Ties

With a trip to London in the next few days, The inevitability of my most hated holiday routine is lingering ever so near on the corner. This routine is the conundrum we refer to as “packing.”
When we refer to packing, we refer to the accommodating of a few items essential to us as human beings to get by for the few days that we will be away from our normal habitat. It irritates me how, when we are actually wanting to get away from our normal everyday surroundings, that it is absolutely essential for us to pack a sizable amount of our own normality/routine, of the very aspect we wish to leave behind, into a sizable suitcase in order for us to survive comfortably the few days away from home. Our reliance upon man made objects is astounding. It amazes me that there was once a much simpler time when toothbrushes, inhalers, straighteners and socks, to name but a few, did not exist. There was a time in history when the human race could simply just exist freely without these materialistic ties which everyday prove harder and harder to break free from. Take our bare holiday essentials: toothbrush, passport, money, mobile phone, clothes, hairbrush…. The list goes on (or maybe i should call it chain? Because that’s what it is. One item leads to another.)
It would be nice, just for once, to be liberated of the materialistic ties, the drudgery of routine and to simply exist and travel freely in the world without worry or Ill health as a result. However unfortunately in our 21st century, materialistic society, this idea of liberation is becoming an idea more and more far fetched. Even to me right now, the idea of leaving the house, never mind the country without my handbag containing my iPod, iPhone and money is completely preposterous and in many ways it sickens me. The materialism is just one long never ending chain: toothbrush leads to toothpaste which leads to facewash which leads to moisturiser which leads to shampoo which leads to conditioner which leads to hairbrush which leads to hairdrier and so on and so forth.
I think my anxieties and loathing of the activity of packing has been neatly suggested in these paragraphs. I think I speak for us all when I say that there is nothing worse than the feeling that you are forgetting something or those questions that come back to haunt you in the middle of the night… Did I lock the front door? Did I shut all the windows? I forgot my hair clips didn’t I? Well this holiday although there is no avoiding these chiseled in, 21st century worries and dilemmas, it will not stop me from adopting a much more laid back attitude to these man made materialistic ties as I remember there was once a time when people could exist happily without them. Happy packing.