Rethinking The American Dream

[brokenarrow]

I'm finally catching up with some of the Vanity Fair's sitting on my coffee table, I read this essay by David Kamp a couple of nights ago and it's gotten me thinking. (excellent essay by the way).


http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/04/american-dream200904

Here are a few of my thoughts, I would love to read about what any of you are feeling.
I, like so many others are feeling a sense of helplessness, anxiety, worry about the state of the economy in our country, worried about the future of our jobs etc. worry about our children and what the future holds for them. I think, (and you may think differently, I'm hoping we can all talk about this because I don't even know if I'll express my thoughts properly here,) I think, that we've set our expectations of 'what life is supposed to be' too high. I've been trying to figure out why I feel so pensive these days, was attributing it to getting older, but I believe I need to change my perspective and get a hold once again of what is truly important.
I don't picture my life or the life of my family as a picture perfect world, picket fences, apron on cooking dinner, bringing the pipe and paper to the hub. But I think in a certain sense, deep down inside we would like our lives to be, somewhat, not literally mind you, but somewhat carefree reaching lofty goals that face it, may be unobtainable.
I believe for me, I need to get back to basics once again. Get that mindset of when I was younger...forget about the rat race, breathe deeply and enjoy life in the simplest of ways.

I need to get grounded once again.
I need to forget this pre-conceived notion of The American Dream, because as much as I hate to admit it, I think it's there in the back of my mind. This abstract vision of what 'life should resemble'.

Again, I don't know if this makes sense or if anyone else is even feeling this way. This essay, 'Rethinking The American Dream' made a lightbulb go off and it really helped me.
I loved the photos from the 50's of the families and the outings. Amazing how staged and weird they are. These are the things our generation was being fed from birth, these are the images that get trapped in the back of our minds. We need to erase the images as reality and just view them as art and nothing else...


what do you think?:oldman:

[mensane]

i think the idea of the american dream is subjective. my dream is my own. the reason things have gotten so out of control is that there is so many forms of media that tells us what that dream is supposed to be. and unfortunately, after getting beaten over the head with it constantly, some people succomb to that idea.

before the world became so "small", the major influences on a person's life would be their family and their local community. the child of a farmer in the midwest would have very little idea of what someone's life and aspirations on the other side of the world would be. the american dream for that child would probably include growing up, getting married, having kids and a farm of his own.

now you turn on the tv and there are all these programs that give you a warped sense of what is important (Cribs, My Super Sweet Sixteen, etc, etc). But since it is on tv, it must be what I should aspire to...right....

ok...that was a rambling response. dont even know what i am trying to say...

[brokenarrow]

i think the idea of the american dream is subjective. my dream is my own. the reason things have gotten so out of control is that there is so many forms of media that tells us what that dream is supposed to be. and unfortunately, after getting beaten over the head with it constantly, some people succomb to that idea.

before the world became so "small", the major influences on a person's life would be their family and their local community. the child of a farmer in the midwest would have very little idea of what someone's life and aspirations on the other side of the world would be. the american dream for that child would probably include growing up, getting married, having kids and a farm of his own.

now you turn on the tv and there are all these programs that give you a warped sense of what is important (Cribs, My Super Sweet Sixteen, etc, etc). But since it is on tv, it must be what I should aspire to...right....

ok...that was a rambling response. dont even know what i am trying to say...

I completely got what you were saying, it came out very well and I agree with it 100%! Media does play a very large roll in it. This concept of perfection or a vision of what is good and 'acceptable', which we have all been hit over the head with incessantly really did start in the early 1900's, magazines, movies, photographs, and like you said, now that the world is even smaller with the internet, people do have access to so much more than they ever had. It's kind of like a double edge sword. And folks who are vulnerable, or can't quite think for themselves, see some of these bullshit shows and want to live their lives like the scripted 'reality' show they are watching. You hit the nail on the head.
So many put themselves into debt beyond belief with these mega-large houses, pools, expensive cars while the banks were saying, sure! Go for it, we'll lend you some more money....you need more money so you can get better and bigger stuff, it's what The American Dream is made of.
I believe in having dreams, I think they're necessary, we all have them. But to only have a materialistic dream is what I feel, has added to this meltdown we're witnessing.

another ramble! :silly:

[share]

well - I'm Canadian - ha!

but dreams are dream

I think the whole dreamscape has gone in reverse!

