America is the melting pot. Pure and simple. There is no other country I've ever been that is as diverse. So what are we going to do with this varied collection of people? We must be an incredible pool of talent. I don't know the answer to that one, but I do know one thing- now that we're all here, nobody wants to go back 'home', wherever THAT is. This is home. In my case, hell, I don't even KNOW where my great grandmother came from. Story is, she bugged out of central Europe and never looked back so I couldn't take that one-fourth or one-eighth part of me and put it back there even if I tried.
So over to the great new land they went, and here I was eventually born, definitely a citizen but without a pedigree, a lineage. I was a mutt in a sea of mutts at school and we all had to compete with each other. We had to find jobs and mates and mates to hang with, we had to make our way through the higher educational system or start businesses or get jobs, and nobody much cared what we did 'cuz it was up to you to make it, do it, get THERE.
So all my life, competition, competition, competition. And one thing I have learned is that when it comes to the good stuff, a lot of people cheat. You play by the rules and you are going to get run over most of the time though in some instances you can get what you want without fighting too much. To me those are like miracle babies.
We Americans compete for everything, it's our way of life. We rub shoulders and step on each other's toes like life is being at a forever garage sale.
Same flag where'er you go
Matteo Modica- Unsplash.com
But, eventually you get to a point where you have enough stuff, you've established a perch somewhere, and you got most of the things you need and we call that 'making it'. You finally got to the place where you can rest. "Ahh....".
Down below you, the next gen coming up is squabbling for resources and making their way, and you watch as those danged miracle babies become pop stars right out of the gate, or star athletes, and make bank at twenty two. "Damn lucky" you can only think, because most of their bretheren are trying to get to where you stand, a place that you only were able to reach through superhuman effort and the same amount of devotion to time and to all this people remark that it's 'life'. Really? THIS is life? Feels more like...
But don't go there, that's a bummer, and being a bummer doesn't get you invited to any parties, though you may write dark tomes about what's been going on in your mind and maybe make it that way! Strange how it works.
And now, into all this mix, comes the current administration and man, these guys and gals are crass. Brazen. If you thought you had to fight for what you got these guys are trying to pull out what little safety net there ever was, which wasn't much, because they claim that people coming up are bums that will take advantage of the system if they can. Don't even think about coming to us for help, is the message.
So what are you going to do? Seems you have no choice but to perform celebrated 'self-initiative' activities like Crowdfund, pitch your idea to others in collaborative workspaces, be an entrepreneur, start up a company, become a Task Rabbit, drive a Lyft, hustle for your piece anyway you can. Can't be a slacker, oh, that's the worst thing (like that was an option).
So when was it EVER good here in the U.S. of A.? My great gramps carved a living out of the wilderness, and that is not an easy thing to do with 19th century tools. But everybody 'round him was doing the same thing. We've been competing since this country's inception, a bunch of ambitious just-landeds enduring hardships trying to make it, or current gen guys and gals trying to keep pace as jobs disappear and pay and benefits erode away. This country isn't a nation of slackers, it's a nation of incredibly hard and driven hustlers because it's never been easy to live here. Only a few make the big bucks, the rest work. And a lot of the time we, with our individual needs and goals, work in workplaces together, only cuz it's the way we have determined gets us to THERE in the fastest, easiest, and least troublesome way.
In this country there has always been an income divide. Yours vs. mine. We have fought for income share right off the Mayflower. Seems to make perfect sense, then, that if we EVER want to lessen the workload we need to cooperate, and that seems to be the last thing that some divisive people in this country want us to do. But, we're the country with the pioneer spirit if there ever was one and we've got what it takes to figure it out. We just got to lay to rest, to everyone's great relief, that we have to 'Git 'er done!' INDIVIDUALLY.
(After that, if you still feel like competing, there's always sports).