The American Dream
What is the American Dream? I heard two different commercials today that made reference to it and both of them involved the ownership of a home. Is that what it’s about? Do you have to have your name on a property title before you can consider yourself successful? A little over a year and a half ago I owned a place, was paying my mortgage and going to a job I hate just to hang on to the house. Was I living the American Dream? Is being in debt up to my eyeballs the dream?
I sold my condo, bought my truck and now I’m living with my wife and her mother. I can write full-time and not have to worry nearly as much. If I go back to a day job, I don’t have to make anywhere near what I was. I get up in the morning, start writing scripts or prose and break up my day with a swim or a nap. If this isn’t the American Dream… then what is it? I like this a lot better than a year and a half ago.
Maybe the American Dream has nothing to do with home ownership. Maybe it has to do with happiness. Having the things you want, whether it be children, a house, expensive cars, lots of toys or a garden to die for… maybe it’s not a thing you can buy but rather the fact you can buy things. Maybe all we’re really after is a happy and easy life where we don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen tomorrow.
If that is it, if that is the American Dream, then what does that have to do with Nationality? Isn’t that the Human Dream? Isn’t that what we’re all after? I don’t care about owning a house or having a brand new car or the fastest computer. If I can see something at a store or on-line I want and can buy it without having to figure out what the electric bill and insurance bill are then I think I’m living the Human Dream.
But maybe I’m looking at this from the wrong angle. Maybe the American Dream is not supposed to be dreamed by the American people but rather by those who really have the power, corporations. Maybe we are supposed to be in debt to our eyeballs so we owe money to the banks for mortgage and credit cards and we burn through gas, electric and other utilities at a rate that’s making someone rich. So while we live as we are supposed to, the corporations get rich and they get to live the American Dream.
Maybe the American Dream isn’t all that we think it is after all.
What is the American Dream? I heard two different commercials today that made reference to it and both of them involved the ownership of a home. Is that what it’s about? Do you have to have your name on a property title before you can consider yourself successful? A little over a year and a half ago I owned a place, was paying my mortgage and going to a job I hate just to hang on to the house. Was I living the American Dream? Is being in debt up to my eyeballs the dream?
I sold my condo, bought my truck and now I’m living with my wife and her mother. I can write full-time and not have to worry nearly as much. If I go back to a day job, I don’t have to make anywhere near what I was. I get up in the morning, start writing scripts or prose and break up my day with a swim or a nap. If this isn’t the American Dream… then what is it? I like this a lot better than a year and a half ago.
Maybe the American Dream has nothing to do with home ownership. Maybe it has to do with happiness. Having the things you want, whether it be children, a house, expensive cars, lots of toys or a garden to die for… maybe it’s not a thing you can buy but rather the fact you can buy things. Maybe all we’re really after is a happy and easy life where we don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen tomorrow.
If that is it, if that is the American Dream, then what does that have to do with Nationality? Isn’t that the Human Dream? Isn’t that what we’re all after? I don’t care about owning a house or having a brand new car or the fastest computer. If I can see something at a store or on-line I want and can buy it without having to figure out what the electric bill and insurance bill are then I think I’m living the Human Dream.
But maybe I’m looking at this from the wrong angle. Maybe the American Dream is not supposed to be dreamed by the American people but rather by those who really have the power, corporations. Maybe we are supposed to be in debt to our eyeballs so we owe money to the banks for mortgage and credit cards and we burn through gas, electric and other utilities at a rate that’s making someone rich. So while we live as we are supposed to, the corporations get rich and they get to live the American Dream.
Maybe the American Dream isn’t all that we think it is after all.
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