Reflections

Success seems to be an illusory dream for me as I comfortably entered middle age earlier this year. As of late, though, it has become an obsession of mine to determine anecdotally if fate, luck, or other intangible factor plays a role in how one achieves success in this life. The "rugged individualism" is a unique worldview, which still dominates realpolitik in these United States. The vast majority of overworked, underpaid Americans would still obdurately subscribe to a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstrap, work-your-ass-to-the-bone, stoicism that traditionally defined us as Americans, and promised a rainbow at the end of the proverbial tunnel. That rainbow typically manifested in demonstrable wealth, material acquisition, or maybe just a better opportunity with which to attain those things if not for ourselves, then certainly for our progeny. As the twilight sets on this American empire, I often wonder what life would have been like had I had been born in an emerging economy, much like China of today, and even one or two of the sub-Saharan African countries like economic powerhouse Nigeria, or the continent's technological showcase, South Africa. America is still the richest country on the face of the earth. But its economy was mature before I was born during the tumultuous 1960s. Opportunities that existed for upward mobility as I attained my majority were contingent on a veritable host of subjective factors, which all conspire against success, because institutional racism still abounds in this country, apologists, Uncle Toms, Aunt Jemimas, and sell outs notwithstanding. Now that America's economy is in a tailspin that President Obama has been futilely trying to stem like the BP oil spill, entrenched racists resentful of Obama's victory, cynically misuse that historic victory to now say we are in a post racial society. Social programs like affirmative action that leveled the playing field enabling us to obtain high paying jobs, or adequate capital to grow successful and, more importantly, enduring businesses had become anachronistic. The traditional means of wealth transfer in this country is still intergenerational. Unfortunately, neither one of my biological parents had much wealth or much by way of intelligence either. What deposable income they did have was quickly squandered on either themselves or their pet projects. Left to fend for myself, I did not realize "self actualization" as famed, humanist psychologist Abraham Harold Maslow termed it in his defining work "A Theory of Human Motivation." As I gaze lovingly at my infant son's pictures, I vow that he will not suffer as I have in this life, being intentionally thwarted by few internal but also many external forces from achieving note, success, or accoutrements thereof...