Our world is changing, not for the better

The Boston Herald

"Fred said the world has changed since I left it. Is it true?" Sal asks.

Sal has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's Disease. For six years his world has been a hospital room. Every day people bring in news of the world. Every day television supplies images and radio fills in.

He sees that TV is more vulgar, movies more violent, talk on the radio more concerned with celebrity and the economy than with humanity. "I see everyone in a mad scramble," he says. "No one has time." But is this true or only the media's take on things, Sal is asking?

The last time he was out in the world was early December. He went to South Shore Plaza. He said the mall was "phony, like living in a Styrofoam cup." He was struck by the excess of things.

Before that he went to an ice show at Harvard, a concert in Ipswich and a festival in Gloucester. He went out just four times last year - 20 hours out of 365 days. "What more is there that I'm not seeing?" he wants to know.

The world is more vulgar, more violent and more self-absorbed. In 1995, there were school counselors, not grief counselors. School shootings weren't part of our culture. Getting away with murder was just a phrase until O.J. made it fact. Presidents were noted for their oratory, not for oral sex. People didn't walk around with cell phones stuck to their ears. Kids didn't have so many of their body parts pierced. Road rage was people cursing and gesturing, not smashing windows.

People are more inured to violence today, I tell Sal. There's an every-man-for-himself attitude. People don't have time for others. Even the way people communicate has changed. They leave messages. They talk without having to listen. They keep in touch without having to be in touch. "E-mail me. Leave me a voice mail." Conversations are quick and direct, not the meanderings that happen over a cup of tea. There is no time for tea. It's coffee on the run, people eating in their cars, hurrying through the drive-thru.

If you went out, if you could walk the streets again, this is what you would see, Sal: People with their arms crossed, not physically, but mentally. People walking as if life is weighing them down. People who have more things than they'd ever dreamed of burdened by the very things that were supposed to set them free.

Houses have gotten bigger. New ones have four- and five-car garages. But families have gotten smaller. Everyone's in day care - kids, adults, even dogs. And children rule. They tell their parents what they want and when they want it. And they get what they want.

Sal was an artist. He lived in Gloucester in a little house with his wife and kids. He coached hockey. He led his team to victory. Then his wife died. Then he got sick. Now he watches the world from a hospital bed and what he sees are people "programmed like robots."

He misses eating with his family - more than walking, more than breathing on his own. He misses it even more than picking up a paint brush and giving vent to his soul. He misses this simple act of a family gathered around a table, sharing it all.