Mrs. Denmarkguy and I are spending the weekend "away" at a conference/event where she's a presenter and I have a vendor booth with my artwork.
Aside from offering a momentary change of scenery, it is also an opportunity to just observe a corner of the human experience we're typically far removed from. After all, we tend to stay inside our usual isolated bubble at the end of the world.
Anyway...
These American casino resorts always strike me as rather sad places. I look around here at 10:00 in the morning after having had breakfast and I watch all these (mostly) elderly people sitting around in front of garish electronic slot machines, spending their retirement savings... something that can't possibly serve to do much more than making their brains go slack on a slot machine.
I think to myself "what sort of life is that?"
Then my higher self comes back and says "if this makes some happy then who am I to judge that?"
But the question left hanging in the air is, of course, whether they are actually happy. Or they just depressed and can find nothing else to do? Or even addicted to watching the spinning wheels and blinking lights...
Of course, my perspective is that of a total non-gambler.
In a while we will be starting in on day two of this weekend's events and then thoughts of sad retired people gambling will give way to business because the Event Center will gradually fill up with the hustle and bustle of hopefully hundreds if not thousands of attendees.
I don't know what the capacity of this facility is but the main event hall for presentation seats about 600. And then there are additional breakout sessions and smaller rooms. Plus, of course, the people who are just there to mill around, meet other "tinfoil hat heads" and generally mingle.
I suppose one of the things I notice the most when we go to things like this is the noise level. And I'm not just talking about actual voices, but also the "psychic noise" of human energies.
As a self-employed person who is almost invariably working from home, I'm used to things being quiet. We live outside town, in a place where there's pretty much nothing going on and above all the thing I notice is how quiet it is... and how noisy it is here.
Granted, casinos are notoriously noisy places with the constant sound of piped in music and then televisions blaring various sports channels, and the cacophony of electronic slot machines going and people talking and everybody trying to be heard over the din, but nobody is actually listening.
One of the things I always do when we go to these things is go in search of a quiet spot... in this case it is around the end of the building in a delivery driveway around a sheltered corner - because it is always windy near the ocean.
The only thing I can hear here is the distant roar of waves and occasional crows who are fighting over good bits they have somehow fished out of the trash receptacles.
As I watch them, I can't help but think that they are a little bit like humans, in that respect...
And now, I need to put on my "game face" and go sell some stuff!
In the meantime, May the Fourth be with you!
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Created at 2024-05-04 09:55 PDT
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