The review began, ‘My grandson loved it and it made him happy for a while.’ I didn’t read any further because I knew what she was getting at. I’ve been there–live there, in truth–in this place where excitement fades quickly and what you are left with is the guilt of the purchase and a skein of disregarded plastic. As with fashion there will come a time when the old is new again, and you can scrape dust from the toys of last week so the children may revisit them today. This does little to address the new way of things: temporary. We live temporary lives in temporary houses using temporary things. We praise temporary, lauding Ikea over heirlooms. We fill our hunger for something good with something more.
Now things have seasons. We substitute the change of weather with the changing of our technology. Apple season is soon upon us. New devices will blow in with the fall winds, kicking up youthful excitement. I know more kids who gauge their lives by when the next big product or game is coming out than I know kids who can name one thing they built by hand. Even the school assignments come pre-fabbed from store bought kits and mom’s careful swirls of glue.
I am afraid that we’ve lost all sense of the value of hard work. We’ve settled into an acceptance of the new generational slogan and nodded and smiled at the old. ‘The Best Generation’ is long behind us, and ‘Work Smarter Not Harder’ rules the day. I’m afraid to trust my future to a generation built on microwavable meals and cellphones not expected to last a year before the new model comes out. On the one hand, they won’t settle for old, but on the other hand, they’d rather wait for someone else to build the new and meanwhile we slip further and further away from questioning until the thoughts of ‘why are we here on this planet’ fade into the rustle of windswept leaves.