by Kevin C. Carr

Created on: July 25, 2009

I am an optimist by nature, but a pessimist by experience. So many things in my life have disappointed me to no end. I'm not laying blame at the feet of anyone or anything for whatever misfortunes have befallen me in my time. I am to blame and myself alone. I only wish to highlight these ordeals in order to better understand how they came about. Men and women think very much the same when it comes to happiness. What will make some happy makes others' anxious with what more they could have. This is the common difference between ambitious people and content people. Content people agitate the ambitious. And the ambitious terrify the content. This is a black and white theory of national disintegration. Too simple to be an explanation for the discontent we have felt among each other on a daily basis and as ludicrous to say that the rich should only prosper and stay rich and the poor should only suffer constantly and stay poor. Not in this country, they shouldn't. These are extreme thoughts that hold no bearing on what this country truly stands for.

Where is the gray area? There is one, no doubt about that. We talk of classes, race, sex, and creeds separating our United States of America into piecemeal, and so it may be so more than ever. Our tolerance level for each other has become worse than ever. Such as, our egos have blown way out of proportion throughout the years'. You don't have to be a rich American to have pridebeing an American, in general, is enough to create such rifts among our relationships with the rest of the world. We may live in a box somewhere in the bowels of one of our Big Cities, with only Ramen noodles and crackers to eat, and still be proud that we are American. It's a national fervor of all that is right and true. But it is an illusion. We still fight each other on a daily basis. Why? Why do we decree to the world that we are united, free, and happy......when in truth we are just as disillusioned and discontent with ourselves as we were over 100 years' ago. Is it pride or is it fear of being labeled the hypocrite of a modern day world we helped to create? We have so much to be proud of and, at the same time, we have so much to atone for.

We have yet to make peace with ourselves. That is our greatest failure as a nation of free people. We don't trust one another enough. Solidarity does not exist among Americans it exists only in the mind's eye of the government. And there is the trial of fire. What would happen to the people if they

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