A Place for Chickens, Goats, and Dinosaurs

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

                                                            - Joseph Brackets

At the intersection of State Road 56 and Junk Road (the road that leads to Merry Mount), is a business called “Green and Sons Ltd”.  Recently, a featured article was published in the Columbus Dispatch that described the novelty of having replicas of life size dinosaurs at an establishment that sells farm equipment.

 After passing the business on a daily basis, it occurred to me that another dinosaur presently lives on Junk Road- me.

My Papaw “Ern” Woliver had a favorite saying, “Progress is eating itself up”.  

If a “progressive” is defined as a person who advocates or implements social reform, then I am becoming a “regressive” or some may call me a dinosaur.  But I am aware of technological “advances” that are progressively getting humanity in big trouble.  Let’s consider plastic.

John Wesley Hyatt concocted Celluloid, the first successful plastic, in 1869.  But it was not until during and immediately following WWII that plastic was brought into the marketplace and thrust upon the public.

Progress?

Synthetics are toxic to produce and sometimes toxic to use. Today, plastic continues to be manufactured with petroleum products and other dangerous chemical offspring including forms of carcinogenic chlorine and vinyl chloride, and endocrine disrupting phthalates and bisphenol A (BPA) in processes that require huge amounts of energy and release staggering quantities of pollution into the air, water, and soil. (Heather Rogers, May 2005)

So where do all those convenient wrappers, bags, and containers go?

 “Progress is eating itself up”.

Let’s consider the communication revolution.  Remember the first moble phone?  1973.

Who could have imagined the smart phone?  Now we can’t seem to be without IT.  But have we stopped to realize how we are being controlled by IT?  Challenge:  try to put IT away for 24 hours.  Do you feel you are in withdrawal?  Guess what?  You are.

In an April 9, 2017 episode of CBS’ 60 Minutes, produced by Brit McCandless, the following statements were presented:

“And so you could ask when these features are being designed, are they designed to most help people live their life?” Harris says. “Or are they being designed because they’re best at hooking people into using the product?”

Psychologist Larry Rosen says technology really does wreak havoc on anxiety levels. He and his team at California State University Dominguez Hills have found that when people spend time away from their phones, their brain signals the adrenal gland to produce a burst of the hormone cortisol. Cortisol triggers a fight-or-flight response to danger, and while it may have made primitive man hyperaware of his surroundings for safety, today it compels us to check our phones.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hooked-on-phones/

 Progress?   “Progress is eating itself up”.  Big IT (Brother) knows where we are, what we look like, what we eat, what we purchase, and with whom we communicate, all the while programing us to bow before their omnipotence.

We live in a complex world, but we still are free to make some choices.  We can choose to simplify our lives.  We can choose to be free.  So this dinosaur will sing to the chickens and the goats Joseph Brackett’s Shaker tune:

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

Be well and be free.

CPW