On a conveyor

Who would have thought that Henry Fords creating the Production Line would one day become a metaphor of how we live.

Today, living switches between being on a conveyor belt or in watching conveyor belts around us (and I am not talking about the airport).

There is not much difference between us and the empty bottles, the skeleton of a car that trundles along a belt finding something new being attached every few minutes. Maybe we don’t need it but that is not important what is- is the end, the full bottle of saccharin soft drink, the car on the road taking a happy family somewhere.

Play school, school, college, work, it’s a production line.

Being part of a conveyor belt gives a straight-forward purpose to life- it’s easier than being emotional maggots that live off sentiment. There is a steady pace, direction and mechanical continuity that has a mind of its own.

But there is another side to the conveyor belt. The assumed ability of picking and choosing – its like the belt in the airport. There is a sense of confidence and relief as one identifies ones luggage. It is empowering to see something familiar trundle up to you – something like the ‘little bo peep’ phenomenon.

If one place can be described to be ‘for the conveyor and by the conveyor’ then it is the supermarket. The precision of multiple wrappings, the structured way things are stacked in these brightly lit places points to a mechanical birth in a theatre of orderliness and sterile functionality.

Opinion and choice are deftly catered to with colours, blurbs and prices, all found in a few square inches. Choice gently propels the shopper through the aisles and past the ‘pay-here’ counter.

The helplessness felt on the conveyor is lethargically empowering. One does not have to do much; one gets attached to what comes ones way, it takes one on a tour (guided or otherwise), passing souvenir shops that hand out collectibles, never stopping anywhere, always suggesting that there is something better.