I don’t want to be dramatic (I’m like this involuntarily) but I can’t shake the feeling that America is in dramatic vibrational decline.
I’m not talking about the war, or the Supreme Court decision, or even the pickleball. Or maybe I am a little bit, but if that’s the case, they’re symptoms; not causes.
I feel like America is losing its aura.
Like, I think about the kind of people we used to be, or what used to come to mind for most people when they imagined an American.
On the world stage, we were this incredulous underdog that no one expected to survive; let alone thrive.
And on some level, early Americans were driven to surpass the expectations of their nation.
I don’t necessarily think that the settlers were desperate to prove anything to the continent they left behind, but that a combination of extreme opportunity, risk and external doubt in all that stood before them had real energetic weight, and they felt it.
And while Americans have pretty much always had a reputation for working hard, I think that while valid criticisms of our lifestyle exist, the idea that we’re all just materialistic drones in a rat race who live to work and work to live is out of touch with reality.
Or at the very least, it wasn’t always the case.
Americans may not take 3 month vacations or nap in the middle of the day or embrace the slower paced Mediterranean orientation towards life.
And I’m not saying we have nothing to learn from them.
But we have literally always been a festive and celebratory people. From Thanksgiving, to county fairs, to harvest festivals, to barbecues, to the invention of the cocktail, Americans have always loved to come together and play just as hard as they worked.
Shortly after the automobile became widely accessible, people weren’t just driving to and from work, they were embarking on road trips with their families, exploring the land.
Our founding documents were written over meals and drinks at pubs. And when you look at the men responsible for forging this country, and bringing it from an idea to actualization, they were incredibly well rounded. Benjamin Franklin, for example, was an avid windsurfer, swimmer, musician, scientist, inventor, reader, and debater.
I haven’t read about him or his life extensively, so I can’t say for certain what motivated him. Maybe it had something to do with his upbringing. But I have a hard time believing that he didn’t pursue at least some of his many interests because he just genuinely enjoyed them.
Of course, there’s nothing “normal” about Benjamin Franklin or most of our founding fathers. They were extraordinarily brilliant, talented and impressive. No average person successfully turns a niche rebellion into a republic on accident.
But I think they embodied a uniquely American identity that placed tremendous value on excellence and achievement without ever losing its appreciation for life itself, or what really made it worth living.
And I don’t think most great men in our history were particularly preoccupied with being known or perceived as great, but became obsessed with accomplishing great things.
They didn’t establish the United States of America because they wanted to be remembered as exceptional, but because they were committed to an exceptional vision that they were determined to bring to fruition, no matter what it cost them.
And I think America is losing its essence at least in part because of a growing fixation on performing and optimizing with a dwindling affection for what actually moves us.
As much as people use words like “whimsy” and “authenticity” these days, it seems like we’ve never had less of it.
It seems like a lot of us are contorting ourselves into caricatures to try to win a competition most of us don’t even realize we’re in.
Like, wellness and clean living are objectively good.
But if we aren’t careful, it easily devolves into a neverending comparison loop and proverbial pissing contest where people are constantly looking for new ways to demonstrate a certain status.
It’s like you’re making your own sourdough, but someone else is milling their own flour. Or you have a red light mask, but someone else installed red light in every room in their entire house. Or you switched your wardrobe to natural fibers, but someone else started sowing their clothes because cotton is actually too processed to trust.
And of course, it’s not exclusive to any single corner of the internet.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you aren’t getting comped tickets to music festivals, yacht invites every weekend, cutting lines without paying, behind top charting DJs in their booths, or on exotic vacations you didn’t pay for, you might feel like you’re somehow inadequate.
And it’s not like you aren’t actually making positive changes for your health or enjoying your free time, but because of what you’re bombarded with nonstop, nothing feels like enough and you’re consumed with becoming “the best” at whatever you care about.
We’re turning ourselves into sentient spreadsheets, and what’s supposed to bring us pleasure and peace is bringing us pressure for no good reason.
It seems like your mom started gardening in the 90s because she thought it was fun. And of course, many people do it for the same reasons today. Or maybe they have new, completely valid rationale like wanting to avoid pesticides or wanting autonomy in feeding themselves.
But there are also people that start gardening because they think it’s going to give them another asset in their online resume, and act as another credential that they can showcase to their community.
I don’t even blame anyone for it. I don’t think most people do it on purpose.
But I think it ultimately comes down to a life lived freely and documented as an afterthought, like a few haphazard pictures of your mother’s roses in a scrapbook from 1998, versus a life manufactured to feed our egos and algorithms, where we do things primarily to post them.
Obviously, this isn’t everyone’s problem.
There are plenty of people that can separate what they see online with how they see themselves, and how they want to be seen by others.
But I think most people being honest with themselves can recognize what I’m talking about even if it doesn’t apply to them, and I think this behavior is often insidious and has a habit of festering when it isn’t addressed.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to improve.
But I think why we do what we do matters.
And as a people, we’d be better off if we did what we loved with the diligence and sincerity of America’s patriarchs than living our lives like they can be measured on Excel.
what do you think?