Fugazi, Metro, The University of Texas, The American Dream

What do these things have in common? Not much...but they all share a part of my evening. I'm going to go in reverse order. As with most days recently I've had so much to think and process that I have a hard time centralizing on a single thing to write about. I've tried just writing about everything at once, but that usually ends in disaster.

I'm currently listening to Fugazi while writing at the Metro coffee shop type place (24 hours and very bright, which is good for studying so I think I've found a good study spot, it would be nicer if I went to UT but that's a topic of another entry)

That knocks out two of the things in my title, well, three. I've also established my location across the street from the dynamic campus known as UT. It's a facinating place...I interact with hundreds of UT students a day when I'm at work...but that interaction rarely goes beyond "what can I get for you, small or large, did you say you want that decaf?, would you like whipped cream on that, yea it's really good with it, here's your change, thank you very much/take it easy/thanks man etc..." I don't really know very many of then, yet I live in Austin. The issue there of course is I attend another school...in the same area, but in a way detached. For the purpose of my plans and my life I have attached the two, and so have thousands of other people.

Did I mention that UT is dynamic? There are many uses for that word, and almost all of them describe the school. Such a diverse population, literally the entire planet is represented here. The ideas here are progressive, perhaps too progressive for the real world. So many people, searching. It's not unlike Texas State in that respect, but where the students are looking for answers are though more varied means here. Right next door the Church of Scientology attempts to answer those questions for students, and some students believe that the answers are next door. My uncle did, and he disapeared for two years, reappeared, moved to LA, got married, has a succesful job and a seemingly happy life. I guess he found those answers, or mabye not...no now that I think about it no amount of outward visable success can guarantee true happiness. In fact, now that I think about it, virtually nothing in the physical world can. However there are 6.4 billion people on this planet that spend their lives trying to find it...some do, but it's almost never found in a gated community, in the polling place, behind door number three or in a shoe contract.

Our "manifest destined" material drivern unfettered mega-capitalist society...for all of his precedent shattering enormity and hype, has never made a single person truly happy. I know that is the truth, but it's hard to imagine, as a human with a human brain wanting to do human things, how that is. For many people, what we have is the theoretical secret to life. The "American Dream", which, as far as I can tell, includes at least most if not all of the following: A house in a safe suburban neighborhood with a fully occupied two car garage and another slightly used but good looking car for the oldest of your 2.3 kids that just turned 16 parked out on the street, nearby schools that are ranked "above satisfactory" by state standards, a green lawn that in certian parts of the country takes gallons of water from a seemingly infinite supply to maintain, closets full of more clothes than will ever be worn, plenty of entertianment oriented objects displaying the latest distractions from pop culture in a liquid crystal display with surround sound, membership in a nice church that meets in a shiny new building with a huge electronic sign out front that attracts the attention from other typically nice looking suburbanites who are commuting on what is...of course...the outermost loop around the city...a church where you can go and feel good about yourself and not have to worry about sin or the poor or being generous and honest without expecting something in return, season tickets to at least one local pro sports team, a couple of yellow ribbon car magnets kept in a drawer so that in the event that the one on the Chevy Tahoe falls off it can quickly be replaced before a member of the family begins to feel unpatriotic and guilty for not doing more to support the troops...wherever the hell they are...while at the same time being thankful that they won't have to worry about either of their kids going off to some who knows where country because that's what poor kids are supposed to do because they have no other option."...that, in a nutshell, is the image I think of when I think of the "American Dream"...but nothing I listed above has the power to make someone truly happy. Some of the most unhappy and suicidal teenagers grow to be that way when they realize that the suburban promise of the "American Dream" doesn't do anything beyond making their pointless lives more generally physically comfortable than the immigrant family that just moved in fifteen miles down the freeway toward downtown.