Living in the Present Moment
The eclipse of Past and Future
What can we learn from watching Home Improvement shows on TV? I find a common theme, or yearning. “We want a modern look.”
This is a strangely short-term goal. Today’s modern will last no longer than a decade. Indeed, it may already be “old.”
And why equate the aesthetically desirable with a period of time? Modern is not even a style. There are many styles that are contemporary. Doesn’t it simply suggest that whatever is new has superior aesthetic quality.
Is this just another sign that we can’t afford to seem old? A sigh, perhaps a little pitiful, that others measure our worth by how well we slow the passage of time.
If so, it is likely to fail. Being on the cutting edge has nothing to do with aesthetic taste or chronological age. Agree that technology acquires a bit of catching up, but the veteran is more likely than the novice to be good at this. And true taste is acquired as we age, as we experience a life-time of craft and beauty.
Another trope of TV home design is equally interesting and may have a similar purpose. Open design tears down walls and creates spaces where multiple activities are encouraged, where all are present and privacy is rare.
The older house had separate rooms for study, work, play, sleeping, eating and entertaining. It gave its residents spaces of their own. The sewing room, the office, the kitchen. When life was shared, it was deliberate, by choice.
Now all is open and rather bland. The uniqueness of a life requires privacy to grow and mature, time apart to develop perceptions to share with others. Uninterrupted reading or intimate conversations, or healthy day-dreaming, silent imagining.
And could this be also a sign of our craving for the meaningful moment? For many, being modern is being on a stage, an open space where we are visible and our performances esteemed.
To be “modern” is to deny the process of life, to shelter in the moment, an escape from cause and consequence.