The Mayflower(*) problem is this: you are the small group about to take a one-way trip to a big empty continent. What do you pack? Metaphorically.
In this metaphor, the "empty" continent is The Future,
we are being driven from our homes in the Old Country by Change undermining everything that currently works for us, and what we pack means whatever few preparations we can make now that will equip us to live in The Future...
[EDIT:] And I want to throw away the rest of that post and start over, see the comments.
3 comments:
If it's the future, we bring everything.
And the on-ramps are as wide as the universe.
I call "poor metaphor".
Heh, no, it's a good metaphor, I just really need to rewrite. I completely didn't get to the point I was trying to make. But in short...
I'm talking about moral "posessions," not physical or informational ones. Things that are put under stress by ways the wide, flat, instant-access world...
...is the world we want to get away from
...buries everything we love in crap.
...erases valuable things like difference, aloneness, cohesiveness, slowness, simplicity and privacy.
...dogs us like a sort of Nemesis that keeps growing.
Modern life may not have to seem like that, but I don't think one can prevent it unless one makes drastic cutbacks and metaphorically makes a long voyage in a place without distance. That's what I want to write about.
And Mugwump, thanks for the comment, it's spot on! It's exactly where my post was wrong.
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