Simplify

While perusing one of the few big box bookstores that still remains in these parts, I noticed that there seems to be a trend afoot in the magazine world (yes, magazines, those archaic paper things that are rumored to be dying) toward a rustic, reminiscent, back-to-the-land, hands-on crafty lifestyle. I find it particularly interesting that these are physical magazines and not just online products (though they all do seem to have corresponding blogs and Pinterest accounts). My theory is that as a result of becoming inundated with technology at every turn, we yearn for something simpler, more tactile, in a sense, more real. These magazines create dreamworlds that we can insert ourselves into when the beeps and pixels start to overwhelm us. Some of the notable ones I've run across are The Simple Things, a magazine which accomplishes what Real Simple probably wanted to be, before it became another medium for ad copy passed off as journalism. There is also Land Scape and the confusingly similar in title and content Land Love. It's obvious that people are seeking a connection with nature, either because of our reliance on technology or because so many of us live in cities and have physically moved so far away from what we normally associate with the natural world. So we start a backyard garden, or chicken coop, or beehive in an effort to reconnect with that essence of who we really are as a species. We are realizing that we do not and cannot exist separate from the Earth and the rest of its inhabitants. Even if we manage to exist on fake food and spend all of our time indoors, eventually our inner selves crave that natural connection to where we came from and where we are returning to.
In a way, I think that our popular culture obsessions with zombies and post-apocalyptic scenarios are also a response to the way our lives have become complicated and sped up. Even in our nightmares, we dream of a world where technology has lost its mojo and life is reduced to the simplest of needs: food, water, survival.
We live in interesting times, where it sometimes seems as if we are seeking balance on a ball that keeps moving faster than we can find equilibrium. The interesting thing about that is that we simply need to remind ourselves that we can hop off the ball at any time.