Lazy Days

I’ve never been one to enjoy just sitting around for any length of time. I can tolerate it to a point, but there comes a time when I get a bit restless and want to set out on some kind of distraction.  Then there’s today.

It’s just one of those kinds of days – early afternoon and the temps are up over 90, the “feels like” sits at 112 right now. The A/C is on, but only gently so. I’m not a fan of the deep freeze.

I remember many years ago when I lived in Hawaii, our house did not have A/C. We lived up in the center of Oahu, and it never got hot, really. We had ceiling fans and screen doors, and that was plenty enough. How beautiful. I had a friend who lived down by Honolulu, and he blasted the A/C all day long. He figured he wasn’t paying for it (living in military housing), and he may as well be comfortable.

The weather now brings to mind memories of my time here in the 80s. During those five years, I lived in only one house that had and air conditioner, but we never used it. Electricity was expensive back then on Staff Sergeant’s pay. But here we were, suffering through summers without much complaint. Sure, we were hot, but there were certain expectations ,and without alternatives, what could we do? We learned to live with it.

I’m not saying this like we were all some kind of heroes. I mean, given the choice, every one of us would have said “yes, please” to the opportunity to run an air conditioner wherever we were living. But it wasn’t expected, so we didn’t give it much thought. Thinking about it all the time certainly didn’t make it any better.

This reminds me too of a wonderful lady I have known for over twenty years, Jane White. Jane came to Korea the year before I was born, expecting to stay about five years then go back to the States. Turns out she’s stayed an entire lifetime and still lives at the orphanage she founded in the city of Je-ch’eon over half a century ago.

I loved hearing Jane’s stories of how it was in the earlier days. She relied heavily on US servicemembers, who always found a way to get things for her and help her out. Sixty years ago, the trip from her orphanage to Seoul took half the day over single lane, often muddy roads in the back of a military truck, but she had to make the trip for supplies and support. Six, eight, ten hours at a stretch, bouncing around in that truck.  But that was the expectation. Jane came to Korea on a cargo ship. And I complain today about a 14-hour flight.

I think expectations have changed as society has changed. Perhaps its our inflated expectations that have bred a deeper sense of entitlement. It used to be the joke that the Air Force was the best service because when we deployed, we all lived in hotels while the rest of the services lived in tents. People on the outside looking in at something like that might get a bit perturbed, and yet, for the Air Force, this was just what we expected. Drop a typical Airman in with a bunch of Marines, and I’m sure the discomfort would be near unbearable. How dare they.

I use this though as a kind of metaphor for life these days. It seems we have it so good now that we have to seek out anything that can give it flavor. There’s a competition out there, fueled by the “influencers” – people with huge followings on social platforms. Am I exaggerating?  I don’t know. I look around when I’m out, and the overwhelming majority of people I see have their heads buried in their phones every moment they’re not distracted by things like walking (and even then…). They’ve got to be so intent on something that’s engaging their minds, don’t they? Some video. Some game. Some podcast. Something. And it has to be exerting influence on them. They’re being studied by the very algorithms that have entrapped them and fed them more of the same. I look at people with their faces aglow in the light of their phones and I see someone far too eager for the next big thing. Their expectations are that if something is going happen, they’ve got to be the first to see it. That is, until the next big thing pops up and grabs their attention.

I wonder what it would be like for someone to lose that – the expectations planted and watered by that little screen. I know that when I dropped off social media, it changed my outlook on living tremendously, and I wasn’t even a major user. I can only imagine what life would be like for people if it all just went away. I don’t think it would be very long before expectations re-leveled on a plane of deeper satisfaction. Sadly, though, we know it’ll never happen, and the world will continually and progressively be the poorer for it. I can only work on myself, and hope that others can see the value there, but even then, I fail even by writing here…