The secret.
Sitting on a gigantic bale of cotton balls freshly-harvested from the field, smoking a doobie and talking to Richard, that's the driver, he rolls doobies, I turned and said, "This cotton reminds me of something. It reminds me of the secret. Do you want to hear this story?"
"Yes."
"This cotton we are sitting on," a comfy drift had formed on the downwind side of the bale, "was carded by hand until Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. It was pretty hard to make thread out of cotton before that, comb these seeds out, spin it. For most of history, making fabric was hard. Linen is pounded. Wool, you have to spin it thin and weave it by hand, and that takes a lot of time. Back then, most people had only two or three sets of clothes.
"Then, suddenly! We could make clothes faster! Machines, to card cotton, spin thread, weave bolts, we had sewing machines, all those labor-saving advances. Suddenly it was easy to make fabric! This cotton we are sitting on," very soft except for the seeds and stems, "is part of that amazing advance!
"So what did we do? Instead of enjoying the time saved, we started buying more clothes.
"That's the secret, Richard."
We have time machines. We just forgot how to use them.
I sat in the sun on a bale of cotton, mulling over why we are working so hard for so many things. I think humanity wins one big, mass Darwin Award for rigging this game. A dozen shoes and coats, a closet full of fabric, why? Richard suggested, "Maybe people do it to keep up with the Jones." Richard has taken on a personal challenge to get rid of 25% of all his possessions--just give them away! Richard is home now, doing just that.
That's what happens on a road trip with Wendy Northcutt, Ms. Darwin, so watch out, I'm headed South soon, I'm headed East from there, I'm coming to get you!
12:00 PM: Spock: "After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."