Vanity

I find so many things in life vain. Hierarchy, shirts, ties, power dressing, philosophy, arts, management, politics, nationhood, church programmes, opinion, scholarly or otherwise, movies, music, grown-ups, `stepping on my turf', fast cars, fast computers, short mini skirts, jewellery, the games boys and girls play, even words, even this post. Everything is either remarkably stupid or remarkably fleeting.

----

Globalisation accentuates this emphemerality and stupidity. Fashion changes faster than you can say `last season'. Words are reduced to catch-phrases without meaning. Sentences are replaced with images, and not even still images, but images flickering on your screen at a rate of 1 per 5 seconds. If that image of the starving, bloated Ethopian boy doesn't grab your attention in 5 seconds, it isn't worth it.

-----

And that is exactly what I've become: a consumer who thinks things vain. Who lives for a plate of well-cooked bacon, scrambled eggs, and buttered toast, not forgetting the perfectly brewed coffee, and I want it now. You remember Jacob Esau? Who exchanged his inheritence for a bowl of lentil soup, the antithesis of our friend Moses in Hebrews 11?

-----

I want to be someone who can look at a space in the wall and say, "You need a screen 10 by 7 feet." To be able to say that a handheld mike will give less feedback than a clip-on mike because while the handheld is uni-directional in picking up the voice, the clip-on is omni-directional. I want to be able to drive a truck, set up a make-shift tent, build a computer, cook a meal, tell you which cable to use, wire a plug, unplug a toilet, fix a TV. I want to be technical.

-----

I am, after all, a vain child of my time.