6
" We take it for granted that life moves forward. You build memories; you build momentum.You move as a rower moves: facing backwards.
You can see where you've been, but not where you’re going. And your boat is steered by a younger version of you.
It's hard not to wonder what life would be like facing the other way. Avenoir.
You'd see your memories approaching for years, and watch as they slowly become real.
You’d know which friendships will last, which days are important, and prepare for upcoming mistakes. You'd go to school, and learn to forget.
One by one you'd patch things up with old friends, enjoying one last conversation before you
meet and go your separate ways.
And then your life would expand into epic drama. The colors would get sharper, the world would feel bigger.
You'd become nothing other than yourself, reveling in your own weirdness.
You'd fall out of old habits until you could picture yourself becoming almost anything.
Your family would drift slowly together, finding each other again.
You wouldn't have to wonder how much time you had left with people, or how their lives would turn out.
You'd know from the start which week was the happiest you’ll ever be, so you could relive it again and again.
You'd remember what home feels like,
and decide to move there for good.
You'd grow smaller as the years pass, as if trying to give away everything you had before leaving.
You'd try everything one last time, until it all felt new again.
And then the world would finally earn your trust, until you’d think nothing of jumping freely into things, into the arms of other people.
You'd start to notice that each summer feels longer than the last.
Until you reach the long coasting retirement of childhood.
You'd become generous, and give everything back.
Pretty soon you’d run out of things to give, things to say, things to see.
By then you'll have found someone perfect; and she'll become your world.
And you will have left this world just as you found it.
Nothing left to remember, nothing left to regret, with your whole life laid out in front of you, and your whole life left behind. "
― The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
7
" New Rule: America must stop bragging it's the greatest country on earth, and start acting like it. I know this is uncomfortable for the " faith over facts" crowd, but the greatness of a country can, to a large degree, be measured. Here are some numbers. Infant mortality rate: America ranks forty-eighth in the world. Overall health: seventy-second. Freedom of the press: forty-fourth. Literacy: fifty-fifth. Do you realize there are twelve-year old kids in this country who can't spell the name of the teacher they're having sex with?America has done many great things. Making the New World democratic. The Marshall Plan. Curing polio. Beating Hitler. The deep-fried Twinkie. But what have we done for us lately? We're not the freest country. That would be Holland, where you can smoke hash in church and Janet Jackson's nipple is on their flag.And sadly, we're no longer a country that can get things done. Not big things. Like building a tunnel under Boston, or running a war with competence. We had six years to fix the voting machines; couldn't get that done. The FBI is just now getting e-mail.Prop 87 out here in California is about lessening our dependence on oil by using alternative fuels, and Bill Clinton comes on at the end of the ad and says, " If Brazil can do it, America can, too!" Since when did America have to buck itself up by saying we could catch up to Brazil? We invented the airplane and the lightbulb, they invented the bikini wax, and now they're ahead?In most of the industrialized world, nearly everyone has health care and hardly anyone doubts evolution--and yes, having to live amid so many superstitious dimwits is also something that affects quality of life. It's why America isn't gonna be the country that gets the inevitable patents in stem cell cures, because Jesus thinks it's too close to cloning.Oh, and did I mention we owe China a trillion dollars? We owe everybody money. America is a debtor nation to Mexico. We're not a bridge to the twenty-first century, we're on a bus to Atlantic City with a roll of quarters. And this is why it bugs me that so many people talk like it's 1955 and we're still number one in everything.We're not, and I take no glee in saying that, because I love my country, and I wish we were, but when you're number fifty-five in this category, and ninety-two in that one, you look a little silly waving the big foam " number one" finger. As long as we believe being " the greatest country in the world" is a birthright, we'll keep coasting on the achievements of earlier generations, and we'll keep losing the moral high ground.Because we may not be the biggest, or the healthiest, or the best educated, but we always did have one thing no other place did: We knew soccer was bullshit. And also we had the Bill of Rights. A great nation doesn't torture people or make them disappear without a trial. Bush keeps saying the terrorist " hate us for our freedom," " and he's working damn hard to see that pretty soon that won't be a problem. "
