Sometimes in later stages of our lives, we feel particularly out of the loop. I often question every move that's made in a detective plot. I don't know who people are anymore.
Who is that young singer whose gymnastic studied sexiness seems to have been taught by cheer leading coaches? The kids know her name, but it escapes me. . . but then they all look alike now, don't they? You can't tell the young "Christian" singers from the ones whose mug shots end up splashed all over the media for days on ad-nauseum end. Seeking fame and fortune as they all do, why would one be different from the other in any case?
What are our targets these days--the American dream having become too expensive to maintain. It's "unsustainable" in today's economy, and questionable in its basic goal. Is it the job--jobs being beyond the reach of so many people? A picket fence--is that it? The happy, well-dressed couple waving from the porch? The cottage house, like those in 1940s movies, with the trellis-laced roses and clematis, the brick sidewalk, window boxes flowing over with geraniums and ferns, dormers, all standing there like harbingers of goodness and freedom?
What do we seek now? Some seek revenge against all those who voted against their candidates; some regularly throw stones, all the while complaining they still stone people to death "over there." Others seek world peace, a laudable goal, even if we have to run a few candidates into the ground to get there.
One recent sociological discovery: the Republican New Age seeker. Their government is always too big, pocketbook always too small, someone's always committing unsightly sins and their mantra is always"gimme." Going for the "manifestation" trend, they chant, "gimme a new car." "Gimme a lot of money. I'm good--I deserve that." One wonders what their meditations really do for them, and in truth I don't want to know the answer to that. We have enough ways to justify our own demands.
Who are we these days? I look at the news sometimes, between "news fasts," because I'm too sensitive to take it all the time, and I shudder to think how things have changed in recent years.
Once we would use the term "Our President," even if we didn't vote for him. It was American pride to say "Well I respect him, because he's the President of the United States." I remember some of the most hard-shell Birchers saying that in the late 1960s.
Now? People shun anyone who disagrees with their opinions, with few exceptions. How classless is that? How un-American can we be? How much of anathema is it, considering how "religious" so many of us purport to be, to shun those who simply disagree? Never mind hate-filled character assassinations which are so prevalent now.
I see crowds of people screaming--hate-filled people screaming racial slurs at the tops of their lungs. Can we be these people? Can we? If we can, then how? How have we become like that, as a people? Factions aside, we represent the United States. What would our ancestors, our great-grandmothers who risked their lives to just go down and VOTE--what would they think?
What do we think of ourselves? What do our children really think? They cannot be fooled. Don't think for a second they can. And it seems that part of the American dream still does merit striving for: leaving the country a better place for generations to come, than it was when we were born. I think we can do that, together. If for a little while we sit back and determine who we really are.
