Don't always chase what is shiny
Published on October 08, 2011
Don't always chase what is shiny. We've come a long way from the days of the carnival barker and in some ways not far at all. The dialogue may have changed over the years but make no mistake that we are all enticed to "buy this" in more ways than we have ever thought possible. One of the constants of the world of marketing and promotion is to put forward to the public that what is being offered is "new and improved". Over the past hundred years or so this edict has grown and grown and grown. One offer to improve building upon the next has brought us to the point where we have no idea what is being sold is even what we want or need. One of the things I wanted to do on father's day painted an example in brilliant technicolor of how we can get enticed by the wrong thing. We live in Richmond Hill now but a few years ago lived in Vaughan near the Kortright Conservation Center. Something that we did all the time when our son was small was to go there on weekends and hike through the trails. It's a beautiful facility and is such a great escape only minutes from home. Well today I chose to make this part of the day. About 5 minutes along the road before the park you have to pass Canada's Wonderland. It's a great example of how the "new and improved" has now managed to include roller coasters and candy floss the size of dinosaurs to lure in the easily impressed public. Knowing the capacity of the park, I estimated there were well over 40,000 cars in the parking lot. When we arrived at Kortright Center there were fewer than 6. Not thousand. 6 cars. Entry for our entire family and our car was less than 1/2 of one Wonderland passport. The trails were incredibly well groomed. The squirrels and birds and geese and butterflies all performed right on que. The tress that towered in the canopy above were the result of close to 100 years of nature's best work. The boardwalk through the marshland offered up surprise after surprise to our kids and ourselves. The explosion of nature we all got to witness was millions of years in the making. I expect the effort that went into this was just a bit more than the roller coaster. I'm not saying that we should all shun progress and promotion and the allure of the fast and the furious but I was taken back by the disparity between the 6 and 43,000 cars. Here's what this all means I guess. Don't get so caught up. Don't be drawn in to think that the only thing worth investing our time in travels upside down at 68 km/per/hr and is painted a bright metallic silver. Know this. There is so much more out there to explore and experience. Don't always chase what is shiny. Have an excellent day.
