Societal Rust
Wednesday, February 12th, 2025 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio |
23F and snowy tonight.
Yesterday the warnings went out, and there was tension in the air, as people readied for the BIG WINTER STORM, that was on the way!
SIX INCHES OF BLOWING SNOW! GOD SAVE US!
But the actual, advisory said, 3-6 inches of snow... over the span of 12 hours, with winds up to 14MPH.
And... six inches of snow is nothing.
Having that little fall, over such a long span of time is also nothing.
And 14 mile per hour winds are also... nothing!
And they were calling for 30F, which is also NOTHING!
It should've been called, the "MILD & ORDINARY WINTER DAY ADVISORY."
I stopped on the way to work yesterday to get beer, and the guy at the register was like, Big storm coming! Six inches of snow!
I said, We'll get three.
He seemed disappointed. Well, maybe!.. I dunno!
The grounds guys were out there in snow suits salting the shit out of everything in preparation for the big storm.
Fast forward to this morning, when I got up and could see what looked like fog outside... but it was actually super-fine, tiny, little snow crystals... kinda gently waving their way down through the breeze.
Just a dusting on the sidewalks, as I walked to the garage, with the little crystals landing on my un-gloved hands.
But when I got to the high school... absolutely abandoned!
ZERO cars in the parking lots!
Derick told me the office had decided to do an E-learning day, and that the entire night crew of custodians, save for three souls, had all called in sick.
So... you'd think it was the apocalypse, but when the snow stopped falling around 5PM, we only had two inches out there.
It started up again, around 7PM... same tiny crystals of snow, now falling in almost dead calm outside, with it still being a very mild 28F out there
And by the time I left at 9:30... it was all over, and we had a total of three-inches!
Just this perfect little blanket of snow, to make things look pretty... with calm air and mild temperatures, so you could walk around town and enjoy it!
So... I'm not complaining about any of this.
I'm just observing, I guess, how climate change has altered everybody's perception of winter around here!
And it's only been about 8 years, since we stopped having the brutal winters we were always known for, in Chicagoland!
Working at the hospital, I remember trudging through feet of snow on the rooftop to get from one air handler to another, to change intake filters clogged with snow.
I remember walking Yvette... the dog that's still alive and well!.. down sidewalks that looked like little canyons, with three feet of snow on either side of us!
Not that we'd necessarily get feet of snow in a single storm, but... it snowed so regularly... and stayed below freezing for such long spans of time... that it would quickly build up to feet of snow, on the ground. in a couple weeks!
In the hospital days, I remember observing that the pattern we saw every winter was... a few nice warm days around 30F... followed by a big snowstorm that dropped 6 to 8 more inches... followed by a week at zero!
Then it would warm up again, to 30F... and the pattern would repeat!.. all winter long... until the snow piles in the parking lots were high as mountains!
And then those snow mountains wouldn't fully melt away until late April!
That was every winter from about 1990, through about 2017.
And the only way for a school to close was if we got over a foot, being dumped on us in less than 12 hours... but only IF... there were ALSO high winds, creating snow drifts!
In those years, weather like we had today would've been utterly unremarkable!
But if you wanna talk about the winters of the 1970s, and 1980s?... oh my god!
THOSE were witners!
Back then we WOULD get a whole foot of snow, every damn time!... and it WOULD... ALWAYS... be blowing and drifting snow.
At least four, blinding blizzards, every year!
Cars not starting!... cars never used to start in the cold weather.
Cars stranded!.. all over the place!
Kids, staggaring through snow that was up to their shoulders to get to school!
And everybody... EV-RY-BO-DY... had the FLU!
Three times!.. every winter!
And it wasn't just the sniffles, and some vague aches.
It was ALWAYS... Fever of 105F, with full delerium!.. and plenty of puking!
And everybody in the house would have it at the same time!
Everybody bedridden, burning up, hallucinating visions of Hell as their stomochs churned... praying for death!.. for five days!
Then you recovered, went back to school, and caught a different strain!
THAT'S what winter used to be!
Just, staggaring through five feet of snow, getting frostbite, delerious with fever for three months!
And everybody's house was cold, and nobody's car worked!
And there was no mercy!.. you just had to SURVIVE the torture until spring!
I've read my Grandma's journals, and her winters in the 30s and 40s were pretty much the same as the ones I described above.
That was just the norm, going all the way back to the pioneer days, and probably back to the end of the last ice age!
Winter was just a total bitch, and we weren't any match for it!
The 1990s, through the 20-teens was kind of a golden era, where our tech had finally caught up to the challenges, at the same time that winter started getting a little less severe!
We had flu shots, and our cars started in the coldest weather.
We had home insulation down to a science finally.
We had the salting and plowing infrastructure, and funding to be proactive, and keep the roads clear.
And our winter clothes were just way better than ever before!
That was the era, where winter was still an ass hole, but we were all saying, Fuck you!... I'm NOT sick!... I'm NOT cold!.. and I'm NOT missing work today, no matter what you've got! So bring it, bitch!
But long about 2018 or 2019, winter just kinda gave up!
I know the rational reason for that is climate change but... it does feel like we kinda broke it's spirit.
We hurt it's feelings, and it's been too sad to come around anymore!
Winter's been sitting at home like, What about snowmen?.. huh? What about snowballs and snow angels? The magic of snow? What about the magic, huh? I was't ALL bad!... (boo hoo hooh! *snort)
And it does have a point!
But, at any rate, we are now in this new paradigm, after only 8 years... where if we have any kind of snow, everybody loses their minds!
Half the people lose their minds like, It's so beautiful and miraculous!
And the other half, freak out like it's the end of the world.
And I'm over here like, Guys!.. calm down! It's... three inches of snow!
