Bad Choices

I keep asking myself if it's possible for things to go more badly than they have been and then something inside me tells me that these are the good times. Well for me at least. But I feel this pressure bearing down on me that this life we lead in America is destined for a rough ride to ruin. We haven't been smart for years and years--well, were we ever. I drive into work with thousands of single drivers thinking that this is crazy; that this level of waste simply can't go on. I feel we are in for a rude awakening and that future generations, our children and grand children, will curse us for our stupidity and selfishness. We have wasted a treasure, oil, that should have lasted for a 100 generations. I have no doubt that within my own lifetime there will be an energy crisis that will have us all buying bikes and abandoning the world we knew out in the suburbs. We have made choices over the past 50 years and they have, generally, been the wrong choices. The world in which we live is an ugly one. Bad streets, buildings, people, food and culture. I get depressed walking around most any American city because there is little going on but commerce. It is a place to buy things. Everything is designed not for the betterment of people but for the betterment of commerce. Everything is of a temporary nature. Will these glass boxes last 100 years? Will these poorly made houses even make it past the payment of a single 30 year mortgage. We, as a nation, have sold our souls for a few tawdry trinkets. We have spent our lives hoping to live something called "the American dream" and it is a scam. The American dream means living in a lousy house at the end of some lonely street far away from any meaningful activity. I drive through a suburb set behind a concrete wall to separate it from a freeway and feel the desolation, the complete emptiness of the place. Each house like the one before it. Young trees that look like sticks planted in the ground. Garage doors and little doors and the glow of a TV coming through a window. Someone in there staring at the box, a flat screen perhaps, surround sound, a lousy show blasting its inanity into their heads. Some horrible meal piled on a plate. A microwaved burrito and a can of soda to wash it down. The kids upstairs in their own rooms playing video games or masturbating over internet porn. Stuck in traffic for 10, 15 percent of my waking hours. My stomach sagging through my T-shirt and my lost wife with a smear of lipstick on her lips and that blouse she bought on sale at the Gap. She watches me as some brutal murder is solved by a TV cop. My eyes glaze over and all I can think is that I want to sleep for a long, long time. But there is no rest, no respite from this America. Even in my dreams I see the ugliness of it all. The cars float past my closed eyes. Brutal killers lurking down every hall. I constantly lurch awake not knowing if its the burrito or the murder or just the realization that this is all there is, that this was my dream--The American Dream. I lay back and force myself to believe that this is the way the rest of the world wants to live. That I am so lucky to have a lousy job to work at, a gas sucking car, an attractive wife and a refrigerator full of food. Yes, I am so lucky.