Plastic

All this talk of shattered dreams and disillusionment over the increasingly elusive American Dream just doesn’t cut it for me, begging the question, “Why the long face?”

Is this the goal of everyone’s life? To make enough money so we can have all the material possessions one could possibly want—a house or two, a vehicle or three, the best schools, the best toys, privileges galore, endless opportunities for our children, bragging rights, a safe neighborhood, a garage full of crap that ends up being yard sale fodder and stuff with which we saddle our heirs when we die? And then count it all as admirable achievement? And then be able to tell your children that they can do the same, only better? Is this the goal, the Holy Grail of existence– fulfilling some mindless patriotic duty in the name of shallow pursuits?

Sometimes it seems we have it all wrong, that we add unnecessary weight to our shoulders by making consumption part of a contract we all must honor. We foster blindness, isolation, hubris, a lack of awareness of a bigger world and any sense of obligation beyond that to ourselves. It’s as if a good job and a house of our own are some sort of birthrights or the stuff of lofty aspiration, like success is measured in quantities and accumulation and trophies on a shelf.

It’s no wonder the world is burning. We’ve shortchanged ourselves and others, counted unsustainability as achievement, in pursuit of too much that crumbles and degrades slowly and robs the earth and fouls the air we breathe.