How fucking beautiful! I am so in love with this idea.
There’s a kinda ghetto, kinda raggedy, convenience store down the road. Borderline rural hood, not much else. There are a handful of old people that hang out there, nothing else to do, too poor to move around much. Often thought, “How nice! They have a third space to hang out, no one fucking with them.” Also often thought, “How fucking sad this is all they have for social interaction.”
I would use one of these almost every day if it were in walking distance
A few decades ago, it was common to see large families with six to eight children, living under the same roof. But years of migration to cities have shrunk families and turned places like Seoul into sprawling metropolises.
Unaffordable housing, rising costs and gruelling working hours have led more and more young people to reject marriage or parenthood, or both. On the other end is an ageing population that feels neglected by children who are racing to keep up.
“OK, now let’s have some fun. Let’s talk about sex. Let’s talk about women. Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything.
What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish people wouldn’t get so mad at them.
Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to.
A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys.
But most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but it’s a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it’s a man.
When a couple has an argument, they may think it’s about money or power or sex, or how to raise the kids, or whatever. What they’re really saying to each other, though, without realizing it, is this: “You are not enough people!”
I met a man in Nigeria one time, an Ibo who has six hundred relatives he knew quite well. His wife had just had a baby, the best possible news in any extended family.
They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, Ibos of all ages and sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was going to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle to it, and say how pretty it was, or handsome.
Wouldn’t you have loved to be that baby?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
At 5 or so I dropped my baby cousin, so take that quote as you will. :)
