The New Depression – Back To Basics
The New Depression
This installment of The New Depression, we cover the good that comes from when people get back to basics.
The life many of us have had and some still do is a life filled with hollow things. We attempt to fill our lives with the latest toy, gadget or envious new car in the drive. If you don’t have the biggest house on the block, you have to have something that makes it stand out from the rest.
This has been what has driven our economy for the last 50 years, “keeping up with the Jones’s”. This at what price beyond the sticker that shows how much?
A recent column in our news blog here gave many great idea’s for keeping entertainment to a reasonable level. We start to ask what entertainment is, why does it cost so much. We have all seen a kid get the most wonderful new toy at Christmas, only to play with the box for hours and neglect the toy. Why is that? Entertainment is where we find it, where our imagination takes us.
Kids in the 30’s would play board games, you know the kinds, Monopoly, Chinese checkers, or build forts, marbles or other types of outdoor games and they played using their imagination. The neighborhood kids would put on plays, or find other ways to entertain themselves, once again with imagination. Entertainment was had with the family.
Kids of the 50’s started to get the TV. But most time was still spent playing outside, growing their imagination.A kids bicycle was a point of great adventure. Red Ryder, the Lone Ranger. Comic books, baseball cards, and towards the end of that era, the commercialized industry of toys started. We see the start of Barbie, and G.I. Joe, the start of media telling us what to think, what to buy and what was fashionable. We had more free time to play with gadgets, TV overtook radio, and the couch potato was born.
TV sold product to kids, kids demanded the item. Mom and Dad would buy the latest convenience items and people’s expectations of entertainment has continued to be shaped by media. It’s considered odd to actually talk with your neighbor, or to help them. Church, was still a place to be part of the community.
We need to search our habits, and our own expectations of what is entertainment. Remember that the imagination is strengthened and built by using it, and having your entertainment shoveled to you by a media, video game or other electronic device can be great, but is it really entertainment? Was that your cell phone that just buzzed?
Family, friends, God and spending time with those important to you. Developing those bonds that make relationships stronger, and learning with, playing with the important people in our lives makes us stronger and gives a greater sense of satisfaction. Volunteering in your community is a great form of entertainment, give it a try and see. The people you meet, and grow with will enrich life and provide hours of entertainment while helping others, but most importantly, helping yourself.
Yes, the hardships of unemployment, the great loss of a home, that hunger in your stomach can make life seems unbearable. But if we look and listen we can find what we really are capable of doing, and at the same time, find great joy.
I hope we can all look at ourselves for just awhile, see for ourselves what is honestly important. I hope that we can all continue to be better people, and help our fellow man.
