This morning I walked by this computer and monitor. It sat on the sidewalk waiting to be picked up – discarded. Tossed out. No longer wanted. Water sits on top of it proving that it most likely can never be used again. Any bit of usefulness left in this little machine has been washed away. I could not help but feel sad for this computer and friend. As a writer, I personify objects, I let objects talk to me. This object did not talk. It could not. Its life was no longer.
I started thinking about how we have become a society that tosses away things as soon as we feel that they no longer can be of any use. We no longer darn socks, patch knees on jeans, mend holes in sweaters, and keep computers when the next best thing comes along. What a 180 from my grandparents generation – those who lived through the depression. My Nana threw little away, and when she did, it could no longer be used for anything.
Our generation has been taught, through advertisements, peer pressure, and other tactics, to always have the latest greatest item. We are teased to have the latest version of an item before we learn how to fully use what we have. Those companies that produce items for our use do so in a way that makes repairs either impossible or more costly than it would be to purchase anew. Items are no longer made to last, but, instead, they are designed to break the first time it experiences anything outside of normal use.
Due to all of this, we dispose of things that still have so much to give. This poor computer may have taken a few extra seconds to load a program. It may have not been able to run the latest games or word processing program. It may just not have been as flashy as the new model. So, out the door it goes – not even sent for e-waste. Just tossed out on the sidewalk to fend for itself against the weather.
If we are willing to do this with costly items, what about people? Have we become a society that tosses away people? I know so many couples that have been in relationships for twenty or more years. Now that I think about it, many are over 30. They know that when the relationship isn’t smooth, you don’t toss it out the window. You work at it.
I also hear a number of stories of younger people separating after being together for years. Some break-ups are for the best. Many are because people no longer want to work at it. Since so many things offer instant gratification, it is hard for young people to realize that the best things take reap the rewards. They want to keep a partner until the new, flashier model comes along. As soon as there is a hole in the relationship, instead of pulling out thread and mending, the relationship is put on the donate pile – let someone else fix it.
Then finally those that are homeless. I am not going to state that society is to blame for their being homeless. In some cases, society has tossed them aside and not lived up to promises – the word veteran comes to mind, In other cases, people have ended up on the streets due to their own choices or bad circumstances. No matter what the reason, these people have become our throw aways. We walk by them maybe offering some money, but we want someone else to deal with the problem. I can even remember hearing stories of a city bussing them out when the Olympics came to town. The city tossed them away. I can recall a number of times where I feared that I was going to become one of the tossed of society.
Society needs to stop tossing everything including people out. I will be honest, at the moment, I do not have the solution. I have personally had scary experiences when offering to help people. It causes you to not want to help. That just means that that person needs a little more mending. Maybe I am not the correct mender for him or her, but hopefully the next person who tries is. We need to start teaching our children that the latest greatest isn’t always the best. We need to save and keep what we have until we can no longer make it work nor get it fixed. We need to keep working at relationships so that they don’t fail, but understand that some must. I don’t want to go back to the 1930’s, but perhaps we can still learn from that generation.
All of this came from seeing a computer sitting on the sidewalk. I hope that my feelings are 1000 times stronger when I see a person sitting there.