The New American Dream is to Get the F*ck Out of America
It’s time to get more realistic about the future
Ironically, more and more Americans are falling into distant daydreams about freedom. I’m almost 45 years old. I grew up reciting the “pledge of allegiance” which finished with the words “…with liberty and justice for all.” We skipped the fine print though, the parts of the pledge that couldn’t guarantee liberty and justice for poor people, women or anyone with darker skin. I still find myself drifting into wanderlust that involves a camper van parked on the tops of mountains or beaches where I can write my dystopian science fiction books. I have more than enough inspiration to glean from, after all. The whole camper van thing becomes less appealing though when I think about having to shit in a bucket.
Frankly, it’s a nice break from the usual nightmares that I have about requiring a hospitalization that will permanently bankrupt me or being in relationships with entitled American women with control issues. But it’s not just these life concerns and annoyances… there’s something seriously wrong happening in the U.S. and it’s hard to say exactly what. It even becomes precarious when you try and pin down the real issues. I can’t tell you exactly what the worst part is other than everything is wrong and everything is a disaster. It’s impossible even to know how or where to begin; just name something about life and living and we’ll easily find a way that the U.S. has totally fucked it up.
“What has happened and how has it happened so goddamn fast?!”
Abandon ship!
If you’re anything like me, you sometimes feel like you’re teetering on the brink of just sort of losing it. There’s something horribly wrong about all of this and what’s happening with all of us and I want to run, like hell, out of here. Over the past few years, I have found myself a bit lost in fantasies about getting the absolute hell out of here. I’d sell my townhouse and use the cash and get the hell out of Dodge. I’d have more than enough money if I sold my home and all of my stuff; more than enough. I’ve thought about becoming a digital nomad and going to remote countries where I can live like a king for $1,500 a month when other Western countries would be favorable to the U.S. in so many ways.
If you’re anything like me, you’re craving a more laid-back lifestyle where people enjoy simple pleasures. Where the food is good, fresh and homegrown, unlike this ultra-processed trash that’s been pressed into a mold so that it looks like something edible. If you’re anything like me, you crave community, closeness and laughter instead of this hostile culture of hatred and contempt that Americans have for each other now. Seriously, what has happened and how has it happened so goddamn fast?
I crave a lifestyle in which I feel free to be myself and free to just… be without the constant pressure to perform, accomplish or succeed. I want life to just feel good enough without constantly being bombarded by advertisements and aggressive marketing tactics. I want to consume media where I’m learning, growing and where I’m being educated and entertained, not where I’m being pressured on what to think, how to feel and the pressures of social conformity.
More than anything I’m starving for deep human connection. I’m starving for honesty and authenticity between people. It would just be so nice to be able to have deep, honest and meaningful conversations with people in which we can dispose of the bullshit. I want to talk to my fellow humans about their human experience without them getting upset or offended for some reason. I want for us to see, hear and understand each other when I mostly just feel like people support and uphold this system that is slowly suffocating us all. I love you guys but your egos are just way too fragile, too many of you need to get over yourselves. Maybe I do as well but I promise I’m working on it.
“If we fled to other countries we’d probably just make a huge mess there too, we have to focus on cleaning up our own messes.”
I dream of community and I dream of us talking, supporting and loving regardless of our political and social perspectives. I long for a community of understanding and connections. It would be nice to live in a place where people acted and behaved with others in mind. I know there’s no perfect place, not even close but the U.S. has come to just feel so dark and cold.
The end is near
The American collapse is inevitable and imminent. Everything is falling apart and I often find myself wondering how it’s all still holding together. Routine, probably. Somehow the mail still shows up, the lights still come on and the grocery store shelves are stocked. I’m grateful for those things, I’m grateful for my small beautiful corner of the planet where I feel safe and at home but one can’t help but think that we don’t have long. Our leaders are incompetent at best and psychopathic at worst.
In a pride of lions the alpha males mostly just lay around while the lionesses hunt and raise the young. It seems cushy for the male lions until some kind of danger threatens the pride. He’s the one that must sacrifice his safety and well-being to face any major threats or dangers, that’s the price of being on top. He does less work but he’s also the first one to step in front of a charging elephant.
Similar dynamics have been found in native and indigenous cultures. In America, the chiefs and braves were the ones taking the biggest risks and were the most likely to get killed by bison or white colonizers. Our leaders sit on their fat asses without taking any risks. When times get tough, they hoard and exploit while they cower in their ivory towers. They’re more than happy to sacrifice any and all of us before they take any risks. They sit on their thrones, like spoiled royalty and that’s just not how it’s intended.
We’re the solution, we just don’t realize it
We know things are bad. Well… some of us anyway… some people prefer to remain blind and in the dark. Sadly, they’re definitely part of the problem. We could fix things if we came together, if we united and if we saw each other as brothers and sisters. Together we’d be so strong and resilient but unless we get this figured out, we’re unfortunately going to have to continue enduring this slow-motion apocalypse. I still think about migrating to Norway where I know that my profession is in demand. I could watch the U.S. fall apart and deteriorate into a violent third-world hellscape from the safety of Scandinavia.
My friends… the solution is US. We can’t and won’t be able to vote ourselves out of this mess. And we can’t consume our way out of this mess. Buying expensive electric cars isn’t going to solve anything. If we don’t come together to fix it, it’s not going to get fixed. We need each other, desperately, now more than ever but it always starts with our own individual responsibility. Frankly, we just need to get over ourselves. We need to get over our political and ideological identities and we need to swallow our own individual narcissism and pride. We must accept that this responsibility falls on us individually and stop blaming others while evading our own personal responsibility. We’ve all helped make this bed and we’re going to have to lay in it.
It’s not fair for us to abandon our own mess and invade cultures and other countries and expect them to deal with us when we have so much to fix and work on. We’d probably just make a mess out of their home too. We have to be more conscious and aware of how our attitudes and behavior affect others and we have to allow others to be human. We need to get over our American arrogance in which we fail to see people as people instead of what we expect them to be. I want to run from this place. Badly. But I also know it’s also on me to do my part to help fix it.
