(written on 11 August 2006)
The start of my long weekend!
Across from me sits a middle-aged couple from Invercargill. Chatty and relaxed, much as I would have expected of people from the “deep south”.
I have heard much talk that the people from “there” are more conservative, etc etc etc…The people from “there” simply live the “old” values. They live life the way it suppsed to be.
Uncomplicated and unfettered!
While they come from a city, they are not city folk. They appreciate being in the capital and all that the capital has to offer it’s visitors.
They appreciate the public transport the locals scoff and sneeze at. An appreciation that comes from folk that make their lives with so much less. My use of the word “folk” highlights it for me, it is like the word “kin”. It has meaning and depth. A kind of meaning and depth that city folk seem to have lost touch with. The kind of meaning that people of 50 or 40 or even 30 years ago took for granted.
Now we find ourselves trying to buy that kind of meaning. Buy a piece of land in the country, a lifestyle block, then move our technology and our petty kin-less lives into these communities and corrupt the values and appreciation for the simple. The inadvertent conquerours, seeking solitude and retreat, ultimately polluting that which we seek without a moments realisation!
Sad that!