McKibben on Simplicity

From Bill McKibben's excellent book The Age of Missing Information:

"We've now, as a species, lived through extremes. We know that people will flee from backbreaking labour at the first chance. But we might be starting to sense that the total abandonment of skilled and careful labor, the utter emancipation offered by light bulbs and machines, can be just as alienating, quite aside from their environmental dangers. And perhaps we're starting to sense something deeply human in a life less engaged with the world of consumption and growth and comfort offered by television, and more engaged with the the world of balance and pleasure and simplicity suggested by the natural world. You don't need to live in the country to understand these kinds of changes. City dwellers and suburbanites can continue to drive everywhere, hoping that the ever-progressing society will deliver hydrogen cars or solar cars or whatever other kinds of cars soon enough to save the atmosphere. Or they can begin to use existing technology—the bicycle, for instance. It's every bit as technological as an electric car, and as significant minority of people have discovered, it's endlessly more elegant. On a bicycle you see the world around you—you notice hills that a car obliterates; you see neighborhoods at a pace that makes them real, not a blur. You save gas, of course, but you also hear your body again. TV can't appreciate this kind of elegance—on TV, you'd buy an Infiniti and drive it quickly to Jack LaLanne, where you can pay someone to let you sit on a stationary bicycle and pump away."

Tonight's music is "Quiet Town" by Josh Rouse.