The Final Year

   Have you ever thought about the interesting background of salt? Imagine today walking into any restaurant (fast food or otherwise) that has salt packets available at the condiment counter, taking a large handful of them, going back in time six hundred years, and buying a house. It is hard to believe that it used to be so scarce that it was considered a luxury only for the very wealthy. Under that system all of us are now lords and ladies. So how did a substance so revered become so ubiquitous? The answer might describe any number of transitions the world has gone through in the same period of time: Modern Technology. A greater scientific understanding of how salt is made has been coupled with more elaborate distribution methods to get the stuff to where it is wanted, so that these little precious stones can permeate every corner of the globe, causing high blood pressure and stinging wounds everywhere they push. It is perhaps BECAUSE salt was so valued that it has become such a cooking essential, and thus so omnipresent.
   Looking at salt reminds me of the question I had as a kid, wishing that Ferraris were as cheap as Toyotas (I guess that’s not a question). I wished this because I wanted to have a Ferrari of my own (not that, at 8 years old, I could afford a Toyota either, or afford one now, come to think of it), and I mistakenly assumed that I would be the only one who would snatch up this deal. My dad pointed me right, however, explaining that Ferraris are nice and all, but they wouldn’t be seen nearly in the same light if everyone had one. He elaborated a world in which every automobile was bright red and low to the ground, zipping about in clogged traffic, with car accidents ten times more dangerous and no way to haul anything. What I have really come to understand now is that the Toyotas of today are practically as fast and far more maneuverable than the supercars of the 50s. Once again, what was once luxury has become commonplace. If you took a Toyota back in time to the Main Street Cruising Drag and pulled into the local Soda Jerk, you would have a crowd of people around you in an instant. And you would be able to accelerate off the line quicker than any one of the chromed out tugboats that passed as hotrods back then.
   But what happened to the world’s economy when salt made its slow journey from Eastern spice to McDonald’s happy meal? What does it mean that any old grandmother with her 1992 Nissan Sentra would smoke Joe Slick from 1955 if he pulled up next to her at a stoplight and revved his engine? Has the world fallen apart at the seams? Do we have no way to measure success or failure? Have we devolved into a pseudo communist society where our only choice of shoes is white or black Air Jordans?   :)   What I think is interesting about technology is that it is not capable of curbing our appetite for differentiation. Though we all essentially drive Ferraris, when we see a real, modern one zip past we look at it (either to cheer or to sneer). For better or worse, technology continues to streamline the material world around us, so that we can always look longingly at the newest and shiniest thing in the Jones’ entertainment center and wish that some day we might own a better one for ourselves. It is in that vein that I explain spending my yet-to-be-received tax refund check on a brand new XBox 360. Now I have one and you don’t. Nyah.