2 January 2024

A new phrase I heard was “trad life”, pronounced with a hard “A” sound being short for traditional though. Norm McDonald had a joke that the word “cis” was a way to marginalize an otherwise normal person and it’s the same case here. Asking people randomly if traditional and normal are synonymous, I think most people would agree. I’m interested in new words though there’s something deeper going on. On one hand there is the idea that everyone feels the need now to give themselves a title, like people don’t know who they are without a 30 second elevator pitch to describe their life. The other hand is that traditional life is not how people have been living. How have they been living? Well, they work in confined sunless environments, get entertainment from screens, and eat processed food. Not much of that lifestyle was around 100 years ago, so there’s little traditional about it. Kids are coming of age now seeing the depression, ADHD, and obesity the previously mentioned items lead to and they’re looking for a different path. The traditional road has been around for ages, even millennia, and it’s what got our civilization to the height it’s at now. Along with the idea that everyone wants a title, each generation since the 60’s/70’s has been given a name and are told that everyone in that bucket acts similar. Anyone born in the 60’s is the same as those in the 80’s, 2020’s and even the 1920’s. Trying to rewrite human history and biology every decade has left people more lost and alone than ever, that is why people are returning to trad life. By releasing ourselves from the hamster wheel of pop culture people will come in contact with real life, with the community and environment that surrounds them, that is who we are. The people around us, the activities we do, and if we don’t like it we have the power to change it.