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Show INSTANT REPLAY INSTANT REPLAY INSTANT Now hold on a minute. First, we were running from stress to structure-, then we ducked from bureau to competition with machines, after that we skipped from ordered reality into Tube Travel Land, and now we move into social mortician-monger-ing; there's an inconsistency or so in there somewhere, right? One doesn't run to order and desire disorder in the same breath. Wrong. One does. How do you learn to seek stimulus? From getting it, first from your mother (or some parent-figure)-by means of being cuddled, rocked, cooed at and like that-and then from a social unit, so you are conditioned to high constant stimulus. A child who doesn't receive tactile excitation from its mother is not only unable to learn as well as one who does, it is socially handicapped. Affection serves a vital function in preparing a creature to interact with its environment. Once you've had it, you need it. PREVIOUSLY UNRELATED DATUM WHICH ARE ROUTE SIXTY-SIX THEME, WITH STATIC. What a far out idea! Two guys in a 'vette, just roaring down the asphalt doing nothing in particular, everything in general. Going places, seeing new things happen each day. Wow. I mean, you knew it was unreal-it was on television, right? It was just like the detectives and the spies-something that didn't happen. But it made it believable. Americans were already the most mobile people in the world. They just drove off into fantasy land. Travel is freedom; being on the move is dynamic, an escape from the static and boring life. Events are unpredictable, unserial. One crosses the ruts of mundane existence rather than following one ot its foreseeable conclusion. Death is static and regular, living is not. . . A WHIFF OF SUPERHEATED SOCIAL CADAVER Death is a constant stimulus level-in fact, is the only permanent one recognized by most western cultures. A being subjected to irregular stimulus dies if he cannot find refuge in another continual state of excitation. Social scientists tell us that a being isolated from his social unit tends to be unhealthy, more succept-ible to disease and liable to die at an earlier age than his peers-even under generally favorable circumstances. At present, there is abroad in the land an unprecedented pessimism. This pessimism, it's interesting to note, is of recent origin (co-inciding with the beginning of Cold War I) and almost directly oppposed to the general attitude of early America. Perhaps there is a mental analog to the physical reaction to extreme stress. Not to say a Death Wish, but simply a turning-to or expectation of safety in decease, particularly when other alternative mental states are in disfavor. Seeking solace in the tomb is certainly not a new concept-it forms the backbone of many a fictional episode-but its viability is limited. *- - |