You feel more free here, and yet you contradict by saying how every one is rushing around to stay in the same place. Peer pressure, loss of freedom?
Five years ago I would have agreed to feeling more free here. You get away from hundreds of expectations on how your life should be lived when you come to a new country, but that could be said for running away to Mongolia too. The Indian network is just too wide to be out of, you can run but not hide - which is cool by the way. Maybe the world is shrinking so fast that there is no 'there' to get away to anymore.
No quibbles about the geography and heck, without the automobile one would n't have seen a tenth of it. So no small part of America's geography is its accessibility. One of stunningest examples is Multnomah Falls near Portland, practicall on the I 84, Oregon is heaven, in case you did not know.
Back to every one is busy and under credit card debt etc. I begin to wonder how much of that is media myth. Most people I know are pretty prudent all a round money wise, otherwise. Like the media/culture tries to build a cachet around being busy , running late all the time, cell phone beeper etc.
Maybe here America has succeeded wildly in making everyone feel that 'I'm Ok, it is every one else I feel sorry for' .Someone once said that this was like identifying with a class above you, even if you are shlepping away at 20k a year so long as you think like the millionaire and have hope and optimism, you might as well be that millionaire. |
