Do you ever listen to NPR on the radio while you're driving, maybe not paying full attention to the show but the words running in the background and then, all of a sudden, a phrase or sentence will just reach out and slap you in the face and leave you scurrying to turn up the volume and trying to find out who the heck said it? I had such an experience driving home from the lake a couple weeks ago and I've been mulling it over ever since. Tim and I had taken separate cars and I was heading to our granddaughter's 6th birthday party a little early to help out. To the Best of Our Knowledge was the background to the insanity of transportation that we call St. Louis traffic, and they were doing an interview with the third wife of Phillip K. Dick, perhaps the most prolific science fiction writer of our time. She has written a new biography called "In Search of Phillip K. Dick", her own attempt to understand a complicated relationship and its demise, and in the process of the interview made the statement, "He was a very unusual man and he was a very great genius, I think, and his circuits weren't wired the same as many other people, but on the other end we have a culture of extreme conformity in this country so maybe he wasn't that far out." A culture of extreme conformity. Slap. Reach for the dial.
All of a sudden pieces started falling into place in my ruminations. I thought about the time we lived in the suburbs of St. Louis in a neighborhood much like the one pictured here. Three bedroom, 2-1/2 bath, 2 car garage, and 2.2 children. Oh, and white. Very, very white. At the time the requisite mini van was in every driveway, the dog in the back yards, the blue light of TVs flickering on the curtain linings, the proper brand of tennis shoe on the kids' feet, and when discussion was held at all, it was politically correct snippets over the picket fence. Being good hippies of the 70s, what did we do? We rode motorcycles, shopped at Goodwill, voted left, threw out the TV, and moved into the city. The colorful city.
Ahhh...a bit better. Only in the city can you receive a smile and a "God bless you" from a thin, old, black man pushing a shopping cart mounded twice as high as he is tall with all his belongings. Only in the city can you smile at a woman belting out Gospel songs on a busy street corner for no other reason than to make people happy. Colorful, never boring, not nearly the conformity of the suburbs and yet...just as in the suburbs, all around you people scurry to and from work in the endless quest for enough money to pay for the house that's too big and the car that's too fancy and the clothes from Plaza Frontenac and the food from Straubs. Still a culture of conformity, just dressed up a bit. And we were sucked in. Still no TV, still riding motorcycles, still shopping at Goodwill (now just down the street), but working way too hard just to pay for the house in the city, half of the rooms which we didn't even use.
As I read the blogs of 20 other cruisers the one recurring theme is the satisfacton they all get from being enmeshed in another culture. While they all tell of the initial culture shock of living without a McDonalds and Walmart on every corner, they begin to understand through another's eyes that life can be lived quite happily without being chained to consumerism. Don't get me wrong, I'm the first to admit that we have benefited from our culture of consumerism. We wouldn't own the boat at all if we hadn't had the equity in the house to pay for it. I'm grateful for that, for sure, but at 56 I'm feeling a pretty strong desire to try something else. I don't think I'm alone in this. As I chat with people in a normal week, a good many of them seem to be longing for something with a little more meaning. Maybe a little culture shock is just what the doctor ordered.
Ahhh...a bit better. Only in the city can you receive a smile and a "God bless you" from a thin, old, black man pushing a shopping cart mounded twice as high as he is tall with all his belongings. Only in the city can you smile at a woman belting out Gospel songs on a busy street corner for no other reason than to make people happy. Colorful, never boring, not nearly the conformity of the suburbs and yet...just as in the suburbs, all around you people scurry to and from work in the endless quest for enough money to pay for the house that's too big and the car that's too fancy and the clothes from Plaza Frontenac and the food from Straubs. Still a culture of conformity, just dressed up a bit. And we were sucked in. Still no TV, still riding motorcycles, still shopping at Goodwill (now just down the street), but working way too hard just to pay for the house in the city, half of the rooms which we didn't even use.
As I read the blogs of 20 other cruisers the one recurring theme is the satisfacton they all get from being enmeshed in another culture. While they all tell of the initial culture shock of living without a McDonalds and Walmart on every corner, they begin to understand through another's eyes that life can be lived quite happily without being chained to consumerism. Don't get me wrong, I'm the first to admit that we have benefited from our culture of consumerism. We wouldn't own the boat at all if we hadn't had the equity in the house to pay for it. I'm grateful for that, for sure, but at 56 I'm feeling a pretty strong desire to try something else. I don't think I'm alone in this. As I chat with people in a normal week, a good many of them seem to be longing for something with a little more meaning. Maybe a little culture shock is just what the doctor ordered.
5 comments:
Good read. Moving from the Lilly white suburbs was the best thing for us. We regret not doing it sooner. When the kids moved out we went into action and got out of cloneville. Summers on the boat, winters in the city. It wasn't what I would call culture shock, it was more like an awakening. Amazing what you can do when there is no lawn that requires manicuring.
Oh, I'm still driving that requisite mini van :)
Yeah but you're only using it to get you closer to cruising!
Having grown up a military brat, I am in constant rebellion against this culture of conformity of which you speak. And yet even as we plan to voyage long and wide, I read about that same 'herd' mentality that exits in the cruising community. I wonder if we can ever escape the fact that many people enjoy the 'sameness' that comes from a predictable lifestyle and life as part of a larger group with its own rules of conformity. I can only hope that there will be other cruisers when we're out there who go their own way like we will, but enjoy the times when they come into contact with others of their kind.
A truth none of us can escape is that we are all members of a species of tribal ape just recently climbed down from the trees. Our need to be a member of a tribe is rooted deep and, I think, explains both the best and the worst of what we can be. Sadly, I also think our culture has twisted that need into a consumerism which worships profits above all else. Sailing is a lot of things to me, but high on the list is the hope of finding my way back to a more balanced view of what is important, who matters, and discovering a tribe where the most important thing is being a good excuse for a human being.
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