Consequences

What I am about to say has a big caveat: as a moderately affluent urban denizen, I may very much have a skewed point of view that is only valid inside the bubble in which I live.

Walking into the office this morning, I noticed a pair of women, likely a mother and daughter. Both a bit overweight, with round faces and large rumps, nearly identical handbags (indeed, large ones), and similar flip-flops. They stroll lazily, perhaps taking a morning constitutional as some seem to do in my building. And it occurs to me that perhaps they are unaware that what they have has a cost. Everything has a cost; everything has a consequence.

In America right now, setting aside, of course, the Iraq war and the damage we have inflicted on the world stage in the last 7 years let alone the last 100, it seems that too many Americans live ina world without consequences. It is far too easy to run up bills on a credit card, and then obtain another one. All who enter a car dealership can actually walk out with a car--there are no rules that require you be solvent before spending money you don't have. If housing becomes expensive, there is always a quiet leafy suburb further out in which to live.

The suburbs themselves are a quiet haven away from the realities of urban life, of living in the world. There is little punishment in theses havens for not reaching one step higher in your career, or even overextending in your career at the cost of your own family. Few products cannot be obtained at the local mall, few days so bad that a stroll through consumer nirvana and an acquisition or two can't solve.

We Americans have lost our capacity to suffer, and thus to understand suffering. Through suffering we know the cost of things, we understand the consequences. I myself do not know nearly enough suffering to remove myself from this criticism, although I see it in the cities--not everything here is upscale and affluent. I myself know the cost to me and my family to continue living in a good area of the city.

Cities may crumble, nations might fall, wars might be lost, but the leaves would still be green where America lives, and she would wonder why the Internet now seems always to be a page not found...