Lowered Expectations

Here in the land where the pursuit of happiness is enshrined in the Constitution, it can be hard to rationalize the pains and losses so common in real life. Maybe the founding fathers should have added a phrase "without guarantee of success" in attaining said state of happiness?

As usual when I return from a visit to a fundamentally different culture, I'm struck by our collective sense of entitlement here in America -- we seem to expect good health, love, wealth, friendship, comfort, job security, safety, a range of possessions, sufficient space, freedom to do whatever we want to do, and, yes, happiness -- to be not only attainable but sustainable.

Of course, a massive army of advertisers, marketers, snake oil salesmen, and political demagogues are employed in doing little more than selling us these myths day in and night out. Today, along the side of the freeway, I saw a large ad picturing an oversized bottle of beer, a football player, and a scantily clad cheerleader. The only text I noticed said "Raider Time."

Last night, commuting in the opposite direction after dark, I pulled along side a vehicle three or four car lengths longer than my own. It was a yellow stretch hummer with a license plate that read "Kisses4." I would not call this bizarre vehicle a limousine, but it is probably classified as such.

Through the darkened glass of its windows I saw the flickering light from a small TV screen, no doubt one among many therein. Suddenly, I realized that this vehicle plying the same boring highway traffic as mine was a moving entertainment system, where customers could all, if they wish, watch their own TV shows or movies or music videos simultaneously.

Now that sounds like big fun.

How long, seriously, do you think vehicles such as that one will be running on our highways, given the cost of oil and global warming? My only advice: consider leasing, not buying, if the urge ever strikes you to possess one of these monstrosities.

Which brings me back to my opening. The only society that could even consider tolerating stretch hummers is a society in serious denial. As a planetary species, we have already passed "peak oil," that point in time when we reached the maximum possible world oil production. It's all downhill from here.

Might be a good time to investigate Hybrids.

But whatever it is about us, as a people, that allows us to feel "happy" as opposed to foolish when we sit in a stretch hummer consuming videos on small screens is what will doom this society, if, as it now appears, we indeed are doomed.

While in Japan, I bought small wooden trays for my adult children. When asked what it was about these inexpensive items that so attracted me, I answered the grain in the woods. It reminded me of my father's love of working with wood, his lathe, and the many candlesticks he made.

I have a large collection of his work in my kitchen window. Not every piece is necessarily effective as a candlestick; some are too narrow for any but the tiniest of candles. But each is a work of art, in my eyes.

Quite different than a feeling of happiness washes over me whenever I look at the candlesticks my father made. It is serenity. He is gone, but his candlesticks are not. The artist is dead; but not so the art.

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