I’m not exactly sure why it is that we, in this society, want everything homogenized … having every thing exactly the same not the process of making milk the same consistency . With some things it is a very good thing like with the milk …mmm, lumpy milk bad. (blech) However if you travel to any place in the US of any size it is pretty much the same. Take away the skyline, and you would be hard pressed to guess where you were. That is because for the most part American Architecture is like the Volvo, it’s sturdy but it’s all kinds of box like. It has no longer has any flair. It’s all the same now. Sadly we tear down structures which probably had some class, flair, a bit of difference. It’s not just our buildings either, it’s everything.
Now we are Pre fabricated, we are a cookie cutter society. Just, press, pull, place, and cook (verb can be replaced with others like build, or make, dress, listen…etc) … Be one of us … one of us… one of us. We watch films (or read) The Stepford Wives and say oh poosah I’m a free thinking person, no one pulls my strings….really Pinocchio ???
Not many of us are really real boys or girls we are all puppets to someone, or an idea, or a life style. We don’t stand on our own. It becomes increasingly more and more difficult in our ever increasing sea of sameness.
But I’m me, you cry… I am me …not really, well perhaps a version of a person but I’m as guilty as anyone else if not more so.
Like I said there are some good things about having a sameness across a nation this vast. However how far do we push that sameness into our lives, jobs, etc.
Unfortunately, a bit too far in many cases. If you try to stand out to be different you are beating down figuratively in most cases and literally in others. Are we so xenophobic that any difference is bad. Odd that even here in the tiny little town that one building is booed for being different and another is ballyhooed for being a standout. I suppose, to borrow from the MAYA principle … Most Advanced Yet Acceptable … meaning that people will only stand for so much change at a time… our minds can’t quite grasp radical change. Well perhaps not our minds but our fear of change and difference. We crave uniformity and routine but will advance but only at a set pace. We want the sameness so we can feel accepted and wanted and warm but in that sea of sameness we are all different we are all looking for something perfect that doesn’t exist. The holy grail of our time is perfection in sameness. We want to live in Stepford but we tell ourselves and anyone who’ll listen that we don’t.
So in this quest for universal sameness, cookie cutter reality, life and perfection we further isolate one another and lull ourselves to our own destruction.
Oh and it’s Friday … you know what that means… one of us, one of us… the telephone is ringing is that my mother on the phone? No, it’s Pavlov … slobber, slobber, pant.
Um… yeah be you and be proud of you, and if the next time you look at someone and are all uber critical of their clothes, car, house, town, etc. maybe say it’s ok and don’t sweat it or ask them hey what do you like about this or that different thing maybe you’ll find that you like vanilla and boysenberry too, not just vanilla.
Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood.
Ciao,
PS. References to Musicians The Police/ Synchronicity, Author - Ira Levin’s Stepford Wives , Behaviorist- Ivan Pavlov, unsure of who coined MAYA principle but it’s not mine, I’ve heard it’s credited to Raymond Loewy, Pinocchio Carlo Collodi… If I missed any I’m sorry “I’m not a thief” Richard M. Nixon. *
PPS. * thank god he didn’t pay to patent that phrase, like Mills Lane (let’s get it on) and that other boxing guy (let’s get ready to rumble..(echo)) yes it’s true we crave sameness so much that catchy little phrases have to be protected by a patent … hence the recent additions of sources…yeah one piracy lawsuit is enough for my liking . And in fairness Pinocchio was probably in the public domain before Disney latched its claws into it…but I digress
Ciao
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