On "Mass Insignificance:" Thoughts and wildflowers along the way to Blue Lakes Pass

“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods.
They kill us for sport.” King Lear, William Shakespeare.

Breathless, plodding up the final two switchbacks to Blue Lakes Pass, it occurs to me that the "population" is edging ever nearer a "bubble" existence, a climate-controlled, self-aggrandized, internet-based indoor life that insulates them from "the extremes" of nature...the wonder, and the wrath. 

We can either thank or blame the internet... and smart phones, the ones we carry around in hip pockets that allows us to access every thing that's ever been written with a few keystrokes. Is it a time-suck or a riot of mindless "entertainment?" Doesn't matter, I guess. Just know, foot-draggers, that the time cometh when every thing, including food, will be bought online. Better get on board. 

It's a slow process of Withdrawal, with a capital W, into a "brave new" impersonal world, you in your home or office or car, texting someone else in their home or office or car. When we need some "alone time," you know, more intimacy, we can dial up a little private FaceTime, do a little "sexting. Reminds me a scene in the movie, Sleeper...Woody Allen, stumbling out of the "Orgasmatron." Funny how closely life imitates art, only now it's via "software," or should I say "hardware?"

And as the general "population" stoops to Facebook banalities like, "I'm sitting on the porch drinking beer and farting!" neither of which makes me want to get to know you better...unless, of course, you happen to be a naked smokin' hot woman...I'll just head off to the mountains, thank you, to the truly wondrous real-world that exists beyond screens of computers and front doors. It's likely "guy humor," and let's just say that, even though we both drink beer and fart, it just doesn't reach the minimum essentials of commonality that fosters a genuine interest around which I could form a friendship...unless you are a "hot" woman, totally naked, and providing the beer. 

Unfortunately, the real-world can't compete with TMZ or our insane fixation with "pop culture." Maybe when we're wading to work in six inches of seawater we'll take more interest in our environment...

Mark my words: there will be people playing video games or chatting on Facebook when the earth is in a free-fall to a calamitous ending.

Though no match for the Himalayas, the Rockies are substantial enough to remind me of the reality, and burden, of my insignificance. Like an ant caught in a buffalo stampede, I scurry, biking or hiking or running, often alone, more or less waiting on the "hoof" to drop. It's both humbling and freeing, when one realizes and accepts the fact that we don't matter, that we are a spec of dust on a spec of dust on a spec of dust within infinite space, and about as necessary as the average drag on the "gene pool" found in the audience of a Jerry Springer Show. Pop Culture? No. Sorry Jerry, "culture" means philosophy and intellectual achievement...literature and the arts, i.e., music, painting, and performing.

Bouncing around in the mountains clears my head. And even though it was Sunday, and we would likely have company in the form of other specs of dust propelled by ATVs...spewing noise and fumes and kicking up dust while shooting photos from the comfort of bucket seats, we braved onward. Sometimes it's unavoidable; just try to push beyond their reach... and rest your eyes on the backside of Gawd Almighty.

“If humans did not manufacture some of their own to appear like better people, people would not aspire to be someone else. They would stop dreaming. And if people didn't dream, they would be awake to discover the wonderful misery of being. There are no singular great people. There is only a small percentage of people manufactured to look significant, for the purpose of creating the feeling of mass insignificance.” Craig Stone, Deep In The Bin Of Bob

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