A City in Flux

I decided to go for a walk today and clear my head, what I found was a world in disarray. All over Lincoln Park and Lakeview stores are closing without any notice. There one day, gone the next. It is as if they were never there at all. 

Typically this wouldn't be so disheartening if it weren't so sudden and widespread. Just today I found that the Coldstone and Hollywood Video down the street from me were closed. Only a day before Coldstone had been doing an ice cream promotion that drew a tremendous crowd. And yet not 24-hours later, still reeling from the high of the event, it was gone. Where is the justice in that? I realize these are just stores but the principle of the idea is so much more. 

The television and internet all tell us that the world is getting better. The recession, they say, is not as bad as it seems. But the government just speaks in numbers and statistics, they need to get out there and experience it first hand. The only way to know the world is to walk in it. 

As someone whose full-time position was recently eliminated I understand the struggle. Yet the world is full of contradictions. There may be more of us unemployed but we are certainly better off then we once were. It is simply a new state of being. I look at the so called vagrants on the street and they really don't seem to be that bad, most of them anyways. 

While pondering this newfound conclusion I found myself passing a man selling Streetwise. Usually I would be glad to hand the vendor money for such a publication, then I got a good look at him. He was on a cell phone talking away and there was an ipod strapped to his arm. I don't even own an ipod! With the world seemingly crumbling around us how is it that those in need  somehow have more? What does this say about society when an ipod is counted among the crucial essentials one needs to survive? 

I don't have the answers for you, I wish I did. But the world is changing quickly, let us hope for the better.