Small and Simple

I have always liked restaurants or businesses that are small. I'm not sure what it is about them. Sure you get more personalized service, but there is also a difference in the quality of the products. It's like when you start to mass-produce something, it looses a bit of what made it special in the first place. The attention to detail is lacking, and the quality suffers for it.

In this day of assembly lines and mass productions, businesses want their products to be all the same so they can guarantee the same quality to everyone. I have even heard of pigs being genetically engineered to be all the same so that the slaughtering machines will cut them in the same place. But what these people don't understand, is that taking the randomness out of a process creates even bigger problems. Problems like the genetically-altered pigs being so susceptible to disease that they have to be isolated in specially-built, climate-controlled buildings. Problems like poor-quality wood from growing trees too fast to be harvested. Problems like antibiotic-resistant bacteria from trying to kill every single bacteria in our food. Problems like massive waste because products aren't made to last, so we just keep constantly buying new ones. Problems like resources lost towards packaging and transporting food.

I wish we could have more small businesses around, but the hard fact is that big businesses make it nearly impossible for small ones to thrive. I don't think humans will change the path they are on until something tragic happens, and even then it may be too late to turn back. All I can do it my little part to buy locally, recycle, and waste as little as possible. Who knows if it will be enough?