Blueprint

As much as many of us try to prove otherwise, there is no blueprint for how a person’s life is supposed to go. For some of us, our natural talents guide us into something that fits our abilities. Others spend a lifetime going through trials and tribulations; never quite finding their niche. Unfortunately our society, as presently constructed, doesnot afford an individual much leeway in figuring out their life’s goals.

 

For myself, I did not really think the world would continue to exist past my thirtieth birthday. This was based on some cold war era nuclear holocaust paranoia that I fed into along with classic teenage rebellion. Dad would counter this logic with, “What are you going to do if you’re wrong?”  To which I’d continually fail to counter in any meaningful way. Still, I always managed the bulk of my life to have some kind of job at all times and keep food in my belly. Most people of my generation and older hold some set of job and life skills that at a minimum ensure survival.

 

Today, in an age where anything a person could ever want to learn is right there on the internet, there are more functionally useless people walking around than I ever recall seeing. More and more people lack the basic skills of cooking, counting money, reading and thinking for one self that seemingly everybody had twenty years ago. Most Americans no longer have even a basic knowledge of our history as a nation; which is actually pretty scary. People know more about what Kim Kardashian and Snooki are doing than what is going on with our government; which explains how much of the silliness going on there is able to continue.

 

While certain political candidates extol the virtues of so called American exceptionalism, I have to scratch my head. Most of our great achievements have been in the past, not in the present. Today, I see all the jobs requiring advanced degrees going to people from China, India and Russia which tells me we are not smarter than everyone else. Our economy stands on the brink of collapsing, but we fail to take the one action that can absolve the problem in a decade; increased taxation of the top 1% in this country. The people that are aware that there are deep problems in this country seem more focused on who to blame than taking care of the problems. The list goes on and on.

 

 

We as a nation need to admit that we are selling short future generations. Hiding our heads in the sand and blaming others is not going to make this country a better place. Raising our children to be stuck on stupid paves the way for the next superpower to buy out America and make our kids obsolete and useless; only fit to be used as fertilizer. Human beings have so much potential and it is so sad to see so many go through the motions of living, yet not actually doing so. If only somebody actually had a plan…