Why Can’t We All Just Get Along
Ken Hughes
August 05, 2006
Last week I decided I needed to return to my place where I get away once a year to meditate. There’s a place on this earth were all the worlds strife isn’t the only subject people talked about they talk about friends and family and community. Fortunately I found this place several years ago it’s a small Village on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. A friend has a cabin there, no telephone, no TV, and no internet connection. I needed to get away to put the final touches on a book I’m writing. I needed to get away from all the distraction and clear my mind of all the infusion of mayhem that’s going on in the world.
My friend’s cabin sits on the shores of Lake Superior about a half hour from Sault Ste, Marie. Each morning I would go down to a local café for breakfast and listen to the locals discussing their version of current events. Not to my surprise there was no mention of politics, wars, celebrity misdeeds or any of the things that permeate the news in my home town of Detroit.
Not even the lack of tourist dollars due to high prices of oil seemed to bother them. They discussed Indian fishing rights and how they felt the Indians were getting more of a break than they deserved. They talked about how the Indians were getting rich of all their Casinos in the UP. The current hot weather shared much of the conversation. One men told a story how a couple of Trolls, [People from below the bridge at The Straights of Mackinac that separates the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan] rented a small boat and went rowing off in the direction of Canada, the dammed fools didn’t know how rough that Lake Superior water can be this time a year. It has no meaning to us but to the Yuppers it was a very funny story.
My point is these people didn’t have time to waste on international events they were to busy living their lives at home. Their concerns were limited to their own local issues. I asked one old Gentleman if they didn’t know or didn’t care about what was going on in the world. He asked me if I had ever read the bible, I admitted I hadn’t. He said all these things you’re so concerned with have been going on for thousands of years there all there in the bible and no ones ever found a way to change them. He said we Yuppers have more pressing problems, how to get the Trolls money and not let them invade and over run our part of the state. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan has two distinctions it’s as near primeval a place as there is in this country, and the locals do their best to keep it that way.
One thing was obvious to me after my week with the Yuppers we each must determine what the perfect life style is and be willing to accept the things it doesn’t offer in order to enjoy the things it does offer. I doubt I could become a Yupper I have an addiction to politics and all the other toys urban living affords me Yuppers live in self imposed isolation.
My trip north was my annual retreat from reality to a land of make-believe where there really is a place void of the everyday events of reality. It’s not they’re totally isolated it’s that they chose isolation over strife and discontent. Their world has more meaning to them than the rest of the world. If you want to get away and clear your mind find and make friends with a recluse, the world will become a better brighter place for it.
Let’s be more like the Yuppers, let’s all be friends. God bless us all and please God make us smarter than we think we are.
My friend’s cabin sits on the shores of Lake Superior about a half hour from Sault Ste, Marie. Each morning I would go down to a local café for breakfast and listen to the locals discussing their version of current events. Not to my surprise there was no mention of politics, wars, celebrity misdeeds or any of the things that permeate the news in my home town of Detroit.
Not even the lack of tourist dollars due to high prices of oil seemed to bother them. They discussed Indian fishing rights and how they felt the Indians were getting more of a break than they deserved. They talked about how the Indians were getting rich of all their Casinos in the UP. The current hot weather shared much of the conversation. One men told a story how a couple of Trolls, [People from below the bridge at The Straights of Mackinac that separates the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan] rented a small boat and went rowing off in the direction of Canada, the dammed fools didn’t know how rough that Lake Superior water can be this time a year. It has no meaning to us but to the Yuppers it was a very funny story.
My point is these people didn’t have time to waste on international events they were to busy living their lives at home. Their concerns were limited to their own local issues. I asked one old Gentleman if they didn’t know or didn’t care about what was going on in the world. He asked me if I had ever read the bible, I admitted I hadn’t. He said all these things you’re so concerned with have been going on for thousands of years there all there in the bible and no ones ever found a way to change them. He said we Yuppers have more pressing problems, how to get the Trolls money and not let them invade and over run our part of the state. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan has two distinctions it’s as near primeval a place as there is in this country, and the locals do their best to keep it that way.
One thing was obvious to me after my week with the Yuppers we each must determine what the perfect life style is and be willing to accept the things it doesn’t offer in order to enjoy the things it does offer. I doubt I could become a Yupper I have an addiction to politics and all the other toys urban living affords me Yuppers live in self imposed isolation.
My trip north was my annual retreat from reality to a land of make-believe where there really is a place void of the everyday events of reality. It’s not they’re totally isolated it’s that they chose isolation over strife and discontent. Their world has more meaning to them than the rest of the world. If you want to get away and clear your mind find and make friends with a recluse, the world will become a better brighter place for it.
Let’s be more like the Yuppers, let’s all be friends. God bless us all and please God make us smarter than we think we are.
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