Seems its a true quote: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kurt-vonnegut-envelope-quote/
This is in a walkable city though, Vonnegut. I’m sure even you’d agree driving sucks and cars have ruined cities.
I have never been to a non walkable city.
I’m European though…
I am very jealous. Of course I only live in the US because Europe at one point decided to exterminate its Jewish population and those in my family who didn’t make it to the US didn’t make it at all, so I guess there’s worse things than having to drive to the store. Still jealous, though.
I live in Orlando, which is NOT a walkable city.
I see European tourists all the time, walking down the street carrying bags of groceries back to the neighborhood where the rental house is. It’s hotter than it’s ever been in Europe since Pangaeia, and it’s a couple of miles to the nearest grocery store, and there is no alternative other than a rental car or ride share.
Orlando is barely even a drivable city lol I always hated having to go into the city. Of course most major cities are that way now that we’ve bisected them with highways.
Yeah but walk to what you can. It’s worth it. Hell, walk without the envelope sometimes too
Sadly, that’s the mailbox for me.
I bought 100 envelopes in 2007… I walked to the newsagents to buy them. I’ve probably got 90 left.
I haven’t used a standard envelope in years. If u have any, I have no idea where it is.
Same, bought in 2002. Wanna know how I know? I found 37 cent stamps x38, stuffed inside the box. I wonder what I thought I was going to mail. And I never mail anything bc I never know where to get stamps.
I know because that was my first year living on my own! But I actually have a memory of going to that newsagents. I also bought some blu-tac and some rewritable CDs… And you know what I have those CDs somewhere!
This is a great sentiment in the age of “AI is going to eat all labor.” I’d like to know how to dance around and see cute babies while keeping a roof over my head when there’s 80% unemployment tho.
I think its very important to recognize that, in times of war, life does not stop. Vonnegut was literally a soldier and was there during the bombing of Dresden. This man had seen shit and still was so extremely whimsical and mindful.
Another quote I often think about, and I don’t know who said it beyond a member of the gay community during the height of the AIDS crisis: “during the day we fought, and during the night we danced”
The world has always been horrifying, you have to narrow your view to find the beauty, but it always has been and always will be there.
And I think you have to dance so that you can fight. You go out, you make friends and community, and then it’s them you’re fighting with and for. Then someday if you’re lucky you’re older and walking to go get an envelope hoping one of the people you danced and fought with crosses your path. That path crossing is one of the greatest rewards life can give you.
To keep this going with KV terms, he called people like that part of your Karass (this is in Cat’s Cradle).
The karass is “a team that does God’s will without ever discovering what they are doing”
One of Vonnegut’s earlier novels, Player Piano, deals with just that — almost full unemployment due to automation and it’s effects across class lines.
I love all of his work but that one in particular is worth a read, especially now.
oh very nice, I haven’t read this one but will add it to my list now. On a scale of 1-10 how depressing is it?
“Player Piano”
About a 7 on the depressive scale, iirc. You can tell that he’s still trying to find his voice, but it’s worth a read.
I used to buy my next year’s calendar at the store. Come November I’d have a reason to check out new book stores and see what was available. Maybe I’d see one that I didn’t like for myself, but I knew it would be a great present for a friend.
These days the books stores mostly stock a small variety from one or two companies. They are pretty generic, and if I want something I really like I have to go online.
Oh, I remember the times when there was all sorts of weird calendars in book stores!
Sadly I decided to go paperless a long time ago, but I think even then choices started being more limited and boring.
I like the paper calendars because they feel more like decoration than a nagging reminder.
The problem is that there’s a feedback loop; fewer people want wall calendars, so the companies give fewer choices, so people stop looking for cool calendars, so the companies give fewer choices…
I ended up finding calendars.com and found one I liked. It’s not as much fun, though.
I do this too, but more in the physical sense. Like take the stairs instead of the elevator, purposely take a longer or more difficult path just for the exercise, etc. It’s very rewarding.
I used to take the stairs instead of the elevator on my way out on Fridays because I sure as he’ll didn’t want to get stuck in the elevator on a Friday evening! It definitely grew on me and I started doing it everyday. People did in fact get stuck in the elevator. More than a couple times lol
That’s absolutely fantastic, definitely keep that up. And add in doing things, for no reason. I feel like we get in this grind of toxic productivity, maximising effort and output for ultimate returns, but your nervous system pays for that, it’s not as free as it feels.
There’s a whole part of your brain that isn’t verbal, and just reads the levels of safety in your environment, by how you feel. If you are constantly sending the message to your emotional brain, that we gotta get productivity out of every moment, it actually triggers the fight or flight, if you don’t balance it out with the safety affirming, of just being in the moment, just noticing what’s around you, doing something and just noticing your surroundings, the smell in the air, the way the wind moves in the trees, watching the clouds float, just be a body on a beautiful rock, for a moment, it tells your nervous system, we don’t have to be on allert, there’s no danger. Which in turn, lowers your cortisol and adrenaline. Making the experience of being a body on a beautiful rock, exponentially more enjoyable. Absolutely keep doing the exercise and endorphin boost, just add in “just because” once a day, here and there. Soothing to the soul.
Also, I don’t need 100 envelopes.
Is my reading comprehension in the toilet or was that a paragraph of non sequiturs?
I think the first option.
He’s writing about real life, and not everything in real life is neatly ordered.
Yes, he could do a lot of his tasks online, but that would mean giving up the random pleasures he enjoys by going out and interacting with the world.
edit = He could have just said “I would rather do things offline. I still enjoy being outside.”
Instead, he chose to meander.
Oooh I see it now. I think what threw me off was my confusion about putting envelopes in a closet. So when the rest of the paragraph had nothing to do with that my brain just blue screened.
The envelopes in the closet thing is that he could just buy a ton of them at once so he doesn’t need to walk to get them one hundred times. That would be the most efficient option. But it’s also the most boring.
Nobody’s human
It was beautiful to me.
Are you sure you’re not upside down?
