Is it too Late to not Become the United States of WALL-E?

One of my favorite Pixar animated movies is WALL-E.  I like it because of it is a fun movie but a movie with some great messages especially about the future. In the movie about 700 years in the future humans are living in a spacecraft because Earth is uninhabitable. In one scene, they show all the captains of the ship on the wall and over that time you see each captain grow heavier in the face till you come to the current captain who is extremely heavy.  You soon see why because all the humans move around on automated chairs and do not have to walk or move to do almost anything.  In fact, standing and walking is near impossible because we have evolved to a species that does not need to.  The computers and robots provide us with everything. We get around by automated chairs.

While I think that the writers were on to something with the human race heading towards a life of complete laziness they got one thing wrong.  The timing seven-hundred years, is way too short! We are streaking towards that time fast and may get there in my lifetime! Let me give you a short abbreviated history on the evolution of our laziness.

Let’s start with the 1960’s and the TV. I could go back further but we will stick to my lifetime. It was great the whole family could gather around and not move and be entertained.  There was however a major problem you had to get out of the chair and walk seven or eight feet and change the channel. This is obviously a lot of work and by the 1970’s we had the remote control. What also came with the remote control was the recliner and we did not even hide the need for this chair by marketing it as the Lazy-Boy. Nothing screams man of the house more than a man in in his Lazy-Boy with a beer in one hand, the remote in the other, a bag of chips on his lap, while he is watching a football game yelling and screaming at how lazy, pampered and over paid the athletes are.

Yet this was just one aspect of our evolution to complete laziness. We are well on our way to becoming complete lazy asses in all aspects of our life. That includes dining, shopping, working, and raising our children. The pandemic that we are experiencing has only sped up our pace.

At the same time the TV was becoming our major cultural force so was the fast food industry. They were popping up everywhere, and people could run in and grab a quick meal and the kids might even get a toy and be on their way.  Except that the walking of thirty feet or so was too much, so the drive-in window was invented. What a glorious concept. One could get your daily supply of saturated fat without moving you ass!

It stayed that way for a while but in recent years we have grown weary of driving to the restaurant especially since the pandemic and then companies like GrubHub and DoorDash popped up and almost any meal you want can be delivered to your house.  This delivery system used to be the domain of pizzeria’s and Chinese restaurants but eventually others figured out they could make money off of Americans tendency to not want to move.

With the pandemic many people were working from home so they did not even have to drive to work or for that matter even get fully dressed.  That was too much work so they only got half-dressed at best with a nice shirt and blouse. The COVID pounds started to accumulate as our groceries and meals came to our front door. While the pandemic thankfully seems to be coming to an end, the extra weight that many people put on is still with them.

Now I know that some of you who are optimistic will be putting faith in our youth and the next generation.  They are well educated and will lead us out of the laziness cycle. I hate to break it to you but the upcoming generations are better at laziness than their parents. Why? Because we raised them that way. Also because there is money to be made in computer games.

In the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s kids were basically told to go outside and come back for dinner. When a parent wanted to punish a child they said “go to your room!” Now-a-days the room is their sanctuary with kids able to “hang out” with the friends from each other’s bedroom and play video games.  If you want to punish your child now, you can do what parents did in the olden days. Put your child out the back door and say “have fun” and come back in a few hours. There is however, a downside to this, it is most likely the next person at your front door will be someone from child protective services investigating you for child abuse.

In addition, the idea of the star athlete is changing.  While the top athlete, still does retain their coolness they are being challenged by some kid in his bedroom called a gamer.  They now even have something called “Esports” with virtual leagues, games and tournaments.  Our future athletes will no longer need strength, speed, and agility, but be experts with a console.

Finally, we are getting so lazy that we don’t need to turn on the house lights, play music, or even look up the weather.  All we need to do is ask Alexa or Siri to do it for us. All from our recliner with our delivered food on our lap.

Well I have painted dark picture for our future and you may be asking is all hope lost? Well I think it probably is, but that does not mean there is not a slight glimmer of hope.  While our fellow Americans are zooming to a lifetime of life on their butts, we should refuse to capitulate.  We runners need to keep bucking society. runners ( Now I know other people move, like swimmers, bikers, hikers, and walkers but this is my blog and I am a runner.  Those other groups of people are our allies who just need to follow our lead.) It will not be easy.  Your friends and family may think that you are slightly crazy for all your running and think of you as the oddity in your family. My own son makes fun of his old man who will not admit he is old and runs trail races with no purpose. Yet I persist.

At the end of WALL-E the only way for the captain to save civilization was for him to actually move his body which for him was near impossible but he did it. He was the hero.  We runners need to keep moving not just to stay fit but because it is our patriotic duty. We are America’s last hope.