Dead But Not Dead: The Fate of The American Dream
A year ago, I packed up my 2009 Ford Focus and headed west. The rust coated rocker panels left a dirt road in Vermont for smog-filled highways in LA. My future was powered by the same American dream that paved the road I was driving on.
A year later, that dream is dead. The broken economy and unraveling unrest have distorted my vision for the future. The collective belief in our ability to build a fair and just society is disintegrating with each unemployment claim, each police shooting, each riot, and each social media post. Washington Post and Fox News headlines feed us despair in return for clicks, and tech stocks soar as we get more addicted to our phones.
I saw a Trump rally today. MAGA flags, blow horns, car horns, military trucks, and enraged faces filled Ventura Blvd. This caravan provoked hatred I’ve been fortunate to have never seen before. I saw murder in the eyes of regular-looking people waiting in line for coffee, and children chanting a rallying cry as their parents drove Trump propaganda covered Land Rovers.
We can’t see ourselves right now. We can’t see the world and the beauty she holds because we can’t go outside. The air is filled with smoke, coronavirus, and the hatred of our neighbor. So in-between applying for jobs or zoom calls, we bury ourselves in the news about the outside. Machine learning algorithms optimize our screen time by only feeding us news that confirms our bias.
The problem isn’t the tech, though. The problem is us. The problem is me. We let our machines divide us because we stopped valuing humans. When I set out to move to the west coast, it was for the community and creative collaboration. This perspective changed when I let myself become captivated by the same glimmer of opportunity driving everyone mad. We removed humans from our core values and replaced them with profit. Now that profit is vanishing; our hollowed-out American dream is collapsing.
Here is my solution:
It isn’t screen time restrictions or stimulus checks.
I am not proposing a political party, piece of legislation, or technical innovation because the root of this problem is spiritual. We lack the collective will to make a change.
So instead, I am calling all people of faith. It doesn’t matter if it is faith in a religion or god or even no god, I am just calling all people that understand the power of belief.
We need to lean in and embrace this death. We need to call the coroner, pronounce her gone, and then boldly say she is dead but not dead, struck down, but not destroyed.
And rage, rage against the dying of the light.
This rage is so pure, so primal; it denies death its due. It does not run when she comes; it locks its gaze into the darkest part of darkness and breathes fire.
As shitty as our news feeds are, turning them off won’t inspire love or quell unrest. We need to stare long and hard and see the darkness for what it is.
If we stare long enough, the American grave becomes the American womb. We find courage, creativity, life, and love in the whisper of nothingness.
It is in this infinite potential that we find the courage to try something new. Without this courage, we descend further and further into chaos. Innovative solutions like ranked voting and Unity 2020 are lost in the noise and consuming hatred.
We need to see the darkness for what it is and rage against it by choosing to believe in a united future for the left and the right. We have a chance to deny the proposition that machine learning algorithms can learn and manipulate us like nodes on a computer.
Just take a second and forget the narrative you’re being fed. I don’t care if it is a left, center, or right narrative. Look at a tree, imagine a galaxy so far away that the expanding universe would never let its light reach us. Remember our inconsequential place in this vast universe and the tentacles of tribal hysteria will begin to fade. Make the bold decision to forgive the side you have been conditioned to hate.
Own a new narrative. A narrative of rage, one that speaks your meaning into this vast universe. One that owns the death of the American dream and resurrects it from an irreversible course of destruction.
Unify around an American dream that flourishes well beyond this election.
An American dream that reforms the systemic racial and class inequalities embedded deep in our institutions. A dream that gets the economic machine running again. A dream that values people more than profit. Just believe in an American future, because if we give up on future itself, we allow chaos and destruction to define our vision.
Most importantly, we need a vision that gives space for everyone to contribute and listen. We can’t continue this pattern of algorithmic censorship. If we continue to read the news that confirms our basis passively, tribal urges will push people to violence. Break this pattern by talking to someone with different beliefs than you. Learn from them because there is no way 50% of the population has absolutely nothing good to offer.
None of this is new. Empires have collapsed before. We have seen citizens lose faith in their institutions and give into animus beyond their control. This moment is no different.
I don’t care that prospects are low. I don’t care about the looming threat this November. I have hope in a collective rage that calls forth light from the deepest reaches of being.
This is the same rage that spoke the world into being, killed death by death, and will make right what is wrong.
It lives in all of us. It is us. It is your decision to get up this morning; it is what moved you to create something, a job, a family, a community, something beautiful, and something profound. It is something rather than nothing.
This invitation to create something out of nothing is what I understand as the divine feminine. To learn more about it, check out my series called God Is a Woman.
