Having gone for some time now without need or want for such a bulky device – the boat not reducing itself to such dependencies – I had forgotten what a convenience this storage-crippling eyesore of an invention can be.
Convenience, the driving force of modern life.
With some thought, this has solidified my understanding of society’s current concept of the “home” and with it, perhaps, society at large.
In the modern age, a home is a sort of package. The selections are limited, conforming to specific infrastructure, and though often available in a variety of flavors, usually bear similar basic design. Each piece has a purpose in fitting snugly into the next, not unlike Lego bricks. Schematics have been provided to dictate such things as floor length to width ratios, wall height & color, counter-top height & workspace, even such things as natural lighting vs privacy – each conforming to a specific advanced mathematical formula who’s purpose is to satisfy every human need it can - cosmetic or biological.
This is not an exclusive scenario by any means. Similar, if not identical mathematical formulae suddenly appear in every aspect of modern society my mind can conjure. Roads & sidewalks, shopping centers, work environments, recreational facilities. Overwhelmed as I am by this intoxicating bliss of efficient, organizational perfection, I can’t help but find myself wary of the restrictions such a refined operation surely must impose. George Orwell/Yevgeny Zamyatin eat your heart out?
Watching millions passively adhere to the structure in likeness to lemmings, I wonder if the cynical nature I’ve adopted so willingly prevents me from enjoying a simple, fulfilling life of conformity. This structure isn’t assembled at the whim of some mastermind bent on world domination, this is the product of our collective efforts, as a society. This is, in effect, what we want. Right?
A thought about vacuum cleaners: Have you considered that their dust bags are a virtual “piggy bank”? Anything that is left on the floor and goes unnoticed before vacuuming, is sucked up into the machine’s innards, where, to retrieve those “treasures”, one must sort through the dust, lint and debris for which the vacuum cleaner was designed to pick up in the first place.
A “real inventor” would have designed the vacuum cleaner to separate the coinage of the realm before depositing said loot into the dust bag with the flotsam. Surely with the differences in density and all that, it shouldn’t have been such an onerous task — should it?