Friday, July 10, 2009

Honolulu Green

I spent the last couple of days in the upscale urban heart of Honolulu, an environment so relentlessly artificial it might as well be on the moon, and I began to understand some things. I began to undertand where city-dwellers come from a little better.

With every view-plan dominated by right angles and every foot-step paved no wonder the denizens of this world crave "green." I imagine that most everyone that lives in such a world is haunted by a sense of loss - a vague desire for more life in their life, for a reconnection with "nature." The easiest way to assuage this sense of loss, as well as all other discomforts, is by... shopping. That is where green products come in.

The white-collar urban life is so physically un-demanding that being a vegetarian makes a whole lot of sense. Instead of physical work, city people have "work-outs." Honestly, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for an actual creature to lay down its life to provide calories for work-outs.
Someone needs to figure out a way to capture all of the "work-out" energy and transform exercize into a renewable energy source.

One of the reasons that Honolulu seems so artificial is that it is a resort city. It is an apex organism, a money-making machine that serves a semi-parasitic role in the world. In exchange for providing a fantasy environment the city reaps the disposable income of the tourists that flock from East and West to escape from their overly-mechanized lives in other money-making machines.

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