A Call for a Public Space Race

Morning Thoughts #163

What’s the environmental cause I’m most concerned about? Impolite pollution. Simple manners. General respect shown when it is due. Self-awareness that is not self-deprecating but entails dignified consideration of others. An Earth that knows the size of the sun in relation to itself.

Oh, lost nobility, American materialism has packed ourselves so tight within our bodies! Write what you want on the page, act your part on the stage. What am I? A passionate advocate for decency. A society without it isn’t worth maintaining. May civilization-preserving unspoken rules continue to be carried by the decibels of our better nature!

Here, here - I call for a public space race! Walk around your nearest city (please note: city not town) center for more than a few moments, the question is bound to come to you - why can’t we rise above this? And didn’t we used to?

Much too little shame, a veritable shameless epidemic is spreading. Etiquette itself is in danger of turning into another Latin, a dead language! Materialism, at its very basest, is what exalts itself even as it farts. It doesn’t shrink away, or try in the least to disguise itself as the source of its own stinking emission - it can no longer conceive of a reason to - the impulse to hide our worst fruits has died on the vine.

Self-expression of the body above the mind, without any consideration of good form, rules the day. Without, even, the belief that good form could exist beyond a singular non-transferable opinion. There is much wisdom in having a carefully selected sense of shame. Art beautifies the world by choosing its words carefully and its silence even moreso.