Hi,
Let’s suspend reality for a minute and pretend chasing The Dream isn’t destructive to us, those around us and the world we inhabit.
Ok, that took me a minute too…
Let’s assume, at least for this exercise, that The Dream’s pursuit is a worthy one.
I know, this is getting harder for me, too…
Taking it one step further, assume The Dream is achievable, that it’s not an endless grasping process for more, more and more stuff The Dream Pushers push on us…
Yes, I’m really testing our limits here…
Suspended in this alternate reality, let’s take a look at who The Dream serves.
Being generous, maybe The Dream serves the top 1% or maybe the top 0.1%. My growing sense is that if The Dream served anyone well, that percentage is getting smaller and smaller every day. Maybe it serves that dude feather dusting his Porsche.
For everyone else, The Dream is a failure.
It’s failing humanity on so many different levels. The Dream’s supposed to be supported by capitalism and democracy. When capitalism and democracy fail, The Dream fails with it.
The continuing Covid crisis continues to expose these failures in painful ways. The majority of humanity has no savings, no financial or social safety net to fall back on. Families are broken and continue to break, among the added pressures of parents having to homeschool children while holding down full-time jobs. Children’s real-life social networks are being torn apart.
So much of humanity can’t access healthy food, while down the road a small percentage of the population can choose from 20,000 square feet of organic food, along with 32 different kinds of apples, or pears, or whatever…
Clean water isn’t a given for many, either. Yet that same population choosing from 32 different kinds of apples, can choose from 320 types of water, from an entire grocery aisle dedicated to different types of water.
The Dream’s failing to provide basic human necessities, in these ways and more. And how about the government stepping in to help out where The Dream’s failing?
That failure is painfully self-evident too, especially in the US.
Becoming aware again of our suspended reality, even if we got close enough to achieve The Dream, odds are it would fail us.
Understanding what we do about The Dream’s destructive pursuit and now its failure, maybe we can strengthen our resolve against it and go our own way.
Catch you soon,
Chris
Current Reading List
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Our Only World: Ten Essays by Wendell Berry
The Unbanking of America, How the New Middle Class Survives by Lisa Servon
Current Playlist
Here’s the music that’s been keeping me rolling with it…
…check out my Soundcloud profile for more music.