One of my dear friends, let's call her Dragonfly, tells me that she's not surprised by our precarious situation. She and many people I know (including me) have always thought that much of our present lifestyle, our throbbing, over-stretched, consumer paradise, is a false utopia, one built on thin air.
We have lived in a bubble world for a long time. Defying gravity. Which has been amazing. But many of us have been wondering for many decades when the bubble would pop and when we'd hit the ground full on.
Ever since I was a wee lad, knee-high to a grasshopper, I have felt like I belonged to another tribe, a counter-culture that didn't really exist. I mean, I've ridden the bubble world for all it's worth, but I never really believed it was real or sustainable.
So all this talk now of end times, death to suburbia, global meltdown, etc. None of it is all that surprising. Many of us are kind of in the "what took so long?" camp. That's not to say, we're totally prepared for the consequences. I don't think we are, we have no clue what's coming.
But we've been disillusioned about Bubble Land for a long, long, time. We are in it, but not of it. And we think that life outside the bubble could be a good thing. We hope it won't all be blood and pitchforks. It will certainly be different. And maybe more genuine.
Tastes great and less filling...