It was a small village – if you could even call it that. Originally it began with only a handful of people – the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the blacksmith, the farmer, the builder, the carpenter and a few others who were all known by each other for their great skill in their chosen field. It can be said that not only did they rely on one another and their respective talents but indeed they shared a mutual admiration and respect that was unsurpassed.
These people were full of a vitality that made them appear almost larger than life itself. In fact they were the folk to measure living by; their work filled them with pride and satisfaction; they had purpose and direction in maintaining and improving their chosen crafts; their produce was of the highest quality and glowed with the love and humanity instilled within and most of all they themselves were a people filled with happiness and a heightened awareness regarding their worth and that of others.
Through the generations the skills and life essence of these people were passed to their children who relayed them to their children and so on, maintaining the beautiful harmony they had worked so hard to create. Gradually there was an increase in their numbers, proportionate to the increased birth-rate and life expectancy that becomes associated with a village that improves with its development in such a way. Still its inhabitants wanted for nothing and there was a sense of community that seemed unbreakable.
Soon however, the village was no longer a village; it was a town – and a noticeable one at that. They may not have wanted for anything but people outside gradually wanted what they had. And so these outsiders began to speculate and move into the town, welcomed by its members who were always of a friendly and inviting disposition.
This continued for some time, and indeed, the injection of new blood into the community generated new ideas and new directions for the townsfolk. As the years went by, the number of inhabitants began to expand at an exponential rate as did the ideas and directions. It seemed everybody wanted a piece of the happy cake.
One day however I paused as the sun rose, which it always did so beautifully on this place, and shone upon the faces of its people who always seem to rise so early and look to the skies. I noticed however the faces weren’t so happy. In fact I hardly recognised their faces at all. No longer was there a baker or a butcher excelling in his field that I knew to go to. It appeared that many of these trades had disappeared altogether.
There were so many people now that jobs had to be created in order to keep them busy and administer the people themselves. With so many ideas that needed to be discussed with so many instigators, there was little time to spend on creating anything and they were going in so many directions now that the town as a whole was going nowhere.
As the sun began to set, the town was no longer a town, it was a city. The people no longer looked up to the light. Instead their heads bowed and gazed at the floor. Many now found themselves appointed in pointless positions to administer other meaningless jobs to people lacking purpose with ideas that only eventuated into other ideas, forgetting even why they had been created in the first place.
No one really remembered the old times and the mere mention of a trade or craft by those that new of the golden years was scoffed at and mocked as if only having place in some utopian myth in the never-never.
With faith in my mind and memory and a knowledge of where happiness lay, I put my woodcutting tools in my backpack and headed out into the night, carrying a certain sadness as to what had come to pass. Just as I reached the border to darkness however I felt the need to take one last look at the village I had once so loved. As I looked over my shoulder however, I cowered with fear before the monster that lay in its place, fat with all the purpose and meaning it had swallowed with a glint in its eye that told me it wasn’t going to stop there.
With my heart in my throat I turned away sharply and I ran.
Too much information has rendered Everything meaningless.