STRICTLY PERSONAL COLUMN
"VACATION IS REALITY"
By Sydney J. Harris
Chicago Daily News - Sent. 3, 1946
They say that going to the country for a vacation is "an escape
from reality," but I don't agree. It's an escape into reality.
The life we lead in that complex mechanism called Modern Society
is not real; it is highly artificial. It is a life of the nerves, not of
the heart. If it were natural and easy, we would not get ulcers and nervous
breakdowns and almost as many divorces as marriages.
Reality is sitting on a moonlitApier at midnight and dangling your
bare feet in the water. Reality is lying on your stomach in the tall grass
and watching the sailboats whipped by the wind across the bay. Reality is
toasting m'shnfllows before an open fire and singing the old, almost for-
gotten, songs of camp days.
These are the simple things man was created for; and these are the
things he has outgrown. He has gone from sunlight to sun lamps, from wind-
swept hills to air-conditioned cocktail lounges,from friendships to "contacts".
He has been forced to fight for his daily bread with more ferocity
and cunning than any primitive man -- and in an era when science has shown
us how the earth can suport us all plentifully and in peace. He has been
forced to scheme and lie and cheat -- and then give all his winnings to a
psychoanalyst.
SPECTATOR
He has ceased to be a participant in life, and has become merely
a spectator. Instead of having a good time himself, he is content to sit in
a movie house and watch actors pretending to have a good time. Instead of
playing himself, he is content to sit in a stadium and watch other men who
are paid to play for his amusement.
He has never known, or has forgotten, the joys of a barn dance or
a hay ride, and all the other communal pleasures that bring people together
without strain or self-consciousness or struggle for prestige. His slogan
is "To Hell with You," and his symbol is a box of aspirins.
He is tied down to a job he hates, or merely tolerates, because
he knows no other and is too old to learn. His life is fenced in by a thous-
and absurd formalities that he is too cowardly to defy and too tired to change.
He gets drunk not because he likes it, but because he can't stand being sober;
and he worries about another war but never realizes that peace must be fought
for and not just honed for.
He has flat feet, colitis, constipation, astigmatism, swayback, and
a blue-olate-special stomach. He is always in a hurry, but never going any
place that really matters, because as soon as he arrives, he is in a hurry to
get away again.

And this poor, tortured,trapped creature is called Civilized Man.