When I was back in high school, life was no picnic, but it was by psychiatric-methodology, abnormal to a lesser extent. Over the course of two years, me and my five friends grew apart as we pursued our individual pursuits for individual gains. We saw lesser and lesser of each other, each becoming ever-more gradually compartmentalized into various things: computer interaction, television, and lots of school and work.
Perhaps by no small coincidence, over the course of two years every one of my five friends in discussion came down with clinical depression, citing loneliness, apathy, and failures as reasons--which included myself, albeit my diagnosis was of bipolar disorder, a segment of the much larger classification of "depression," which comes in many shapes and sizes.
And now, perhaps merely a random thought, I begin to contemplate as to what happened to the old fables from middle and elementary school of "changing the world" and "fairness" and "peace?" Somewhere along the line, as did the interpersonal contact, ideals such as these were abandoned without even a second thought.
And so I offer a tentative conclusion for why the rates of depression are approximately one in five over a person's lifetime, and why my upper-middle class peers all, coincidently, were diagnosed by the "black dog" in a very short time span. I should explicitly state that my use of the word "coincidence" is nothing but open mockery towards various trends that I can see very well with my eyes, those of depression, worthlessness, apathy, laziness, stupidity, and alienation. As it was in American history that, subsequent to the Wagner Act, the mobilization of unions were forever bound and gagged, so it has been with the community life of the common men and women of this country.
Any sort of real progress in this country will be bound indefinitely if the people do not regain their collective power through actual, physical bonds in the local community. This certainly extends to those of secular backgrounds, such as we all are (here), for we do not have the luxury of the church as a community gathering. The closest thing we get is Fox News, or, if one is especially wary of corporate agendas, The News Hour, which we all watch alone and silent.
The question of whether America is an individualistic nation is almost a tautology, for America is known for it's "rugged, individualistic spirit." But as most ideals that we follow, the duality simultaneously emerges as one considers the benefits that arise from individualism, against its lesser known perils. To ignore this duality says nothing of its existence, which manifests itself in the negative traits and statuses of depression, anxiety, fear, and scarcity, as well as the so-called positive effects that are almost universally praised upon one hand as the traits that drive American success: hard work, very high standards of beauty, conspicuous consumption, long hours, and pulling oneself up by the bootstraps to self-actualization.
Being that I am one of the so-called "victors" in the American race: young, idealistic, hard-working, white, fit, wealthy, and above-average intellect--I feel as if I can shed some light as to where this rat race leads, albeit a subjective viewpoint in its entirety. I personally feel that all of you who are reading this exhibit some identification with the aforementioned paragraphs I have just written. The so-called paradigm of Americanism, in short, is a dangerously skewed view of the world that focused on specific, and limited, gains for the individual, while wholly neglecting the inherent evils automatically asserted with the affirmative viewpoint that we all were once told was what made us, the US, special and unique. I hold it now as self-evident through the senses that for every aspect of so-called "American success," in the "American way," there is an equally important counterpoint to be made for each of the assertions of the good of the value in question. With hard work comes stress, with success comes elitism. With materialism comes superficiality, and with the deification of the dollar comes the abject defication and objectification of human labor as a means to an end that does not even attempt to veil itself within the cloak of a sheep. We have been left with a monistic theory of value, that of monetary gain, as the soul and life of a country that we used to think held the key for open-ended prosperity with no malevalent consequences on any forseeable horizon. I leave it to this forum to decide whether or not, as I have concluded, the "American Dream" is nothing more than a mirage.
-MSB
Perhaps by no small coincidence, over the course of two years every one of my five friends in discussion came down with clinical depression, citing loneliness, apathy, and failures as reasons--which included myself, albeit my diagnosis was of bipolar disorder, a segment of the much larger classification of "depression," which comes in many shapes and sizes.
And now, perhaps merely a random thought, I begin to contemplate as to what happened to the old fables from middle and elementary school of "changing the world" and "fairness" and "peace?" Somewhere along the line, as did the interpersonal contact, ideals such as these were abandoned without even a second thought.
And so I offer a tentative conclusion for why the rates of depression are approximately one in five over a person's lifetime, and why my upper-middle class peers all, coincidently, were diagnosed by the "black dog" in a very short time span. I should explicitly state that my use of the word "coincidence" is nothing but open mockery towards various trends that I can see very well with my eyes, those of depression, worthlessness, apathy, laziness, stupidity, and alienation. As it was in American history that, subsequent to the Wagner Act, the mobilization of unions were forever bound and gagged, so it has been with the community life of the common men and women of this country.
Any sort of real progress in this country will be bound indefinitely if the people do not regain their collective power through actual, physical bonds in the local community. This certainly extends to those of secular backgrounds, such as we all are (here), for we do not have the luxury of the church as a community gathering. The closest thing we get is Fox News, or, if one is especially wary of corporate agendas, The News Hour, which we all watch alone and silent.
The question of whether America is an individualistic nation is almost a tautology, for America is known for it's "rugged, individualistic spirit." But as most ideals that we follow, the duality simultaneously emerges as one considers the benefits that arise from individualism, against its lesser known perils. To ignore this duality says nothing of its existence, which manifests itself in the negative traits and statuses of depression, anxiety, fear, and scarcity, as well as the so-called positive effects that are almost universally praised upon one hand as the traits that drive American success: hard work, very high standards of beauty, conspicuous consumption, long hours, and pulling oneself up by the bootstraps to self-actualization.
Being that I am one of the so-called "victors" in the American race: young, idealistic, hard-working, white, fit, wealthy, and above-average intellect--I feel as if I can shed some light as to where this rat race leads, albeit a subjective viewpoint in its entirety. I personally feel that all of you who are reading this exhibit some identification with the aforementioned paragraphs I have just written. The so-called paradigm of Americanism, in short, is a dangerously skewed view of the world that focused on specific, and limited, gains for the individual, while wholly neglecting the inherent evils automatically asserted with the affirmative viewpoint that we all were once told was what made us, the US, special and unique. I hold it now as self-evident through the senses that for every aspect of so-called "American success," in the "American way," there is an equally important counterpoint to be made for each of the assertions of the good of the value in question. With hard work comes stress, with success comes elitism. With materialism comes superficiality, and with the deification of the dollar comes the abject defication and objectification of human labor as a means to an end that does not even attempt to veil itself within the cloak of a sheep. We have been left with a monistic theory of value, that of monetary gain, as the soul and life of a country that we used to think held the key for open-ended prosperity with no malevalent consequences on any forseeable horizon. I leave it to this forum to decide whether or not, as I have concluded, the "American Dream" is nothing more than a mirage.
-MSB
