Our society is mad. To be sure, people say that every year, every decade, every millenium. Nothing changes, yet everything does.

It’s because we change with our times.

Never though has change been as brutal and as consistent as now, in these times. We’re amidst a river of technology and in a sea of culture. America is spreading because America is everyone. The good old melting pot is overflowing in every direction and the heat brings liquidity to everyplace. Slowly? Not anymore. Countries one by one become wealthy and open themselves to the vast communication empire.

The first empire of its kind; the first without an emperor. Just every man, woman and child with their own voice and their own purpose. You begin to realize that this person is just you in a different costume. We’re all human and all we want is comfort.

Comfort is found in myriad things, and they all become available. Nowhere is this more true than in America. Middle class America, no less. Not the high and mighty, but the average. The car and the house and the life beheld by ideals. Anything you want for a price, and that price can be paid if you have the will.

Conspiracy and master plans exist in the movies because they give us an enemy besides our neighbor. I have yet to see one truly impact my life. We feed ourselves pacification.

Soon this extends to all of humanity. America bleeds outward only? No! Just so as they suckle on our teat we learn the shape of their teeth and try to accommodate them comfortably.

Everything changes and yet nothing does. It’s all a matter of scale. Once small enclaves associated and communicated. Technology grew and so did the enclaves. Nations are a new thing, and kingdoms although vast were only united by flag and not culture.

Few Americans are from America, but I don’t find that striking. I revel in the irrelevancy, for every person I’ve met, be they from Romania, Japan, Israel, Germany, India, Korea, Argentina, or onwards only want one thing: happiness. Unsurprisingly your long term happiness is found in the same things mine is.

All this is cliché, and to go on in that vain, America is the land of opportunity. This is why its tendrils have so far a reach. Everyone wants the opportunity to pursue happiness as they see fit. Of course, not everyone succeeds! Not everyone can succeed!

Pursuit of happiness is a selfish endeavor. The only place you can seek it without disrupting anyone else’s hunt is in your own dreams. Stark reality blindsides you on a cold Tuesday morning…

So all you can expect is the best possible chance, and that’s what you’re given. Do you want more? That’s when you begin ruining my fun.

America is mad because 300 million people are charging after the same thing in 300 million different ways. Not only that, but each way can be expressed to any one of the other 299,999,999 people who care too listen.

Soon that number will rise, and much sooner than you expect it will hit 10 billion. There will be poverty and there will be riches. There will be despair and there will be hope. There will be decay and there will be revolution.

As there always has been.

Where you stand will be on the shoulders of 50 thousand years of symmetry.

				-_SMR 991019