If I were to quit teaching today, I'd seriously consider going into the insulation business. Not for buildings, but for humans. Clearly, we humans love us some high R-values, when it comes to experiencing this world.
How else can we explain our seeming collective indifference to 11 years of war in Afghanistan or the ever-growing sandy fingers of an ever-shrinking Platte River?
Whereas insulation in a home's walls keeps in the desired air temperature, the focus of human insulation is to keep out the "out there." Thus the popularity of attached garages tooled with garage-door openers, which, really, we mostly value as door closers.
Truth be told, we don't really want to see what's out there or talk to those people. Heck, we don't even want to see or talk to our own kids, which is why texting is no longer the realm of just the young.
Because Americans have been so successful at keeping our distance from so many unpleasant things, we suddenly find ourselves facing a number of tipping points that we had never anticipated. Blindsided by our own insular ways, we can't believe that the drought restrictions apply to us or that our country's financial backbone is teetering on honest-to-goodness disaster. We can't believe that the government can't keep gas prices down or that acres of dead crops will translate into higher food prices.
That's the problem with conveniences like air conditioning and cable television--they instantly deliver us from the heat of the day, the harshness of our own realities. And, as a result, we lose our ability to imagine or experience the rest of the world, the "out there" that is standing at our doorsteps.
I'm no doomsayer, but I can't help believing that we insulate at our own peril. Better to face the elements than to be waylaid by them.
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