Last Thursday, I went to the club where I work out. I forgot to bring a bottle of water so I went into the cafe they have there now which basically looks like a Starbuck's. As I waited in line, behind someone who was getting a half caf double decaf half caf with a lemon twist (aka a painfully long process to go through just to get a fucking cup of coffee), I looked around the counter. Everything...and I mean EVERYTHING...was geared around one simple word.
Energy.
Drinks, food, pockets of powder, and a wide variety of other consumables were all guaranteeing a an increase in energy to help you in your life....which, according to many of the products, all of us are lacking. I realize that designer coffee has been a trend for awhile but the "boost" business has really gotten out of hand. Are people in this country in that dire need of a jolt?
I haven't even had a drink of caffeine since 1998. I am a pretty hyper and anxious person so I really need the opposite which is usually cured by red wine. So, I guess what I am trying to figure out is this: is the population of this country so asleep that they HAVE to have this crap in order to wake up? Why? What the fuck is the matter with everyone?
7 comments:
As you have said all along, mc, people are naturally lazy and lacking motivation. I blame the teachers :)
Caffeine is the number one gateway drug. It makes people comfortable with the idea of altering their consciousness with chemistry.
@blk, you aren't serious are you? Booze has got to be THE gateway. And people of all flavors alter their conciousness in various ways - you got a problem with that?
If you really hate coffee, you ought to read "Memoir in Ant-proof Case", which contains some of the most profound and extended anti-caffeine rants to be found anywhere.
Lander on Stuff White People Like has a nice rant about coffee as well.
Mother's milk is the REAL gateway drug. It precedes all the others.
Energy products are just a current fad, designed by marketing types to sell more product to the always-active American public. Considering that we are now the country with the most working-hours-per-week logged, it makes sense that the the freemarketeers would jump on the assumed (and probably very real) need for more energy. And considering the American consuming public's wolfish desire for variety in our products, it only makes sense that there would be a plethora of products to satisfy our desires, and separate us from our money.
Mark, you were at an athletic club. Of course there would be energy boosting drugs there. Who would need them more than over-worked Americans, who are then working their bodies to improve their health and relieve the stress of those taxing jobs they have to work to support their accelerating lifestyles.
Now me, I love coffee. I drink a lot of coffee (with Coffee mate and Equal, thank you very much.) I hate going even a day without my coffee. I'm an aging Boomer and have the natural suspicions of all these newfangled energy products. But I will defend caffeine as a possible contributing factor in the history of our modern culture. It may very well have been the coffee houses of Europe that kick-started the Renaissance. People getting together over a mental and physical stimulant (coffee) discussing the evils of the world and how to best change them.
The desire for tea (as well as silk, spices and opium) spread Europe's conquest of Asia and coffee (along with gold and tobacco) the New World.
At the risk of sounding like a conservative, no one is being forced to buy these energy products. We're all free to say "no thank you." At least until the corporations take over, and we're required to consume the corporation's products or be thought disloyal.
Until that day, I raise my coffee cup to you all.
That's what I was thinking Dan. The reason there are so many energy drinks is because, apparantly, lots of people want to buy them. Supply and demand. Why they want to buy them, I don't know.
Some nice thoughts, dan. I agree with your views on the Renaissance and coffee.
My angle is more that this country seems to always be asleep and in need of waking up. The slide into laziness has become pretty severe.
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