You know what I used to enjoy doing on really hot days like today? Going to the mall. Not to shop, just to walk around, browse, maybe grab a little something to eat, sit on a bench and watch humanity. We cant really do that anymore, can we? One of my favorite places from my teen years, Regency Square, is a shell of its former self. No need in rehashing the details as to why it went downhill, needless to say that it did. There was the Avenues, which came much later, and felt more upscale. The Orange Park Mall might as well have been on the Moon, as I never went to that area. There had been talk of building another large mall on the Northside of Jacksonville for a long time; we got River City. It is like the rather confusingly named St. Johns Center, which in turn resembles City Place in West Palm Beach. These are really shopping centers. These arent really malls. And the two big ones in Jacksonville are not exactly pedestrian friendly. Gone are the days when you could stroll through the mall. Now, we insulate ourselves, going from point to point in our little motorized cocoons, safe within our shells. The only interaction we have is driving by one another. Thats like the state of the world, isnt it? Sure, we have social media, something I am a big proponent of. But think about how we tend to treat one another here. Sometimes, we behave civilly, as if we are just having a conversation over dinner. Too often, we behave in the coarsest manner possible, feeling the insulating effects of the Internet allows us to. Then there are those who use the anonymity that being online can afford us, and we do and say things that in polite society would be intolerable, all for the lulz. Interaction is becoming mechanized. Civil discourse isnt civil enough. Were becoming so lonely, so cutoff from one another. Were in danger of becoming islands unto ourselves, in a vast sea of people.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 18:57:29 +0000