Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die...

...Life will go on and so will everything else. The end.

I'd like to talk a little about the "American Dream". What is the "American Dream"? There never was, and never will be an American dream. It is just a state of mind made up by someone to get people to conform to a social status elevated by wealth and/or popularity.

The American standard of living is based solely around work and money. The harder you work, and the more you work, the more money you get. Now let me get this straight. I work for 50 years until I am forced to retire at 70 or so. Live out the remaining few years of my life on a fixed income from a dilapidated 401K (or some other form of broken retirement fund), and non-existent medicare. And die without ever having lived because work and money consumed my entire existence. What a great dream...

My wife is reading a book right now called: "A Geography of Time", by Robert Levine. In one part of the book he talks about life in the Middle Ages juxtaposed to life during and after the industrial revolution. In the Middle Ages people would have an average of 115 holidays per year. 115 days of celebration and relaxation per year. That's almost one-third of the year. We don't even have one-quarter of that in America. Think about it. How nice would it be to have 115 days off per year? Of course, back then there were no 9-5 jobs or any kind of work structure like we have now. Life was seemingly more relaxed (minus all the plagues and wars and slavery and whatnot). Because it was even shorter then. Now that I think about it, I don't think I have ever had 115 days off, period. In my entire working life, up to now, I have not had off what they used to have, on average, every year. Even in poor countries in the present day, they have more holidays than us.

What is the reasoning behind our standards? Money, money, money, money, money. That's it? That's the dream? Well, you can keep it.

On to the 30 day challenge:

A picture of your favorite memory.


Because I am cursed with having and extraordinary memory. I can not choose only one. But if I must, I must.

I listened to this album for the first time when I was around 10, or something. It changed my life. Listening to this for the first time is one of the best memories I have. I still remember sitting there with my headphones plugged into the record player. Yes, my first hearing was on vinyl. It was magical...



Buzz