A Format for the Future

Meditation today brought the following to mind. If you do not like this word, please substitute prayer, as they are of the same spirit.
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A cafe needs too be a place of community, of socialization, of connection. Too often, the cafes of today are only good for the social group you bring with you. This is not correct. A cafe nees to foster social connection, not merely be a node for it. The cafe serves a drug (if you will allow the loose terminology) to loosen the inhibitions of its patrons. If offers comfortable seating and warmth to foster a relaxed state of being. There is music, noise, chatter to ease the bonds of social propriety. It offers food so its community may stay, connect, circulate throughout the day.

It should never be a drive-through, float past experience. It should not focus on speed of delivery. It should not be mass-manufactured.

The cafe staff should always want to, not only serve, but engage each and every patron. Seating ought to encourage patrons to break social space restrictions, ought to require communication between patrons (and perhaps cafe staff). Cafe staff should express and foster real interest in the patrons. This can be shown through smiling, getting a name, a compliment, or basic question (How is your day? Have a good weekend? etc). Contact should be genuine and honest. Being present in the moment with each patron is essential. Cafe staff should never appear "too busy" to be spoken to. It is more important to be available than preoccupied.

Too often, I see rubber-stamp cafes that are mass-produced and fractured. Cafe Staff is meant to get customers in and out, as fast as possible. "To go", drive-throughs, the faster you can hand it to them and get them out of the line, the better.

8.9.09 - Coffeehouse

This was meant to be entered quite a while ago...
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Summer is marching right on past, and I am extremely glad for it. This morning, I awoke to sweat and warmth that tempted me to throw aside my beloved covers in contempt. It reminded me, harshly, that while on the move, summer is still present - still among us. Though it is marching, there are still days in which it simply loafs about.

Today, it feels, is one of those days. And yet, Autumn is discernibly on its heels.

I have missed Autumn - the beautiful array of life on the verge of drastic change. Those moments of clarity the colors of the Autumn brings - brilliant rainbowed reminders that nothing is permanently alive, permanently in growth. That soon relief from the summer heat and upheaval from the summer drag in our step will come.

Autumn is the sing that no system exists without metamorphosis, without change, without refreshment. Autumn is also the reminder that death is not the end of this cycle, merely a part.

Enough about the seasons. I have been feeling the need to write coming more and more often. As if this stretch of barren land is due for the rain. I have also felt the spirit of music, of the wind and the storm of artistic flurry drawing closer than before. I wonder what that might imply about the coming days, about the direction we will go from here...

I feel very nomadic. As if some old spirit of the Americans were in me, or the great tribes of the East, or the Bushmen of the African desert. As if something not of my culture, society, heritage were calling from within me to cling to the older ways. To shed this materialism I feel so indoctrinated with. As if some spirit from the past had been born inside of me, or some ghost inhabits these arms, these eyes, these feet.

I'm not quite sure about the full cycle of reincarnation and all of its implications. But, often, I remind myself of those from before. Perhaps, it is a universal, non-temporal similarity between beings of a similar history, beings made of one type. Perhaps, we should all feel this way, as if history were within our own breasts - not without. Perhaps, we would all know it to be true if we would only pay better attention to the reality of the world we live in.

On the mind

This is going to be somewhat organic, simply because I have too many thoughts that are too difficult to emulsify into one coherent problem. Pardon the following for its lack of elloquence.
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It seems, in my quest for unity, I have continued to find that which struggles against or cannot be unified with the things I have thus far.

Perhaps, this is only a slight on my part. I hope it is.

It is difficult. It feels as though, in order to make sense of this existence, one must either ignore the incongruities or push dough through a pinhole. If I could see where the philosphy has gone wrong, I would swiftly correct it. I am not one to not admit wrong - or, I try not to be.

But, these days have me finding myself with conclusions that are neither wrong nor fitting. I find myself with solutions that are neither incorrect nor helpful. A measuring rod that measures fine, but finds nothing of value to measure against.

As if this philosophy is floating in a vacuum.

Don't get me wrong. It isn't as if I find myself sitting in my room, with a conclusion on the color of unicorns - finding no applicable audience. Rather, it is as if I were in public square with the cure for cancer and nobody noticed. Everyone with their headphones and bluetooths and places-to-be-people-to-see lives have no need for the answer.

Or, better said, they just aren't looking anymore.

Now, there are things most people pretend to be searching for. Many do say the cure for cancer or God or some form of spirituality that works for them. Some even claim it is monetary goals. And yet, all around, there are children sitting on their heels. Occassionally stirred by some event, some bit of entertainment that focuses them momentarily on some "cause". But it hardly touches them. It barey reaches them. It is not within them.

Everything in this age is exterior. A flash in the pan lightbright display for our minds to fall asleep to. Distraction, distraction, and another distraction. I see it everywhere: on the roadside, on the train, in the stores and cafes that were once meant to be social places. People all going about their lives as if to be entertained, to be pleased by some machine is the goal.

I think we have reached the age of the Robot. But, it is not some metal thing that we constructed in some factory somewhere. That would give those opposed the opportunity to take a stance against it.

Instead, it is in our homes and in our minds and in our souls already. We are the robots we always feared would take over. And the mentality of humanity as robot has already taken us over. We are already charged with it, already infiltrated. And we will not escape it until the floor of this technology falls out from underneathe our feet.

What could possibly cause that, there is no indication at this point in time. There is no unifying device to cling to, to claim there is a light at the end of this dark age.

But change, like the winds bringing a new storm, will come. And when it does, I pray we learn to confront ourselves again.