The Gilded Cage

A rainy Tuesday. Sometimes you just want to stay home and stare out the window, you know?

Actually, that might be the case for me a lot of the time. I'm the kind of person that can get by on 10% physical activity and 90% brain activity. Not a lot of people can do that without going nuts. I can entertain myself doing the most mundane things if I have to.

Maybe that ability is why I embrace the "lost on a tropical desert island" fantasy?

People have been taught to escape if they were ever in a scenario like that, but I don't think I would be so hasty. True, a person would have to be more active than they think they would between keeping themselves sheltered and fed, but it would be a worthwhile trade off.

They would all be in such a hurry to get back to their life--The life of excesses that we enjoy here in the US. But isn't it much like the bird in the gilded cage? We sing our high praises of our lives here, but little by little we are isolating ourselves from others, while at the same time becoming more and more under the watchful eye of the bodies that govern us.

In This Perfect Day by Ira Levin (an excellent book by the guy that also wrote The Boys From Brazil and Rosemary's Baby), the author explores a scenario where the government has somehow gotten out of hand and has full control over it's citizens. They get medication that keeps them docile and harmless, and their whole life is controlled by a bracelet they wear on their wrist. Everything they eat, drink, buy, or do. In this story, as people somehow escape their medication and become more aware, they realize that there are more just like them, and they are all banded together in one place. The spooky thing is when they realize that the place they all "escaped to" was put there for that very reason. A place for dissenters--A "jail" if you will.

This thought popped into my head a few days ago when I was thinking about nudist parks. Isn't that twisted? That society would create a "haven" for people like myself when in reality it would be more like a prison? It's an interesting notion.

I'll take a "prison" like that any day... As long as it's tropical.