I was thinking about some of the comments on yesterday\u2019s post \u201cPersistence of Memory.\u201d\u00a0 It was about detachment, \u201c\u2026 it\u2019s the consequence of the rootless existence that has evolved to be the American path.\u201d<\/p>\n
And I replied, \u201cYou are correct about the path. We\u2019ve atomized our existence. We\u2019ve monetized our lives to such an extent that we almost don\u2019t exist except as consumers. We\u2019re just cogs in the machine. It\u2019s inhuman.\u201d\u00a0 And that stuck in my mind.<\/p>\n
And today I got a call from a friend whom I knew from high school.\u00a0 He lives in Hawaii and only comes home to Brooklyn once a year at Christmas.\u00a0 And we talked about meeting up next Christmas.\u00a0 Now I haven\u2019t seen him in thirty years.\u00a0 I wonder if he would even recognize me.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve managed to speak on the phone every Christmas but we haven\u2019t interacted other than that.\u00a0 Well, I sent him a copy of my book and he called me up today and it was like a time machine.\u00a0 He was laughing and saying how he always thought one day I\u2019d write a science fiction story.\u00a0 He was very complimentary and said he really liked the story and of course that was very gratifying.\u00a0 But in the back of my mind, I was thinking what a strange world we live in.\u00a0 Here was one of my best friends in the world and I hadn\u2019t seen him for almost half a lifetime.<\/p>\n
And so that conversation reinforced the statement, \u201c\u2026 it\u2019s the consequence of the rootless existence that has evolved to be the American path.\u201d\u00a0 Our way of life is somewhat related to the nomadic existence of herders.\u00a0 They move to follow the grazing grounds of their herds.\u00a0 There is no one home.\u00a0 But our way is even worse.\u00a0 Because the herders live in tribes or at least extended families that move together from place to place.\u00a0 But we separate into at most nuclear families and often just single individuals, moving from job to job and city to city without anyone permanently included in their \u201ctribe.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m pretty sure that none of this is sustainable.\u00a0 And maybe that\u2019s why corporate America is backing a policy of wholesale immigration to provide a steady supply of new workers that Americans are no longer providing from their own descendants.\u00a0 After all, how do you produce a family when all you are is a nomad living from job to job without a family to prop you up and give you help when things get tough or you need the resources to get married or buy a house or pay for expenses associated with children?<\/p>\n
And this gave me an idea for my next book after \u201cThe Sniper.\u201d\u00a0 It should have to do with the smartest and richest guy in the world trying to fix \u201cthe American path.\u201d\u00a0 If someone powerful enough wanted to restore our country to viability, what would he think to do?\u00a0 Maybe he\u2019d redefine the partnership between communities and corporations.\u00a0 Would it be a feudal system or a socialism?\u00a0 Or neither.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t figured out what my \u201cutopia\u201d will be based on.\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019ll wave \u201cartificial intelligence\u201d around as my deus ex machina.\u00a0 But I do want to think about it a little.\u00a0 How do you go about fixing the world?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was thinking about some of the comments on yesterday\u2019s post \u201cPersistence of Memory.\u201d\u00a0 It was about detachment, \u201c\u2026 it\u2019s the consequence of the rootless<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1289,818,1263,2860],"tags":[5170,83,3658,3273,2093],"class_list":["post-36406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-fiction-by-me","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-reclaiming-the-family","tag-american-path","tag-family","tag-fixing-the-country","tag-fixing-the-culture","tag-reclaiming-the-family"],"yoast_head":"\n