emallgration

Not my coinage. I read it somewhere a while ago but it set me thinking….

Covid19, of course. Big malls are as dangerous as planes these days, and the breakdown of social distancing is hugely more likely. So the malls are still pretty closed. Hence “emallgration” toward safer, smaller environments with less information, lower-tech, and far less emphasis on consumerism than used to be. The trend will be again toward “voluntary simplicity”, a catch phrase i used when I sold my home in Toronto and moved to a (winterized) cottage on the shore of a small lake in Muskoka,where i stayed for 16 years until high taxes and heating costs sent me back to lower-cost city living. Of course, I wrote a book about that, too (Enough: Lifestyle and Financial Planning for Simpler Living, Key Porter Books, 1988).

“When Life Gets Back to Normal” is an unwnitten song (so far) on everyone’s mind as we all wonder what ilife will be like if or when we return to malls and theatres and sport arenas. Or maybe malls will become obsolete—like office buildings.

Or me. I am rapidly becoming more and more obsolete. I feel it.

So I’m going to bed.