Monday, June 15, 2009

Confronting a Busy World: Stamping and Solace


We live in a busy world rampant with blinking lights and busy bodies always rushing from one place to another and seldom enjoying anything. Imagine that. Always being in a rush and never really enjoying the scenes of a trip, the taste of food, the warmth of a wife, the hug of a loving child. Impatience is killing our society.

Stamping teaches you patience. In many ways stamping can create a zone of solace far away from the screaming machines, noisy neighbors and feuding pets, each competing for our attention like if it were going out of style.

We should teach our children to take a step back. See the trees. Smell the flowers. Gazes at the stars and dive into a pile of stamps from hundreds of distant lands ready to reveal some new fact or face. This is the very magic of stamp collecting that cannot be duplicated by silly video games and splashy loud motion pictures. Stamping demands active use of our brain. Whenever our brain is active our fists are open to new creative experience rather than techno-influenced violence.

I live in the 21st century and I'm not trying to escape it and run to "Little House on the Prairie." Thus I don't believe stamp collecting with cure drug use, alcohol abuse, underage sex and poor self-esteem. But I do think it can make a difference in some of those lives. A major study suggested nearly 80% of children using drugs, alcohol or sex had no exposure to books, the arts or even common board games. A good bet they never heard about stamps either.