Addicted to Pleasure
The Florida promoters of fun, food and fantasy, have taken materialism and entertainment to an entirely new level, and I am still recovering from the shock of having spent a week in the middle of it. Like Pleasure Island in the Pinocchio film, flocks of people are selling their souls for fun at Florida's amusement parks which offer thrills and entertainment at the highest levels. Roller coasters, pleasure rides, shows, food, trinkets, games, and movies are available at every turn...for a price.
Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a roller coaster or boat ride or clean entertainment. It's the excess of such things that bothers me so much. A day at an amusement park is about all any person can handle, or should handle. Unless, of course, you are trying to escape from reality. What I remarked about my family, children included, was that a day of riding rides, going to shows and eating amusement park food was the limit. By about 4:00 in the afternoon, my children were begging us to take them home. They had had enough. When the week was all over my daughter told me how glad she was to be at home. A week later, she is still telling me how glad she is to be home. I share her feelings.
My question is "why would anyone purposely subject themselves to that?" In our case, the entire trip was given to us. Neither my husband nor I would have chosen to spend that kind of money or that many days consecutively for nothing but pure entertainment. We would much rather have spent the money to pay bills or go camping on the beach.
As far as I can tell, the reason people, especially pleasure-loving Americans, are so bent on throwing away their cash at such places (and not just Florida, Las Vegas also comes to mind) is because something is missing from their lives. Pleasure and fun helps people forget about their pain, depression, and emptiness. For a few brief moments, they are willing to throw away weeks of hard-earned salary to pretend to be somewhere else.
While I wandered through these amusement parks, I was struck by the fact that the bigger, "badder", more dangerous rides were the busiest, and the tamer, less frightening rides hardly had lines at all. When I was a teenager and went to some of these places, people seemed to be content with simple entertainment. Now it has to be more real, more scary, more fantastic or people are not interested. Does the word addiction come to mind? Just like the one drink that once worked to numb doesn't work any more, so the tamer, milder rides no longer do the trick. Not only that, instead of one day, two, three, four, or even ten days are needed to get the same thrill.
And what is the price for all of this? Apart from the thousands of dollars emptied from our pockets, we lose our innocence and our spiritual senses are numbed (believe me, they get numbed after a few days of this). It is empty because it speaks not to the glory of God (we were made to glorify God), but to the glory of man. In his book, That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis talks about a place where everything is fake and plastic. In this place, there are no reminders that God created anything. All that is there speaks to the glory of man. In these amusement parks, I have the same feeling. Most everything is copied and fake, a mere shadow of the real. When we give our time, energy and ourselves to that which brings glory to man, we are only more empty. When we give ourselves to that which we were made to do, glorify God and enjoy Him forever, we find ourselves fulfilled.
Frankly, I don't care if I ever go back to an amusement park. Give me trees, grass, flowers, blue sky and clean air.
Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a roller coaster or boat ride or clean entertainment. It's the excess of such things that bothers me so much. A day at an amusement park is about all any person can handle, or should handle. Unless, of course, you are trying to escape from reality. What I remarked about my family, children included, was that a day of riding rides, going to shows and eating amusement park food was the limit. By about 4:00 in the afternoon, my children were begging us to take them home. They had had enough. When the week was all over my daughter told me how glad she was to be at home. A week later, she is still telling me how glad she is to be home. I share her feelings.
My question is "why would anyone purposely subject themselves to that?" In our case, the entire trip was given to us. Neither my husband nor I would have chosen to spend that kind of money or that many days consecutively for nothing but pure entertainment. We would much rather have spent the money to pay bills or go camping on the beach.
As far as I can tell, the reason people, especially pleasure-loving Americans, are so bent on throwing away their cash at such places (and not just Florida, Las Vegas also comes to mind) is because something is missing from their lives. Pleasure and fun helps people forget about their pain, depression, and emptiness. For a few brief moments, they are willing to throw away weeks of hard-earned salary to pretend to be somewhere else.
While I wandered through these amusement parks, I was struck by the fact that the bigger, "badder", more dangerous rides were the busiest, and the tamer, less frightening rides hardly had lines at all. When I was a teenager and went to some of these places, people seemed to be content with simple entertainment. Now it has to be more real, more scary, more fantastic or people are not interested. Does the word addiction come to mind? Just like the one drink that once worked to numb doesn't work any more, so the tamer, milder rides no longer do the trick. Not only that, instead of one day, two, three, four, or even ten days are needed to get the same thrill.
And what is the price for all of this? Apart from the thousands of dollars emptied from our pockets, we lose our innocence and our spiritual senses are numbed (believe me, they get numbed after a few days of this). It is empty because it speaks not to the glory of God (we were made to glorify God), but to the glory of man. In his book, That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis talks about a place where everything is fake and plastic. In this place, there are no reminders that God created anything. All that is there speaks to the glory of man. In these amusement parks, I have the same feeling. Most everything is copied and fake, a mere shadow of the real. When we give our time, energy and ourselves to that which brings glory to man, we are only more empty. When we give ourselves to that which we were made to do, glorify God and enjoy Him forever, we find ourselves fulfilled.
Frankly, I don't care if I ever go back to an amusement park. Give me trees, grass, flowers, blue sky and clean air.
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