I had a fantastic childhood - I played ball, rode horses, spent summers at the cottage water skiing, riding - we used to play robin hood on the horses and then take the horses swimming in the lake, going down the river in inner tubes, swimming under a waterfall (we had one near the cottage) - I spent winters at the chalet skiing (we weren't rich, when I was a kid cottages and chalets were communal - you went up to a friends cottage and helped build a deck or hayed the field or painted - my job was primarily to look after the horses, same with the chalet) - we spent a lot of time in Scotland with family- traveling the countryside, taking ferries to remote islands, hanging on the dunes looking for viking treasure

I started working at 14 because I wanted to - gave me a good sense of responsibility, office skills and pocket money to go to concerts and buy albums

school had it's trying times but going to school had so many aspects - not just the learning - there was sports and music and theater to help balance those who were successful academically and those who had other skills

it was to encourage everybody and therefore everybody felt they had a place

my dream would have been for my children to have this

it seems that somewhere along the road somebody realized that the simple things in life were a commodity - owning a home, sports and music in school, having a cottage to go to, travel - these things are now a luxury - these are the things that can be unattainable

friends with cottages (the ones I grew up going to) have pretty well sold them off as property taxes even in the remotest of areas have made them too much of an expense (some of the cottages were built by grandparents or great grandparents and have been in families for years)

flying 6 people anywhere for a vacation? - well not something we can really afford - even the price of gas can make a long distance drive a large expense

and sports! - there really are none in school anymore (although it is starting to make a comeback!) - sports and music programs were among the first to be cut years ago - and since Ontario started publishing performance scores for schools it has become a large part of the focus, schools actually encourage higher average students and discourage those who are not - the focus is on marks, not on helping mold a balanced student

hockey for us costs around $2000/year just to sign up - we all have to play to attend every game (even our son!) and then there is the equipment!

there seems to be two classes - those who can and those who need government assistance - there are a lot of us folks in the middle there who have to struggle just to try

my kids have had a fun childhood - they've been surrounded by friends and family, they've been encouraged to explore their creative side and we've been there for their needs - but I wanted to be there for more than their needs - I wanted to expose them to the world in the way that I was - and that seems to be a big part of where things have changed over the generations

somehow the simplest of dreams has had a price tag affixed to it - and that is where I see the change in the (north) american dream

[Buannan]

This article goes along with the theme, somewhat, although the media put a weird spin on it.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Navajos-largely-unscathed-by-apf-15271588.html

There's much to be said about a simple life. Much to be said about living for love of others first and "stuff" second. Unfortunately, unless one isolates themselves from the rest of the world, it is nearly impossible to live a truly simple life. Not just because you are told you need all this "stuff," but because of the need for others to have this "stuff," your taxes and cost of living goes up. It becomes almost impossible to live in certain areas without a car or internet or various other things.

I do believe that the world as a whole needs to take a long look in the mirror and decide who they truly are and quit hiding behind materialistic goods.

That's my little ramble for the morning.

[brokenarrow]

Share and Buannan, I'm going to digest what I've just read from you both.
Awesome stuff, perfection actually!

[oblio]

How come it's only women who have replied here?
Perhaps it's the men's "dream" that has driven this world to the
state it is in?
Fuckin' male species - who's idea was it to put them here anyway?

[peacefulness]

The American Dream... interesting.

I have to say that I never believed that the white picket fence dream was suppose to what was ahead for me. I wish I could say this was because I saw how fake this was and all, but in reality, I believed that I was not allowed to get that in life. I was raised my a woman who believed that there was no point in ever planning for anything so why even try. Plus, though I don't know that it was ever put into so many words, but I always felt that happy, well-to-do families were something more upper-class people got to have, but not us. It's kinda hard for me to put it into words. On Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska Live 84-85, Bruce is introducing the song Mansion on the Hill. He says "I remember when I was young I don't remember having any real sense of having more or less money than the next person. Somehow you just knew it." That's it. But even more than that, I 'just knew' that not only did I not have it, but that I didn't deserve it. It wasn't until my sophomore year in high school that it even occured to me that I could go to college. Up until then, it always seemed like something "rich" people did. And "rich" to me was anyone who didn't have to eat through the free lunch program at school or ride the bus because their parents couldn't afford the gas money. The only reason I even realized this that early is because I somehow made friends with a good group of girls who, to me, "had more than I did." After getting to know them, though, I thought less about that and more about how we were alike and how they didn't NECESSARILY have as much as I thought.

I'm rambling, so I'm going to skip ahead to try to get to the point.

