Strung Out in the Comfort Zone
One can analyze the heck out of things and tie them all up nicely into a significant package called a book, yet once in a while someone comes along and nails a topic with a pithy statement. That’s one reason am a fan of quotes: If someone can sum up what it might take me a while to explain, the power to them.
Recently i watched a George Carlin segment where he did that for a topic that gets miles of discussion, (and, no offense, ladies!),
"Everybody’s got a cell phone that’ll make pancakes and rub their balls, so nobody wants to rock the boat."
Ok a smidgen of analysis… pancakes are a comfort food, warm and soft…In sum: It’s the comfort zone, stupid!
Consumerism… commodification… public relations and the sales pitch, pitch, pitch… drive it into their heads like a woodpecker in early Spring (no offense to my pals the woodpeckers) . . . the sacred sounds of the wild replaced with you’re just a car honk or a squealing brake away from a drive-thru one-click experience of, cue the Jagger, “sat-is-fact-ion” . . .
But wait, rather Tom Waits for it, there’s more: “The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.”
But even more seriously, “…the executioner’s face is always well hidden.” - Dylan.
Speaking of, I just read an excellently informative book, The Trillion Dollar Silencer: Why There Is So Little Anti-War Protest in the United States by Joan Roelofs, (Clarity Press, 2022). The answer is basically in the title yet the details and nuances make for a good read, or check out videos with the author herself, or here’s part-1 of my podcast book review. One of the gists is how the intricate web of funding – sometimes blatant, sometimes under the radar – keeps the squeaky F-16 wheel of karma greased and the pancakes syruped.
There’s nothing wrong with a comfort zone; it’s often what keeps us going lest we slide into the Buddhist slippery slope of suffering, where, sadly, too many currently are nowadays — some not by their own choosing (Palestinians). But when the comfort zone becomes THE standard of living at the expense of Earth, species, fellow men, women and whatevers, the lazy haze seeps into a norm numbing standard of selfishly not living fully, rather biding time, just getting by, “Comfortably Numb” . . . where you literally become part of the machine, or more organically if you prefer, part potato stuck to man-made couch, part pancake stuck to cushioned booth.
Carlin’s line most of all reminded me of another from a 1983 spoken word piece by John Trudell, also in his 2008 book Lines from a Mined Mind in “Very Eyes”:
"your mind for a hairdryer”
This speaks to me of how the reliance on the appliance has reduced the capacity for thinking, or for making things with one’s hands, or any manner of effort that requires a bit of work, call it discomfort if you like. “But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight / Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight” - Bruce Cockburn.
Maybe ten years ago, instead of buying my niece a birthday present, i wrapped a tomato from my garden and wrote a little something to go with it, something to the effect that it took months to make the present; building up to the opening of the gift was part of the presentation. What’s memorable is that it was the biggest “thank you” i had gotten in years, and she remembers it to this day.
Everyone measures their own penchants for effort with pain . . . in the flow with pleasure . . . and all manner of combinations thereabouts.
Carlin’s gone, but the whales are still here, warning us that the boat is already rocking.
