What’s Wrong With the United States?

Preface: I’m speaking candidly in this piece, and I retain the right to swivel on a dime and praise the ever loving shit out of the United States as the best place in the world in two weeks when I’m home.

It’s been a moment since I’ve had a chance to type. I’m in the midst of a trip in Bangkok which is, all said, a twenty-seven hour journey from my home. Since my feet hit the ground, I’ve been in constant motion; temples, massages, shows, and most importantly food. The colors and textures on everything are otherworldly to foreign eyes. Nearly blinding, in fact. Sharp points, tiny hatch patterns and bold colors drip plaster the walls of poorly maintained buildings that, if nothing else, seem to scream out to you with life.

It’s been a lot over the last ten days and I must confess, I haven’t felt all that compelled to type a word of what now feels like drivel. Well, it always felt like drivel, but now it feels even more like self-indulgent neurotic drivel. It’s like I’ve been given the antidote here. I don’t know exactly what the magic elixer is, but it feels like it might just be movement. It’s the ache in your rear when your buttocks hits the firm overslept mattress at night. The mattress feels like a cloud that embraces you, and sleep feels needed in a way that it does not in the states.

I’m not even doing anything important. Most people here, no offense to them, aren’t, and that’s totally okay. In fact, it’s brilliant.

Well, let me back that up. They aren’t reinventing the wheel like I (and presumably you?) feel the incessant need to in the states. They are doing something important though. Something more important, and I want to slap myself for saying otherwise. They’re taking care of their families. Ironically, I may have just made the case that they are reinventing the wheel.

Let me pose it like this: How often in the United States do you see a sixteen year old boy take a brutal beating; elbows to the nose and knees to the sternum, from a man aged twenty-two, for the chance of bringing home a thousand dollars to his mom, dad and siblings? I’m describing a Muay Thai fight I saw last night at the biggest stadium in the country — it rivals a UFC event, and was cheered on by majority American tourists. There was no arrogance or pompous showboating from the boy, or any of the others like him. There was praying, and bowing, and at the end hugging and genuine consideration for the opponent whom he beat (the sixteen year old knocked out the twenty-two year old). There was an endless line of foreigners (myself included) who wanted to pose with the injured young man, whom was limping, but gracious to every single one of us when I know he just wanted to go home and rest. A child, mind you, who fought not for prestige — well, perhaps prestige, in the sense that it provides greater opportunities to benefit the thing he really cares about.

Family is huge here. People walk the narrow footpaths they call roads, between buildings not ten feet apart from each other. The “roads” wrap like labyrinths, and are populated with toothless grannies, little food stands, cats, and mopeds. Spend time in any one of these veins of travel, and you’ll start to recognize the same people. They all bow to one another. They stop and chat in transit to wherever they’re going. If your bike dies, they’ll help you push it home (ask me how I know). It’s different. I remember standing outside of my apartment, desperately holding up a pair of jumper cables to every passing car. I’d just gotten married, finances were tight, and I had to get my wife to her job. I caught one man walking out of his home to a brand new F250 pickup.

”Would you mind giving me a jump?” I asked submissively. He looked at me, shook his head, and laughed then got in his truck.

I swear to you, if finances weren’t the issue I’d be a permanent resident in Thailand. And this isn’t to say I don’t love the United States; I do. But as the chasm between the haves and have-nots grows wider, my ability to make any kind of impression upon our country seems to be diminishing by the day. My money goes further here, and my kindness feels like it is appreciated and absorbed into something that is blossoming, rather than decaying.

The United States is a place that rewards brutality, and I get it. Personally, I think 50 Cent had it write when he said it’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’. You can think what you want of the motto, but it’s the unvarnished truth. Increasingly, I feel, that if I am to remain in the United States, I will need to punch my way to the top; fueled by something more emotionally taxing than a duty to my family. Something akin to revenge; a poison I’ve got to carry in my heart that instills in me whatever that man in the F250 had when he scoffed and rolled his eyes at me. “Figure it out yourself, bitch.”

Whatever that is, I don’t have it. I couldn’t have it. So the decision I’m left with is; fight upstream to become part of the wealthy 1%, then make the changes I’d like to see in the country. In the meantime, make decisions rooted in good and don’t expect any level of reciprocation.

But man, it sure is tough to keep the flame burning in the United States.

It’s such a challenging conundrum to deal with, because I feel a sense of loyalty to my nation and a kinship with the people. However, the mental health issue is huge and quite frankly, I don’t want any part of it. I don’t want it leeching into my water supply, and it does… whether you like it or not. The mental health is the problem. Call it attitudes. It’s the interactions between the folks. The fractured fabric. The intentionally fractured fabric.

I knew someone who’d come home after getting off of work, and be hyperventilating: “I need my xanax. I need my weed.” Not these words, verbatim, but this was the sentiment. Why? Because someone drove too close behind her in traffic.

She couldn’t relax until she was plopped in front of the TV, on her recliner, after taking half a pill and hitting the bong, eating her McDonalds. Because someone drove too close behind her in traffic. Shouldn’t judge, right? I judged. I judged from a slightly elevated position, but never forgot that to someone else’s eyes who sat above me, I was probably behaving the same way in some relative way I couldn’t understand. Anyways, I was able to analyze the behavior and deduced this:

If American people had to actually work to survive, like actually work else they would starve, to take care of their families, all the while with their basic necessities threatened, they would not have time to behave like this.

If there was a zombie apocalypse, for example, she would not be able to worry about traffic. She would have other things with which to focus her attention. My conclusion is a compliment. She’s too smart for the amount of work she’s doing. It wasn’t the driver in traffic. She was looking for an excuse to synthetically subdue her overwound emotions. She really needed to get up and do something, but what?

In the United States we don’t play games or watch TV as a pastime just like we don’t go to bed when we’re tired. We need melatonin and shit to even fall asleep. We try to turn video-games into jobs just like I -heh- am trying to turn filmmaking into a career. Many of us are hollow at the core, and the most motivated among the zombies are looking for substance in our entertainment. Like a pothead who becomes a master cultivator. Could he be a bricklayer instead? Sure. Does our country require him to be a bricklayer? No.

Maybe what I’m saying is, we all ought to throw on flip-flops and start walking more like they do in Bangkok. Maybe we ought to start handwashing our laundry. Our society just isn’t conducive to that. You can’t get anywhere on foot. Maybe family is at the core… maybe I am romanticizing Thailand too much. I just know that since I’ve been here I haven’t wanted to circle back around and type. I haven’t been seeking the maternal embrace of some… spiritual force? I haven’t needed the medicine.