Life-Water™

Culture is both a visible and non-visible force which governs our actions in today's society. These non-visible forces can be seen as a sort of Life-Water, because we are immersed in it from day one, and like a fish in a fish-bowl, cannot see it as an insider looking out. An example of this water in my own life is how people in Stevenson generally assume that having more of something among fewer people brings the greatest happiness. I found this to be true in the discussion of Give'a'Thon in Honor Band. Completely ignoring the fact that the biggest class in Stevenson (over 350 participants) wants to cut back this year and set the bar at less than $1 per person in band, the topic came up of how big of a family and how many families we wanted to support. The overwhelming majority voted the band take on one small family of 4 people or less. I was appalled! Their Reasoning: Would it make people happier if they had $60 worth of presents spent on them or $30? I feel like that's what the band students personally would want to be spent on them, that we weren't thinking like less fortunate families. There are newly-destituted families in the Chicagoland area who would be happy to receive anything for the holidays this year, and it should be our duty to fulfill as many of these desires as possible, not splurge on a lucky select family.

Around this time of year, with Give'a'Thon starting up, peoples' generosity is easy to see, or in some cases, their lack of. Last year, I had Mr. Sherwin, a huge Give'a'Thawner, for my Human Geography teacher. We took on the challenge of shopping for one or more families per class, and the general student monetary and canned-gooditary response was overwhelming. However, when it came time to volunteer to go shopping with the collected money on a Sunday, the room was silent as a tree on a windless Summer day. The first to raise their hands after a prolonged minute of treeful silence were the two girls who were in charge of our class's Give'a'Thon in the first place. After another minute or so, I decided to spruce things up by volunteering myself. Americans generally are all for promoting and contributing money to venerable causes, but when asked for the ever-fleeting commodity of time, people tend to shirk from their original generosity. After buying the gifts for the families, Sherwin held a huge gift-wrapping party after school that Wednesday. Here are some demographics for that event: 16 girls, 2 men. One of those men was Mr. Sherwin, so there was nothing going for him with those statistics, but I on the other hand was one very lucky gentleman. Sometimes we forget that when we do nice things for others, there may be some unanticipated rewards in the end. (Indeed, it was an auspicious day in regards to the business of pimping for J-Wex) ; D

An American value I embrace is our stated value of the individual. It may not always be apparent, what with our "standardized testing", judging everyone in the exact same intellectual assessment, but I believe individualism makes America what it is today. There are people from all over the world living in the United States, and their own cultures and customs help create a worldliness at a local level. Even though America is in the process of homogenizing the world through globalization, I believe the Olive Tree will work together with the Lexus in the end, and if it doesn't I will be kinda' disappointed.

Another value I support is the idea of physical fitness. Just because we live in the richest country in the world doesn't mean we should use our wealth to become the fattest and therefore curtail our happiness. "Eat to live, do not live to eat." -Mark Twain And I don't believe in lame-butt walking for anyone under the age of 50. I'm talking real physical fitness here, like push-ups and sit-ups. Every man and woman should totally be able to bench twice their own weight with pure, rippling muscle. Unfortunately, I'm not quite at that point of physical fitness, so I'll save that idea for later.

Sometimes I have my gripes with the value of material comfort in the American lifestyle. For example, owning every new generation of iPod goes beyond material "comfort" in my book, yet for some consumers this a given. For some reason, I just don't always have the desire for more stuff, which some people spend their whole lives chasing after. Right now, I just want to hang out with friends who are in college, a want which cannot be purchased. Personally, I don't see the fun in owning new stuff that for the most part will be obsolete in the next 5 years. ('Cept for 80's Hair Rock band records, those will always be near and dear to my heart)

I also have issues with the value of expected external conformity. When asked "What's up?" we are expected to say "Not much." Smart-asses are expected to say "The ceiling" or something to the same clear-as-day tune. Seldom do people actually think to themselves what their personal response to that question would be if they put the effort into answering it. I choose to answer a different question in response to the previously asked, such as "How are you doing today?" or "How heavy is your preferred bowling ball?" (Which is 11 lbs., for anyone who's interested) What We, as Americans, are expected to keep our emotions on the inside all the time, and not let feelings of unhappiness or negativity creep into our countenances. Why not answer questions in our own way? Why not dress how we want to? Why not show how we feel? If we all conform to a single society's norms, there will be nothing left to hold in awe in lieu of the contrast with your own norms.