Just sitting here at the airport thinking about the melee that is our society.
I watch people trudge heavily past me, pulling ridiculous little cases on wheels. Most people are overweight (like me), most are sullen, vacant looking. Bellies hanging defiantly over mock leather belts, fat feet squeezed into silly shoes. Furtive self conscious glances by middle aged people, at those around them. Lots of them play with their phones, having nothing else to 'entertain' themselves with. Heaven forbid they'd think of bringing a book! I try not to dwell on it too much. I'm aware that I look and behave just like that too. I'm thinking 'what am I doing here?' I wonder what they're all thinking?
I get to Canberra, pick up my hire car, wrestle with the GPS thing, and head out to my job. I've got the habit of taking breakfast at a cafe near to the job, the 'Federation Breakfast' which is like a full English breakfast without the beans and the black pudding. Perfect for my burgeoning waistline and my mock leather belt. Normally I'm on my own, pretty much, and I sit out in the morning sun, taking the breeze and reading whatever I’ve taken along. Today it was 11 degrees, which is cold enough to sit indoors. I sat in what was, for the Federation Cafe, a busy room, and shortly after my food arrived, a gaggle of 5 women sat at the next table. They were all in their 50's I'd say, but dressed younger in sports gear, trackies, trainers, fleeces etc... AND THEN they started to TALK! My god! Pretty much constantly, there were 3 of the 5 talking and 2 listening...(or at least not talking!) I couldn't really concentrate on my book for the noise. I tried to see if I could hear one voice through the din... without watching the lips. It was impossible! I'd get a bit of one, then a bit of another.... but couldn't actually follow one person for more than a sentence or so.
We are engrossed in communication between each other of stuff that is inconsequential. It's a babble. It always was a babble. We've been babbling forever! Facebook, Twitter, Twatter. When I was in my early teens I was an Air Cadet at a local 'Squadron' and one of the things that I got into there was short wave radio operating. They had this bloody great transmitter that had huge clunky relays in it and worked on 415 volts. We had a more modest receiver that made all the right squeeooeeEEEpop sorts of noises as you tuned into or past interstellar noise or something, and every now and then we'd pick up a signal from some other squadron that were doing the same thing. The reason that I mention it is that we had all that stuff, all that hardware, and we sat there glued to the sqeee box to hear if there was anyone there...and when there was, all we were allowed to talk about was how many eighths cloud cover we had and how strong the signal strength was! After a while I got bored with that, although I still liked being 'in charge' it, so I kept it up. I thought at the time that it was a shame we couldn't talk about more interesting stuff. Then my dad got a CB radio and I was able to hear the natter that went on in CB land. It wasn't much better. I can still remember a broad Hull accented lorry driver who I was getting a lift from talking to another lorry driver on his CB to arrange for him to pick me up at the junction between the A1 and the M18 where this guy was going to put me down... and that was really GOOD! But aside from that it was a bit pointless mostly...AND he referred to Hull as 'Bridgetown' which in Hull speak is more like Bredge-tern. (Not that I'm knocking HIM...you understand!) Now we have mobile phones and it's worse!
If people spent half the effort that goes into buying shoes that are supposed to make them look like Elle McPherson or shades that are supposed to make them look like George Cluney, or having conversations about what they think about some pop band (pap band more like) on learning to respect themselves and learning not to talk about it, the world would be a better, quieter, less facile place.
In my HUMBLE! opinion! Hmmm does that include blogs do you think? Ha ha.
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