The scope of each of our lives is incredibly, shortsightedly myopic. We spend our days — even if we think ourselves ‘worldly’ — extending the reach of our influence and experience as far as our physical and virtual arms can enable us. But no further.
That mediocre range is natural: one person can’t possibly live the sum total of everyone else’s lives. We simply aren’t large or deep or able or active enough.
The limitation has an upside, though — the way it primes us with awe as we step briefly into other worlds to admire objects and processes foreign to our understanding. Like, for instance, the sense of wonderment that surged through me when I passed through this guitar shop. I had never been in one until recently, and my brief journey through the world was electrifying. All I wanted to do was take photos, which is my way of visually exploring a place.
Anyways, what I came to think about it was this: the guitar shop ecosystem is inhabited by thousands of people and artists and goods, coming and going in pursuit of a musical instrument that is just as important if not more so than the tech instruments we transact in each day. The guitar has made more people into gods, artists, and kings than the Internet has, after all. The work we do, while apocalyptic in its own digital way, is still very, very insulated. People are doing great, amazing things that have nothing to do with our daily intents and efforts. So glad the world is rich with variety like that. Hope it stays that way.