As power in America has been transferred from one president to the next, we’re told all the while that the American Dream will continue to be passed along as well. I for one am ready to call bullshit on that entire idea.
To the high school students who will soon be adults, I’m sorry. I have no idea why college is so expensive, why we don’t have universal health care, why we don’t want you to vote, or why we have so many school shootings.
We don’t need an old dream, we need a new reality.
In the last few months I’ve found myself saying I just need to recharge. The battery needs to get above 50% for a good amount of time. The power has been draining and it needs to be filled back up. As if I were a robot. But I’m not a robot, I’m a human. With inefficiencies, forgetfulness, and randomness. Full of flawed thinking and irrational behavior. (Shocker to the free-market economists out there.)
Too much. Not enough. That I prefer Instagram. Anyway, I wrote a long piece over on Medium that I’ve just “published.” It’s really long but I think it offers a valuable perspective on America from flyover country. It channels my inner Klosterman and Sedaris. It’s about the Midwest, small towns, political correctness, white privilege, and the culture wars. Not about design but not everything has to be.
From the great Mike Monteiro and his advice to designers everywhere. He wrote it way better than I could’ve and it’s so good I’m posting the high level points here. Now get over there and read the full post:
I was young. Tiny. Maybe 5 years old. A town kid spending the day on the farm with my grandpa, the farmer. I was riding around with him in his small pickup as he drove around the sprawling farm doing various chores. Checking the corn, collecting the eggs, herding the cows. There was just one last stop before going in for lunch. We had to feed the pigs.
Where do you find yourself wandering in the pitch black? Where do you go when confronted with a blank white whatever? Where is that place you reach into and summon something you can call a brilliant magnificent new way of being? What keeps you up in the still night? What makes you uncomfortable enough to keep looking? What is the thing that you just can’t let go of? Why is there a pang in your chest when you’re sitting still? Agitated? Yes. Jittery? Yes. Unsettled? Yes. Why must you insist on pushing through when you clearly do not have to? [ ... ]
Part of my response to a question about war from a 2007 interview for a design job:
A movement whose voice resonates so loudly that the unpopularity of the war cycle will simply fade away into memory — a way we used to live, a way that we will courageously push out of our will — as we realize there are far better things to do with our wisdom, understanding and resources.
