The American Rust Belt; a land where railroads flow wide as the many rivers snaking through the industrial landscape battered and scared from over a century of heavy manufacturing. Corroded steel rails effortlessly slice through the impressive rolling mountains, as miles of hopper cars loaded with black gold seemingly hover above glimmering silver as the sun strikes upon the exposed steel rails. Ragged and tired wooden railroad ties, remain brown as the foul water which flows beneath endless looming trestles. Puffs of questionable vapor and thick white smoke rise up from the mouths of ancient factories, coloring the sky gloomy and grey. Earthen brick smoke stacks stretch hundreds of feet into the air, and like needles, spurt a slurry of questionable chemicals into the atmosphere; out of sight out of mind. Yet, it is perhaps these offenses of our past which have birthed such a comfortable society today.
After all, a society full of complainers is a privileged society indeed, for when things are truly bleak, there his no time to argue nor moan. The once unbeknownst wrongs of our industrious past are now beginning to become the nightmares which will haunt our future. A slew of problems waiting be solved by a new generation of thinking minds. As we cross the country in automobiles and span the seas in airplanes, we live a life of relative luxury. I have no doubt that as I sit here typing away at my keyboard, my life today is infinitely better now than it was even just 30 years ago. Technology has propelled us into a culture defined by the seemingly instantaneous consumption of goods, from coal and oil, to social media and politics. This has lead to a comfortable America. For in America we have everything at our finger tips. In America we all live a life of privilege, although indeed some more privileged than others. Things don't always go well, but they tend not to trend cataclysmically either. In America, we argue and bicker for entertainment versus provoking actual change.
These are the thoughts which infiltrate my mind as I sit atop the rusting skeleton of a hot metal bridge, my legs dangling over a corroded steel I-beam, extending precariously high above the Monongahela River. A bridge which no longer serves any purpose sans as perhaps a hangout spot for local kids and curious degenerates such as myself. This bridge I climb atop is no doubt as useful now as it would be in a landfill, but yet here it remains, as a testament to the inventions and manufacturing which have lead to the privileged present I live today. It seems many of our past endeavors have made such a permanent impact on both society and the physical world that some things have proven too much of a burden to remove, and so they prevail, as eyes sores and scars to some and as playgrounds to others.
It is relatively easy to examine and chastise our past and assign blame to those who fit our individual biases, but it is perhaps much more difficult to apply the same mindset to our future. What mistakes are we making now, in the present, that we will one day look back at with disgust? We continue to use the environment to create a better society for us all, but at what expense? And how will we learn to live with the consequences of such decisions and inventions. Ultimately, it's the unknown consequences of our present that scare me the most. I think in time we can learn to become better stewards of the environment and thus become a more global society. But if the technology we create now out paces the usefulness of our own selves, I wonder what will be left? Perhaps something greater than I can perceive? Just a thought on a bridge.
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