Of Fast Food in Slow Towns

Culver's, the fast food chain, exists as a milquetoast celebration of the banality of its setting. While it maintains a high degree of popularity in its Midwest location, a cursory tasting of their food finds it remarkably; bland, uninspiring, and flavourless - seemingly existing in a world that does not use salt, pepper, seasonings, textures, or flavours of any significant note. In this way, its mundanity is actually a meta-representation of the American Midwest - a flat, endless plain, dull, flavourless, and unexciting, remarkable only in its ability to be utterly unmemorable.

Contrasting Policy

A whole host of economic, anthropologic, and pragmatic evidence makes the case for allowing humans to more readily and easier achieve moving. Moving, as in, relocating to a new town, state, country, or what have you. Alas, while the benefits of a fluid and transient and low-barrier geographical change of scenery are well documented, decades of public policy and private influences have poured trillions of dollars into rewarding the act of not moving, not relocating, and not changing. Given the risk and fear that comes with making any large scale change, and the fact that we continually make it even harder to commit to this specific change by way of public policy, one might be inclined to surmise that this is some sort of fitting representation of the futility of existence.

Can't Fix Tired

One finds that, as one reaches their teens, one exists in a continual state of drowsiness and a generally tired persuasion. Alas, the routes most apt to, theoretically, fix said drowsiness, only hasten the onset of fatigue. To wit; there is, seemingly, no accurate amount of time one can sleep that alleviates the drowsiness.

For example, while one may find that 7 hours is too little time to sleep, thus leaving one dissatisfied and drowsy come morning, one also finds that 8 hours is, indeed, too much, and causes a similar output. No amount of fiddling with the numbers seems to create a scenario in which the proper amount of time to sleep is accrued.

The end result is, of course, some 60-odd years of existence perpetually tired, yawning, heavy-eyed, wondering how, exactly, and if, exactly, it will ever go away. The answer, of course, is one that treads heavily into the reality of the finite nature of existence, that of which is too dark for such a light-hearted yet wholly without purpose post, to contemplate.

Flowering Bush as an Apt Metaphor of Existence

Outside the present author's house, on the south east corner, near the front deck, is a bush that flowers every spring, with gorgeous purple/fuschia color. During this time, it is not uncommon for the present author to find multiple - that is, more than one - bumblebees canvassing the petals excitedly.

The flowers last about 7-10 days, then all drop dead, and the bush is left wilted, green and brown and decaying, for the other 355 days of the year.

When Spring first comes around, the sun actually escapes the ever present winter grey, and warmth slowly begins to encroach, one might be inclined to have their mood improve, to take a new outlook on the future, and to feel optimistic. After a week or so has passed, much like the flowers, this beauty will have subsided, and existence resigned to the brown, decaying mass that we all presently inhabit.