An endless stream of food, cuisines abound,
Yet conversations are in small measure.
The convenience of all day breakfasts and anytime meals,
Yet a hunger that refuses to be satiated.
No shortage of seats, no dearth of space,
Yet families never felt smaller.
A food court – the modern diner
Abundance of dining, yet a want for nourishment…
As you may have guessed by now, yours truly was at a food court today. Dropped off the family at Fun City, where Mini Me had a surprise play date with a classmate of his, and strolled around till I felt the need for a good (at least decent) cup of tea. And so I found myself perched on a stool, tea cup in hand, a lone warrior in the sea of screens and virtual keys.
A few did notice this obnoxious being sitting there doing nothing other than sipping his cuppa, and must have wondered what ailed me…for five seconds before returning to their scrolls to doomsday. A few others may have been inspired (or so I would like to think) by this stranger who defied convention, and so they did try to follow, a vain attempt at overcoming the collective intelligence of Silicon Valley – they have been prepping us for years now – what silly fools to have thought that they could have a little thought to themselves? Realization dawned, practicality knocked, and my small following rapidly dwindled until I found myself alone, again. All of this in a couple of minutes. Didn’t you notice that life passes us by much faster nowadays??
Anyway, while I would like to think that I am this way all the time, the fact of the matter is that I just completed an interesting book called “Stolen Focus – Why you can’t pay attention” by Johann Hari, and have since been inspired (again) to get over this whole “fill my time with a million pieces of information” syndrome that plagues the world nowadays. I would like to cover the book in a separate blogpost, but if I had to brief you in a nutshell, the book contends this – the system is designed to entice bad behaviors in us, but then the onus of correction is thrust upon us as individuals.
Think food – back in the day, a visit to the restaurant was a relatively rare event – a celebration, a milestone, or a day when mum just didn’t want to cook. There was no home delivery, and the number of options were also much lesser. Cut to today when we are feed a constant stream of of food-related advertisements (mostly junk food and cola), you can call food from the convenience of your couch (at made up discounts to make you feel good and buy more than you can eat) and you can have any food at any time of the day – and (here is where the food courts come in) – you can choose from a variety of world cuisines (sounds healthy but really mostly junk food from different parts of the world) all in one place. Imagine the temptation. The system has been built for it.
But does the system help you become healthier? Oh no sir. That bit is left to you. In fact, they guilt trip and body shame you into, no, not eating healthier, but buying nonsense supplements, fad diets and expensive gym memberships so that you can consume more, just a different product. And of course we fail. We fail to diet, we fail to exercise, we fail to control…but we don’t fail to get worse again. NOT YOUR FAULT ENTIRELY, IS IT?
Ahem, I got a bit too carried away there. But then, this is as true of food, as it is of social media and the endless stream of (mostly junk) that we consume through our phones. Let’s leave this for another day shall we? I am fresh into detox and need to get away from this screen as soon as possible. Until I get sucked in soon enough.
Am human too, ain’t I?