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The Simple Life
by peet Monday, May 17 2010, 7:04am
international / social/political / literature

A story of us

As a child things were really simple, people said things u could believe and as a child everything seemed 'stable' or so we were led to believe.

Time went by, u grew up and became a grown-up. You dropped stuff on the street and a machine came along (or a man with a broom and trolley) and cleaned it up.

Life was simple; you drove a combustion engined car invented 200 years before (to keep things simple) and waited for the red or green pretty lights to change; you drove to work and shops, life was getting simpler.

People stood at the red, amber and green lights and waited for them to change, then they walked; red meant stop, amber hurry, and go meant gogo, people waited even when no cars were coming, simple!

The lights did it all for you, it was great!

Tall poles with wires supplied power to our homes, made by burning a thing called coal, dug out of the ground 150 years before, very simple.

When the poles started to deteriorate and lean over they just put in another pole to support the old pole; they lashed them both together with rope, simple.

'Newspapers' (daily stories) were produced by people who wanted you to buy things that u and your family 'needed;' everything was bright, shiny, new and of course, simple.

Nothing really bad happened to us because we had people who promised to look after u/us.

We had things called elections, where the people voted for men and a small number of women; because women weren't as 'good' as men at looking after us, simple!

These elected men and the small number of wo-men were looked after by an even smaller number of men who liked to look after 'things,' simple!

The small number of men printed money with numbers on it so we could trade and buy things we really needed, like water, shelter and food.

This money replaced tally sticks that we used for a long time. The small number of men decided money was easier, prettier, so after 700 years of using the tally sticks, the small number of men told our servants that we should use their pretty money instead, simple.

So now we had money; we worked hard to pay back the money the small number of men lent our servants, so we could have the good things in life -- life was simple.

After all, we wanted our lives to be simple; the small number of men supplied the money, so our lives would be simple; it is what everyone wanted, a simple life!

We worked harder and longer to have a simple life; the small number of men charged us more and more for the money they created so we could buy more and more pretty things!

Our servants continued promising to deliver a simpler life; we believed our servants because we didn't want life to be hard we wanted it to be simple!

We spent more to keep our life simple and borrowed more to keep it simple.

Suddenly, one day, somewhere, someone said, "life isn't simple anymore!"

to be continued...

COMMENTS

continued ..
by peet Sunday, May 23 2010, 7:46am

So, someone, somewhere, said, "this isn't simple anymore.."

People looked at her, ''what do you mean?"

She said, "we are working harder and longer but the simple things don't satisfy liked they used to, everything is, well, tooo, simple....I am reaaaally bored.."

The people used to their simple life and simple things, looked at the woman and wondered, what could she mean, they thought?

The people thought about their parents and their simple life, and their parents and their simple life, ....they thought what could this woman mean? Everyone always did what their parents did, or suggested, it kept things simple, after all, how could the parents and the servants....be wrong?

The woman started asking everyone, she knew... Is life simple, anymore?..

People said shut up, you're crazy, everything is fine...everything is simple..but one man thought how hard he worked, and how little time he had with his family..

He asked his dad, how simple was your life?, was it as simple as it is....now?..

His dad looked at his wife, and she looked back at him, they both raised their eyebrows and said at the same time ...Much simpler, ...much, much, much simpler,...

The man looked at both his parents, and was quite stunned, his Dad went back to reading his simple paper, and his mum went back to her simple knitting...

Suddenly, the man was confused for the first time in his life, he didn't know why or how life could be simpler before life was supposed to get simpler, it was what everyone said, it was what the servants ...guaranteed, it was what the men who provided the shiney, pretty money promised...

It was what everyone worked so hard for, a simple life...

Suddenly, the man thought about the woman, what had this woman done to him, why had she disturbed his simple life..

He looked around his surroundings, his parents doing simple things...his kids watching simple things on TV, his dog lying simply on the floor ...

He stood in his simple house powered by simple coal powered electricity, built with simple nails, wood and clay bricks, used by his Roman ancestors, and carpet made out of simple plastic.....

What did his parents mean?

to be continued...