On the state of the World: Lost in the Supermarket

Supermarkets these days

It genuinely surprises me when I’m queuing in a supermarket and there is a hold up for a number of minutes. This is a testament to the incremental improvements in selling groceries to the masses and also the lucrative nature of making little changes to big business.

What has ceased to surprise me is when someone in the queue starts moaning. Usually, belittling the efficiency of the staff or the practicality of the corporate endeavour. It is a sign for me. An indicator of our collective ignorance and malaise.

Was it always like this? I don’t know if throughout our long history the British could ever have been considered a spiritual people. Yet I think there must have been more reverence in days gone by.

Such History though

Perhaps you would have to go back to when John Milton was drafting verse after verse of his epic poetry. Maybe it would be enough to return to the time William Blake was etching his Biblical prophecies. At any rate, those days of awe and marvels are very long gone.

I would say that the country’s National Anthem must have had some meaning and context to the words ‘God save the Queen’. Surely there was a belief in a supreme being and a risk to the monarch? It has all changed now; no belief, no risk.

Now the increasing wonders of the modern world are not met with incredulity, but impatience and occasionally, idiocy. Let me explain.

A Supermarket Story

I was in Asda recently, not for a big shop and not at such a hectic time of year as the pre-Christmas scramble. Just a near lunch pick up of essentials and a few tasty treats. I presumed the other customers would be of similar makeup. However, obviously I was shopping alongside some important individuals, their time precious and their lives ever pressured.

Then it happened. There was a hold up at the check-out. It was literally a few minutes. This short period of none movement caused my fellow shoppers to emit dissatisfied grumbles, acknowledging each other’s suffering. One even piped up, “Is it always like this?”

I looked down. I saw that in my few items I had a shopping basket containing fresh produce from not just Europe, but as far East as Thailand, and as far West as Peru. The gluttony and impatience of our collective consciousness hit me. I felt a little awkward to be the same species as my vocally despondent fellow shoppers.

Have we overlooked something? Where did it all go wrong?

On that day we were surrounded by abundant choice and yet a minuscule wait soured their demeanours. I thought about it some more.

How many items from the rest of the world could we have picked our goods from?

Nearly all nations must be represented in either flavour or source of origin in that one warehouse-like structure. It is a triumph of globalisation. An array of products delicately packaged and curated for us to peruse and pay for. Such options. Did any of us realise how much industry had gone into setting this all up for our benefit in exchange for some cash?

Take me back.

Take me back to when the struggle wasn’t over which brand of French cheese to buy. Take me to a time when there weren’t so many variants of Polish sausage. It is too much. I just can’t face the deli counter anymore. It mocks me with its choice. An abundance that I cannot say I have been part of the struggle for.

There was a nudge on my arm. I looked up from my basket. It was my turn at the checkout. A line of disappointed faces looked impatiently towards me. Lost in my reverie, it seemed I was the idiot.

“Is it always like this?”