I spent all of high school and college still identifing with the belief that I could not have a better life that how I grew up. Even though I made efforts and my life actually was better in many respects, it never seemed real.

Even now, I own a cute little 3 bedroom house with a solid roof, good floors, and now roach problems at all, but there are times that I feel like I'm going to wake up in that disgusting mattress under that leaking roof in the trailer house I grew up in where the toliet was only hanging on by only the linoleum and the roaches scattered when you turned on the Kitchen light.

In the passed year or so, I have slowly began to realize that I only thought I was jealous of other peoples things. What I REALLY wanted was to have the happy family. I wanted that family with the dad that's a doctor and helps people, not the alcoholic that was verbally abusive when he was drunk. I wanted the PTA mom that never missed a school event, not the mom who was anti-social and paranoid the cops would find that bag of weed in her purse.

I'm still trying to figure out what my American dream is. I don't know that it's an "American" dream as much as it is just a dream. I think, though, that whatever dream I have for myself, if I don't accept myself at this moment, no material wealth or lack thereof will really matter. It's ok to plan for the future and try to "move up", but you shouldn't do it as though your life depended on it.

I can say I've realized that the only REAL obstacle I have in life is myself. Any external obstacles in life I come across are simply a reflection of the obstacles I've created for myself in my mind. I guess that sounds really new-agey/Eckhart Tolle-esque, but it's true.

Umm.... I don't know if I ever reached any point(s) with this ramble. But, it is nice to be able to vent a good ramble somewhere. I haven't done that in a while. :)

~Mel

[peacefulness]

Wow, the grammar in the above even makes me squirm. I hope all the English-Nazi's will show me mercy.

~Mel

[greenmind]

The American Dream... interesting.

I have to say that I never believed that the white picket fence dream was suppose to what was ahead for me. I wish I could say this was because I saw how fake this was and all, but in reality, I believed that I was not allowed to get that in life. I was raised my a woman who believed that there was no point in ever planning for anything so why even try. Plus, though I don't know that it was ever put into so many words, but I always felt that happy, well-to-do families were something more upper-class people got to have, but not us. It's kinda hard for me to put it into words. On Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska Live 84-85, Bruce is introducing the song Mansion on the Hill. He says "I remember when I was young I don't remember having any real sense of having more or less money than the next person. Somehow you just knew it." That's it. But even more than that, I 'just knew' that not only did I not have it, but that I didn't deserve it. It wasn't until my sophomore year in high school that it even occured to me that I could go to college. Up until then, it always seemed like something "rich" people did. And "rich" to me was anyone who didn't have to eat through the free lunch program at school or ride the bus because their parents couldn't afford the gas money. The only reason I even realized this that early is because I somehow made friends with a good group of girls who, to me, "had more than I did." After getting to know them, though, I thought less about that and more about how we were alike and how they didn't NECESSARILY have as much as I thought.

I'm rambling, so I'm going to skip ahead to try to get to the point.

I spent all of high school and college still identifing with the belief that I could not have a better life that how I grew up. Even though I made efforts and my life actually was better in many respects, it never seemed real.

Even now, I own a cute little 3 bedroom house with a solid roof, good floors, and now roach problems at all, but there are times that I feel like I'm going to wake up in that disgusting mattress under that leaking roof in the trailer house I grew up in where the toliet was only hanging on by only the linoleum and the roaches scattered when you turned on the Kitchen light.

In the passed year or so, I have slowly began to realize that I only thought I was jealous of other peoples things. What I REALLY wanted was to have the happy family. I wanted that family with the dad that's a doctor and helps people, not the alcoholic that was verbally abusive when he was drunk. I wanted the PTA mom that never missed a school event, not the mom who was anti-social and paranoid the cops would find that bag of weed in her purse.

I'm still trying to figure out what my American dream is. I don't know that it's an "American" dream as much as it is just a dream. I think, though, that whatever dream I have for myself, if I don't accept myself at this moment, no material wealth or lack thereof will really matter. It's ok to plan for the future and try to "move up", but you shouldn't do it as though your life depended on it.

I can say I've realized that the only REAL obstacle I have in life is myself. Any external obstacles in life I come across are simply a reflection of the obstacles I've created for myself in my mind. I guess that sounds really new-agey/Eckhart Tolle-esque, but it's true.

Umm.... I don't know if I ever reached any point(s) with this ramble. But, it is nice to be able to vent a good ramble somewhere. I haven't done that in a while. :)

~Mel


thats some beautiful writing mel.

i find this thread really fascinating, partly as an outsider/european, but also just generally.