I dunno!.. I think...
I think everybody in the country has... kinda lost their minds?
I mean, it's not just about the snow, it's about everything...
I think back to the last couple years in my life, and... there are these recurring themes of... professionals being totally incapable of doing their jobs, for example.
From bankers, notaries, and lawyers, down to the guys at JiffyLube, recently, who forgot to plug a very obvious air hose back into the system.
But it goes further back, to when the Hospital was taken over by total boobs!
And it includes, the Biden Administration, and their... just total inability to recognize what their job was... or to do anything about anything!
Was Trump the cause of all that?.. or just the earliest symptom of this strange phenomenon?
But universal incompetence is just one facet of the phenomenon.
There's also this inability to assess the magnitude of anything correctly.
A big, obvious problem comes along, and everybody's either like, every thing will be fine! or, It's just a hoax!.
But then some tiny small nothing of a problem pops up and everybody loses their goddam minds about it!
But the two things are obviously related, because if that's how you are, then of course, you'll be incompetent at your job... no matter how important it is!
It think it all must boil down to a general inability to grasp reality!.. happening on every level, at the same time.
And that's GOT to have something to do with the internet!
Right?
I've gotten into this territory before, but I'll point out again, that through the entire age of radio and television... we, as a society, benefitted from the, programming.
That top-down broadcast approach, to the masses... did have the effect of keeping everybody on the same page!
And everything else was, sort of, more physical, and rigourous back then.
You wanted answers, you had to physically go to the library and read through physical books and papers that people had to keep filed and catalogued on actual shelves, and in actual drawers.
Not that I'm trying to wax nostalgic for the past being superior in some way!
It's just that you had to sort of engage reality physically, at every step of investigating your reality... or changing your reality!
If you wanted the news, you either had to obtain a paper, and work through the crazily awkward thing... or sit down at a specific time, and tune in to a specific station to hear the same live broadcast that everybody else was hearing/seeing.
We all had the same reference frame.
People kind of naturally took their jobs more seriously, because those jobs involved a lot more personal interaction with clients, and there wasn't any distractions... or weird gig economy going on in the background.
You didn't think, Well, I need to get this idiot off my back, so I can get back to [INSERT SOCIAL MEDIA/MOBILE GAME HERE], and who cares? Because they're paying me shit! And if I get fired, I'll just do Door Dash!
OR... Well, I need to get this faceless rando's money, but I don't need to actually help him, cuz he signed a thing saying he can't sue me for any reason, and even if he could, I've got so much invested in crypto, I'm probably set for life!
OR... I'm turning 90 next week, and I've been in this business for seventy years, because I refuse to retire!... and some strange old lady just told me she's my daughter? Who is she?.. What is that cloud?.. what year is it?... Oh yeah!... 1954! What?
It's not that the internet was inherently bad!
It had the potential to make the world a lot better, and we did start down that road!
We got a long way down that road, before capitalism caught up to us!
But when it did!..
I would describe what's been happening since, as... erosion?... NO, better yet!... oxidation!
We are RUSTING!
Okay!.. that's my take!
And it means that Trump is NOT the cause... but simply the inevitable result.
I like the rust analogy, because there are metals totally immune to rusting, like gold, silver, copper, and aluminum... because they are elements and they have stable electron shells!
But our modern society was, metaphorically, one made of steel!
(I know it's literally made of steel too, but this is a socio-psychic metaphore)
Steel is extremely strong and resilient... AS LONG AS IT'S PROPERLY MAINTAINED WITH LUBRICATION AND/OR PAINT!
The SECOND you neglect anything made of steel... it starts to rust!
And in this tortured metaphore, the lubrication?... is money... and the paint is a shared reality!
The internet... kinda really started chipping away at that nice epoxy finish, we had on society, with the buffed wax on top.
Or, in other words, it started to reveal a reality beneath the surface!
Not only the dark things, like systemic racism & mysogyny, but the comic/creative genius of everyday people, who were now liberated to entertain one another, WITHOUT being gate kept and vetted by huge media institutions.
And that changed advertising, business, and the stock market.
It also gave a VOICE... to every goddam idiot in the universe.
And it allowed us all to spiral into endless arguments online, from the comfort of home, and fracture into countless tribes, each with a different definition of reality.
And that changed politics!
And all the changes to politics and corporate business, lead, inevitably, to the end of the lubrication!
No more minimum wage hikes!
No more zero-down mortgages!
No more taxes on the rich!
And CERTAINLY!.. NO UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!
So, the finish has been sanded off... and there's no more wax... and there's no more grease for the joints, or any of that.
It's just the raw, steel mech robot, stomping around in the rain, and the salt, going this way... then turning 180, and marching the other way... then doing it again...
Until, long about 2016... it started rusting, and seizing up!
We started rusting!
And nine years later, that rust has now crept into our BRAINS!
Our ability to reason, on the most basic levels... is just flaking away, and breaking off!
Where is American exceptionalism in this tortured metaphore?
It's just the idea that our society was ever elemental!... That it was ever forged of gold... or copper... or even ALUMINUM!
And it turns out that little to nothing in our society... is so rust proof as even aluminum!
And we're ALL in denial about that!
Both on the left and the right!
The U.S. is a really cool car... we inherited from our grandma!... that she kept in mint condition, but we assumed just kept itself in mint condition.
And now that it's rusting out and starting to look like shit, we're just freaking out about every little squeak or rattle we hear... while everybody argues over who gets the wheel, where we're taking it, and what's gonna be playing on the radio for the trip!
So... yeah!
That's how three inches of snow, on a mild winter Wednesday, lead me to a rant on societal rust?
No wonder I drink so much WD40 every night!
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