Writing

The American Dream

Some of my best times were when I was younger, spending all summer living in the wilderness with only the possessions and clothes I could strap against my back. Besides the necessities, what more does a person really need? I lived two summers in the woods without electricity or running water, and they were the best summers of my life. Given the chance, I would still live this way but these days I don’t know just how practical this lifestyle would be.

Today in “society” people are buying things they don’t need, driving cars they can’t afford, and living in fancy luxurious houses so they will never ever live within their means. I often put society in quotes as if I’m talking about it figuratively, because to me modern society is a joke where everybody is in so much intense competition with everyone else and despite their near-perfect facade, nobody is truly ever happy.

The so-called “American Dream” in my eyes is justification for capitalist excess where it’s perfectly acceptable to buy in credit with money that doesn’t yet exist, pay over time, and spend what little money we do have on interest and late fees. This arrangement only serves to make the rich even richer and the poor even poorer, and the middle class gets stuck paying the difference.

Personally I see the American Dream more like a nightmare and, as such, would much rather live simply where I am able to pay all my bills in full on time and own everything I have with no strings attached than to go into debt, struggle to pay things off, and walk the wire in fear of the one day my world gets taken away to foreclosure.

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