Further insight into why I don't understand what's really important in life | auroraborealis's Blog

I'm exhausted.   I'm in front of a computer.   I've got a blog.   I'm just going to type it out until I'm done.

One of the things that I hate most about western civilization is the whole thing about having more just for the sake of having more.    My ex was thoroughly delighted last week because, after having called the cable company to complain about the high cost of their services, they placated him by giving him free HD.   He's got a large screen TV with surround sound so now, with the addition if the HD service, he's got absolutely everything he needs for the perfect television watching experience.    There's obviously something wrong with me because I can't see the difference between regular TV and HD TV, even though he swears there is a difference.   But, in all fairness to him, I really haven't spent enough time watching in order to really appreciate it.

Instead of watching movies and sporting events in HD, I spent the weekend in bed reading "The Plague."     It's about a small French town on the coast of Africa that, in the 1940's, gets hit with an outbreak of the plague.    It's about the various stages that the town goes through.   The suffering, the loss, children dying.   The town is quarantined so food becomes scarce.   But it's also about the compassion that people can develop for total strangers in a time of crisis.   There is a man in the book, a visitor to the town, who, at the beginning of the book is solely focused on getting out of town and back to his wife and his life--he feels that the town's problems aren't his as he doesn't belong there.   In the middle of the book, when he finally has a chance to leave, he doesn't, he stays and helps fight the plague.    Deep friendships develop.   One, in particular, beteen two men who were in radically different social circles and would never have become friends were it not for the plague.    It was a story about what makes us human.

If they ever decided to make a movie of "The Plague" the story, the reflection of who we are as human beings and how we operate individually and in groups, would be exactly the same story in regular digital or in high definition, it would be the same if it were watched with regular sound or surround sound.

More is only better when you have something.   When you have nothing, anything is good.