The American, Vis-A-Vis

The American finds his fellow citizen more avoidable with every day. When the American and the citizen pass in the afternoon, on the sidewalk, the sun comes down on both of them. When they sit on the subway, at least one seat apart, the train pulls each of them on the same track. And when the terrorist bombs the country, he does not bomb one man more than the other. By way of the tools he has designed, the American is so well connected to those who are not present that he has weakened his connection to those who are. The American and the citizen continue to enter the incidental company of each other, but space becomes less relevant, and they have increasingly less reason for neighborly discourse.

The American's life-long and infinite task to make living easier, more efficient, pleasant and accessible, now allows him to attain much of what he wishes to know or do without the assistance of others. America, having lived beyond and beside all history's sufferings, has assumed a noble position of altruism. With the exclusive ability to view all of Earth's misfortunes and mistakes, the American's moral aim is to take all his power and talent, his gifts given to him by all humans before, and solve the pains of present man. He will cure the ill, vaccinate their disease, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, rehabilitate the abused and somewhere on the way, stumble on irresistible offshoots: day or night or on demand, he will offer himself entertaining trivia; he will break the limits of communication, of transportation; he will strengthen the translation of imagination-to-reality. Of these offshoots, some are byproducts of the honorable plan; some are tempting curiosities and conveniences; and the worst, bastardizations, guilty practices in overindulgence of self.

When the wheel was invented, at some point, the ancient geniuses must have showed it off, and explained it for a crowd it attracted. Any one of reasonable intelligence must have been able to look at it and know, although they had not thought of it first, seeing it now, they understood completely how it worked. And onward it was like that for any invention for a long time. The common man might not always possess the skill or resources to replicate the latest discovery, but he could fathom in his mind, the reasons for its working. The Industrial Revolution, though, entirely overwhelmed even the most knowledgeable man. Inventions surmounted a new floor of the incredible. How

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