An immutable truth cannot be told except in its entirety. To truly understand a thing it must be examined from every perspective. Such is the case with the story of my son.
Life is complicated and, for that reason, we want to distill it to a few digestible talking points; I suspect that is nothing new. I suspect with equal certainty, though, that this proclivity is compounded by the ease with which both information and possessions are both available and discardable.
We live in a time, place, and culture in which things are acquired, consumed, and discarded in brief moments that afford no real meaning in the aftermath. We order take-out and delivery and consume it in front of a lighted box displaying the edited lives of people we don’t know. We consume information about the complex world around us through 24-hour news outlets, which offer us one-dimensional bullet lists. We offer our children ready-made juice in a throw-away box, and teach them from text books that offer very little critical analysis of complex subjects. Continue reading
