Dream in the Spotlight

Perhaps I am staying too focused on the part of the American Dream that deals with our momentary happiness. Maybe all the dreams of money and comfort and rags-to-riches have more to do with fame than anything else. It is a universal dream to live forever, and Americans like to forget about mortality. The scent of the flowers we stop to sniff seem to be more an amnesiac than any intrinsic pleasure.

Harry (from "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" by Ernest Hemingway) found this out too late. "He knew at least twenty good stories from out there and he had never written one. Why?" (1861). He got too caught up in life. He forgot about death. This is another hole in the American Dream; nobody lives forever. How can we ever get done all we wanted to? How many humans in the history of the world have died ready? Maybe the American Dream is no more than a flower, or a rich marriage, that leads us by the nose into a settled lifestyle. Thus distracted, we do not do what needs to be done with the world. We are too busy to stop abusing the environment, or to solve poverty, or to write our life stories. The Dream causes a lack of motivation and vision.

Somebody get this flower away from my face.