Instant gratification is a most fickle mistress...

We live and breathe in the world of now. Not content to wait for anything anymore any longer than we say we have to, we forget that some things in life - possibly even most things - are best left to brew, to simmer, to smoulder, to... anticipate. Test my words. Instant gratification has become - no... is, indeed! - an addictive drug like no other. Make no mistake: the more we have of it, the more and more we crave of it. And we are all so very much to blame...


Why sit down and write a letter to someone that I care about when I can email or instant message them? Why go through the trouble of visiting loved ones when I can call them, or better still... just text them from my iPhone? Why go out to a concert when I can just listen to the thing at home on my stereo or iPod? Why take a trip to the theatre when I can peruse the Instant Queue on Netflix? Why read a story aloud to my children when they can just listen to an audio-book instead? Why fuss with a hardbound book or a Library when scores of titles are at-the-ready on my eBook? For that matter, why even bother reading at all when I can simply have the eBook read it to me? Why waste time cooking a meal when I can stop at a drive-through and have it handed to me with a few scant moments? Why hand-wash the dishes after dinner when I can just load the dishwasher and let it get them semi-clean enough to use again? Why walk? Why speak? Why think? Why question? Why risk? Why give? Why care? Why ever dare to love? Why indeed...

And so for the choices that we make, we suffer grave consequence... 

So many of the things that technology has given to us were supposed to help us save time, time that we could spend doing other things with those that we cared most about. But all it seems that our vast technologies and progressive leaps have brought us is a disconcerting disconnect from each other... from our very world. This makes me exceedingly sad... bordering nigh to absolute disconsolation. Nothing is important anymore, nothing has intrinsic value or worth, nothing is sacred or holy, nothing perverse. In fact, nothing seems to matter that much at all really... well, other than ourselves. But even of ourselves we think poorly, seeing in our mirrors much less than erect and sapient... apes. Why must we continue to perpetuate this demeaning, degrading, dehumanising  philosophy? Have we truly become so inherently nihilistic? So reprehensibly selfish?


If we would but slow down for awhile, take in deeply - maybe even slowly - these ever-fleeting moments... we'd see that they are heavy-laden with so much promise and boundless opportunity. But if we never slow down, never pause, never stop in our relentless pursuit after anything but the paramour of what we can have right now... then we really and truly are doomed. Are we not worth so much more than instant? When you really think about it? Worth the time and care and effort and thought and love? Really? I passionately believe so. But an arduous task it will prove to set things back aright, I feel...

Can we genuinely reclaim that which is fallen? Stem the tide or turn it back on itself? In the midst of the desolate ruin that is our lives, would we be willing to turn back the hands of time if we could? 

In so modern a world, where does someone like me truly fit in? Days like these, I wonder. Long have I felt that I was "born into the wrong time". Maybe I'm just destined to feel at odds with all of this... modernity. My heart, my... soul knows this to be true. So I go on questioning all of this so-called progress, contemplating the costs to our humanity - our dignity, and I continue to pine for Days both Ancient and Everlasting... because I care. I care so very much. About, well... everything. And I want to feel... alive. Desperately. All the seeking, wrestling, soul-suffering... I think it helps toward that end. 


Leastwise, I hope it does...

"Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen." - Martin Luther

Be blessed,
Lamar