An Ode to the Simple Life

I had an interesting conversation with Crystal, one of the owners of Trail House, who was sitting at her usual place at the bar where she seems to do her job of managing the cafe. The said her daughter had just started driving and she had decided to stop telling her to slow down and let her learn the lesson the hard way when she gets fined 'for going 42 in a 35 zone'. Then she launched into a riff about how you never know if the cop is just having a bad day, or perhaps thinks her blouse is too revealing. I immediately thought of women in Texas who risk being arrested if they are suspected of crossing state lines for the purposes of getting necessary reproductive medical care. My comment to Crystal is that getting pulled over by an unknown cop with unknown motives is sort of a metaphor for modern life. It is sad to have to conclude this, but we really do have to second guess everything these days, be on our toes for scams, misinformation, or a cop who is having a bad day.

Along the same lines, it seems that there is just far TOO MUCH information out there. There are so many applications crammed into our phones that one wrong touch on the tiny keyboard can lead us down some unintended rabbit hole or, worse yet, into some devious scam. And despite all this 'information' at our disposal, 80% of it I stuff I don't need or even want.

And now, with the advent of AI we have to worry about whether it is even real....

We went for a walk at Spring Lake this morning. The weather was perfect and I felt satisfyingly liberated by the fact that I had forgotten to bring my phone. It allows me to clear my brain of all the unwanted information that seems to bombard me all the time. It was lovely to see young mothers with their children, some with babies in strollers, dads teaching their kids to ride a bike, pairs of older women out for a walk and a good natter, a couple boosting their children up to hang from the high bars on the parcourse, watched by grandma sitting on a nearby bench, and lots of dog walkers, including one with an old dog in a stroller. Everybody is enjoying the weather, the surroundings and the casual conversations with the people they meet. As Blipper biddy commented in her journal...'simple pleasures'. Somehow they go so much farther in making me appreciate being alive than struggling with devices or trying to second guess the ulterior motivations of politicians or cops or people calling on the phone that we don't want to talk to.