Tagging
Riding home a couple of weeks ago, I came to a 20 kmh speed sign. Someone had thrown a hasty '1' in front with a jagged dash of black paint, with a smiley face beneath. Looking at the sign, I couldn't help but think of it as a metaphor. What if the supposed disengagement of youth - the disillusioned slacker culture apparently typifying Generation X and beyond is just a wider version of the rich kid phenomenon, where parental wealth bestows a complacent laziness on their offspring? Are we tagging signs largely because the signs have already been built?

I was wondering about this also in relation to the phenomenal rise of video games. The unkind call it escapism, but escapism assumes the real world is somehow inherently better, which in many cases generating escapism, it's not. I reckon the appeal of games is in the sense of adventure and newness, immersion in a fresher, rawer world the likes of which our ancestors enjoyed (or battled).