all the votes cast at doorways over all the years. Everybody’s innocent fun was going to determine what the new boardwalk would look like, because that’s apparently where the money is. The market is about to speak. Those new owners don’t really care whether its a good idea or a bad idea; as long as it’s a profitable idea.
What will we wind up with? What has our unwitting, collective self decided? All we have now are clues that something is under construction. Will the Arts come back, even though fewer people attended? Are the kids going to get healthy, upbeat places to spend their time; or just a lot of video arcades? How about the party life?
How have we voted, Folks?
Tags: 1, boardwalks, carnivals, Tag Index
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