Quirkiness has officially gone mainstream. Thanks, Urban Outfitters. You too, American Apparel.

Reality, in this reprehensible and exploitative era of “reality television,” is no longer a description of what’s real. In blending fact and fiction, we’ve created a false version of the world that perpetuates outrageous stereotypes and can claim truth only in the way it manifests some of the ugliest facets of human nature: greed, selfishness and egomania. To those who know television as the medium that brought us The Twilight Zone and Arrested Development, this is a terrific loss.

Symphonies once ruled the music scene in cities across the country. For a period of the 19th century, New Orleans boasted four of them. Honolulu’s symphony, founded in 1900, is the oldest American orchestra west of the Rocky Moutains. And yet, the symphony–mostly quiet last fall as budget concerns led to several weeks of canceled concerts–is now struggling to survive. It has officially declared bankruptcy and announced plans for drastic staff cuts. We in Honolulu (and, to be fair, all over the country) are awfully good at blaming politicians for poor fiscal management or unwillingness to prioritize the arts. Often, they deserve it. But when was the last time you bought a ticket to the local symphony? And if it disappears, what will be lost–appreciation for these musicians’ exquisite skill, valuing local music enough to spend time and money on it–that isn’t already waning or perhaps even gone?

Tape cassettes used to leave the most beautiful litter. The way it gathered in shining strands on the fingers of tree branches, or lay strewn across an alleyway, that stuff was everywhere. It may be for the best that digitized music doesn’t trash the planet, but we can’t help but miss the confetti of music’s recent past when we remember its absence.

Unemployment benefits for many Hawaii residents are running out. Yes, President Barack Obama granted an extension to February for eligibility for federal unemployment benefits (after being slated to end on Dec. 31), but at a time when the jobless rate is expected to climb. While economic forecasters are cautiously optimistic about the dip in the national jobless rate, the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization predicts the state unemployment rate will average at 7.3 percent in 2010. Hawaii’s jobless rate was 2 percent in December 2006, and 4.9 percent around this time last year.

Veterans in this country aren’t faring so well. We’re losing them, as happy and productive members of society, to suicide and homelessness at alarming rates. And while military and government leaders are working to offer solutions–like better access to Veterans Affairs services and 24-hour online suicide chatlines–there is much more that needs to be done, particularly as the number of veterans returning from war increases.

We are at war, by the way. Do you feel like we’re at war? Honestly? We don’t mean to be callous, but we get the sense that there are plenty of Americans who don’t. Where are the victory gardens? The protests? The rations? The economic boon? Our perception of what the American homefront is like during wartime is very different than our perception of what it used to be. So what have we lost? Maybe not the things we tend to think. Longtime New Yorker contributor and all-around brilliant writer Lawrence Weschler wrote a biography of the contemporary California artist Robert Irwin, in which Irwin spoke of his youthful indifference in World War II. Weschler speculated that perhaps Irwin’s desire to ignore the war was born of a realization that he’d likely be deployed, but Irwin refutes this. He explains matter-of-factly that the war was simply not real to him. His reality was sunny, palm-tree-dotted, peaceful California and the war was so far away that it existed only in newspapers, which was to say, not at all. The losses of wartime are immeasurable, but what’s lost on the homefront, is our understanding that the generations that proceeded us were, in some ways, more like us than we often admit. The implications of these similarities are uncertain, but worth considering, particualrly in the context of that which actually is lost from one generation to the next.

Xenodocheionology–the love of hotels–may not be precisely what we’re losing. Perhaps we are as affectionate as ever for hotels and inns (don’t worry, Hawaii Kai and Kailua readers, we won’t get into bed and breakfasts), but travelers are relying on them less and less as practices like couch surfing, house swapping and staying in hostels are becoming more mainstream for travelers of all ages.

Y2K didn’t happen the way we feared it might. Nuclear missiles weren’t spontaneously launched. Our checking account balances didn’t inexplicably drop to zero. But the catastrophes that Y2K promised were delivered, only over the course of a decade rather than overnight on that New Year’s Eve when the last century turned. The hysteria over Y2K was the perfect launch into what would become a decade of manic phobia. It was a decade of orange alerts and stocking the pantry and duct taping the door and expecting the worst. Part of this was reactionary: planes really did crash and banks really did fail. But a lot of it was a collective tizzy over the unknown. And to believe that uncertainty about the future ebbs and flows is ridiculous. We never know what’s coming. And that’s part of the fun in looking back.

Zzzs are underrated, and don’t believe anyone who tells you differently. American culture notoriously celebrates the underslept. It’s not uncommon to hear people brag of how little sleep they need, and it’s often repeated that some of the most successful among us–from Margaret Thatcher to Bill Clinton–have required only a handful of hours per night. Sleep researchers emphasize that only a tiny portion of the population can healthfully function on as few as five hours per night. But that doesn’t mean we’re consistently getting more than that. Sleep researchers say Americans’ lack of sleep comes, not from achieving extraordinarily in high-level positions, but from distractions like late-night TV and anxiety. Some researchers also make a distinction between underslept and overtired, saying that stress, lack of exercise, poor diet and other unhealthy habits can make us feel exhausted, even when we are getting plenty of sleep.

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