Friday, August 27, 2004

I still waiver between thinking the stock market and our evolving capitalism are an incredibly efficient way to determine the evolution of humanity - we either value, as evinced in a monetary exchange system, that which will advance our chances of survival, or we die. But it concerns me, when I am reminded, even watching something like Lost in Translation, itself a work of art, a beautiful cinema anomie, seeing some of the beauty that the Japanese, the wonder they created during prosperous times, less western prosperity (not that there weren't peasants starving). And when I compare that to what we do with our liesure time, watching television, buying products, not creating. With the time we could enjoy in our lives, if we weren't so caught up in making money, we would be a society of well fed artisans. And that's the big question for me - is capitalism helping create more prosperity, a more stable world, or creating a divergent, destructive evolutionary strand. Going to the City Museum with a little kid is to know wonder. And claustraphobia, trying to get into the tight spaces. Duffy, Claire's 4.5 year old (four and a HALF) he says emphatically, took me through all the tunnels in the cave area, and climbing in all the high places. He actually said a couple things that stick with me, like they should be in some Robert Fulghum book. When he was eyeing a tunnel going down that he knew would be a stretch for him to get down, he said, "Sometimes you just have to believe in yourself and jump right in." When we got the end of the airplane wing and looked up at the wire cage tube going up and over the parking lot down into a long slide, he said, "I'm going to do everything I see today" and barreled right on. The City Museum is where I want my children to live at least a couple days of each week, both for their health and mine. Although tomorrow, the second day after, I am going to be sore. 12:22:01 AM