New Americans
In America we have discovered that excess is as bad as, if not worse than, having nothing at all.
As the richest nation in the world, the United States is both the most over-fed and most malnourished country on the planet. As the strongest and most vehement advocate in the world for the institution of Christian marriage, for traditional families and for traditional gender roles, the United States suffers the highest divorce rates (now more than 50 percent) and, consequently, the largest population of children living in nontraditional, broken and dysfunctional families.
Having one of the largest and most comprehensive educational systems and educational bureaucracies in the free world, the United States produces, on average, the most mediocre students in the world.
Again, as the richest country on the planet, maintaining the most control over science, medicine and the pharmaceutical industry, the Unites States has both the largest population of citizens cut off from health care as well as the largest population of citizens abusing health care by means of over-consumption.
Having the most powerful, most technologically advanced, most fearsome military the world has ever known, Americans are, perhaps, the most fearful, most untrusting people on the planet. As the world’s leading democratic nation, citizens of the United States endure the most subtle and, therefore, most overpowering system of injustices and theft of personal freedom, often, I might add, without even knowing it.
What is the answer? How are we to change? How are we to evolve past this excess that strangles and suffocates our existence? How are we to move past the fear, the ignorance, the unfounded and meaningless patriotism that is ruining our lives, our families, our country, our environment and our world?
It is time for a change. It is time for moderation. We must become human again.
I do not mean unplug the Bunsen burners, shut down McDonald’s and the car industry. I do not mean throw your computers in the river or move into the woods. I mean learn to live again.
We constantly discuss “quality of life.” In America, our large houses and wardrobes and cars and yearly vacations suggest that we have a high quality of life; that, in fact, we are happy and healthy individuals.
But we aren’t.
Look around you. How many of you or your parents are stressed beyond control? How many of you or your friends visit a psychologist or psychiatrist? How many of you or your friends are taking some sort of medication for depression? How many overweight people do you see? How many of your parents are divorced or separated? How many of you or your friends or your parents are alcoholics and/or addicted to prescription and/or illegal drugs?
The answer – whether you recognize it or not – is most of you. The answer is: most Americans are stressed, malnourished, depressed and – if we’re honest with ourselves – about two steps away from going crazy.
What is this? What is this American life we want to protect? If we are so obviously and statistically depressed, why do we want so desperately to continue being depressed? Is it like a drug? Is being American the biggest eight-ball-speed-ball-Jack-Daniels-Marlboro-Big Mac-Zoloft hit known to man? Are we addicted to being miserable?
If you take a step back and look in from the outside, it looks that way.
The answers that could save the world: honesty, education, love and moderation.
So simple, it’s nauseating. So simple, it’s completely foreign to us.
To unite as a country and as a world, we must be honest with ourselves and with others; we must educate ourselves and others; we must love ourselves and others. As Americans, we must simplify our lives and find some type of balance, some equilibrium in our lives; we must strive for moderation.
We are a country of artificial and superficial strength and happiness. We are depressed, stressed, obese and hateful. The strength and excess of the United States may, in the end, prove us the weakest population of people on the planet. Our excess may prove us the least human.
We must change, but first we must agree that this change is necessary. The greatest weakness of the United States is its inability to recognize and to understand that it must change if it hopes to survive. Once we unify in our awareness, the opportunities will be limitless.
