@ the summit

I overheard a conversation while I was milking my coffee between a recent graduate of College and another whom I didn't know. The recent grad was defending her decision to work in town after she graduated, claiming that there was a social stigma of our generation stating that we have to want to travel the world, explore, branch out, etc., even if we didn't really want to. What if we've already seen enough of the world, or can experience it right here?

It was a weak question with no emphasis behind it, but I knew this broad before she graduated and she kinda talked like that anyway. Everything skittishly said with a lamb's quietude.

I couldn't help but think on what she said as I left. She was right about the social stigma, there is a sense that everyone under a certain age nowadays wants to escape. Fly the coop. But why?

There's the obvious argument for a wider perspective, not wanting to be entombed in one place, with one biased point of view. I suppose the idea's that prejudice would cease if more and more people were exposed to cultures other than their own - hence why so many colleges and universities encourage study abroad and exchange students.

But I think there might be a darker reason for my generation's want of leave. Didn't we see it in The Wizard of Oz, a long, long time ago, in a galaxy of the '40s? Dorothy literally dreams of somewhere over the rainbow that's better than Kansas. Somewhere without that mean neighbor riding on her bicycle and yap, yap, yapping at Todo.

Maybe somewhere away from the Great Depression? (Don't let's forget when The Wizard of Oz was written).

At any rate, she gets there, and it's awesome.....kinda. There's the Emerald City and Munchkin Land and all the happy little people dancing around with those trippy flowers, singin' songs to
Dorothy, heralding her as a hero for killing the evil Witch of the East. But there're two sides, and with the good come the bad. And the bad has gotten worse - instead of a mean neighber, it's a killer, evil witch wanting revenge and Dorothy's head on a plate.

But the grass is greener on the other side (Thanks, random bitch band from the '90's).

Well, for Dorothy the grass sure was greener on the other side - the other side was a fucking technicolor dreamland, no wonder she preferred it (at first) to the black and white, drab world of Kansas.

And so it is with my generation. Technology has given us the video cameras, the editing software, the HD TVs all required to paint that perfect picture of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. The "It's in Technicolor!" cry of the '40's has morphed into the "It's in 3-D" cry of the current youth, and it screams. It screams for us to join the army, go on a Royal Carribean cruise, meet your husband online and get married at the fucking beach, for God's sake. The point is, technology can (and does) make things look better than they actually are. (Take away all the air-brushing that beauty magazines do on the pictures of their models and you're left with real women, with scars and zits, and who's attracted to that these days? Real, unadulterated women?) It creates a fantasy world that people can get lost in, with no problems,no sorrow, and no ugliness. It's the new-age drug that no one recognizes as dangerous to the human psyche - because the grass isn't greener on the other side, it's just different.

It's pretty fucking frustrating, especially because technology also prides itself on its ability to keep people connected. When in reality, it's just another barrier for our souls (or essences, or consciousnesses, or whatever you will) to cross in order to kiss. We already have our bodies holding us in, now our connection is mediated a third time by the computer. Technology claims to be holding us together, to the people we love. But it's not, Facebook merely provides a socially acceptable way for people to stalk each other. Instead of looking at someone face to face and lerning about who they are from physical conversation, we look on their Facebook and get all the information we care to use. (Nevermind that the information isn't subjective - that it's all gleaned from what the owner of the Facebook wants to reveal about him or herself).

And so we're tricked into believing that the grass is greener on the other side. That we can be with our family even when we aren't with them. And wasn't that Dorothy's whole problem with the Land of Oz? She missed her family (Even though they were there all along - The Scarecrow, The Tin Man, and The Lion, a fact she would only realize upon waking) and so she wants to leave. "There's no place like home", Dorothy says. And it's because home holds the people she loves.

Are we losing that, as a generation? If we feel that we can keep connected to people we care about - keep really connected, as if neighbors - no matter where our physical body is in space, then why not travel the world? Why not get the fuck out - if you can always reach out to home online whenever you want?

It's obvious that you can - people escape and claim to be connected, at least through mediums, every day. So my question then becomes, when do you stop? When will you see enough of the world to realize that each place, though unique and beautiful, will still hold problems? When do you settle down, put in roots, claim a home? And do we even have to anymore?

I'm worried we're becoming a bunch of nomadic zombies, without even realizing it. Aimlessly wandering around, looking for something better.

I get off work in an hour and a half. I know I'll be better then.