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The Failed 250 Year Experiment

Caution!  Doom Blogging ahead!  Watch for falling triggers, big feelings and insurmountable chaos!


Everyday it seems like my mind is filling up more and more with nonsense.  Like a garbage dump overflowing and there is no sanitation crew coming to empty it. I've always believed in garbage in/garbage out (which is why I don't watch horror movies or violent content, but that's another post) but how is it escapable anymore? 

Social media used to be a fun place for so many fun things: keeping in touch with old friends and bridging the gap for family across the miles, sharing your art or side hustle to make money or connections, making new friends or starting new relationships or even sharing opinions on life and news of the day.  Now it's a cesspool of arguments, virtue signaling and not-so-humble bragging.  I find myself spending less and less time there for how bad all of it makes me feel.  And those feelings are mostly of not being good enough.  

Or at the very least, incredibly annoyed. 

Is it the culture?  This "look at me I'm so awesome" culture that's causing all this?  Look at me, I'm smarter than you because I understand a complicated historical plot that is now in action in our political climate?  Look at me, I'm more successful than you because I managed to score all the aspirational things in life that are mainly consumer goods?  Look at me, I'm more well-traveled, thereby, more cultured than you because I take my kids on planes often?  

But here's the worst: Look at me, I'm BETTER than you because I see and understand things that you don't.  

(ISTG, virtue signaling has be one of my least favorite activities to witness these days. I hate it even worse than staged engagement videos, maternity photo shoots and gender reveal parties. There.  I said it.)

Hmmm.  As Barenaked Ladies once put it succinctly, that's become our life, in a nutshell.

Politics?  Don't worry.  Some guy who watches the 24 hour cycle has this all figured out.

Simple Living? A lady on a farm in Idaho can tell you all about how you've been living your life for the almighty dollar and how you should be growing your own kale.

Parenting? A 29 year-old mother with a 6 month old has all the answers for you.

Feminism? Here's an argument in the comments section between a mother of six and C-Suite achiever with nearly verbal "yassss queen" chants from the replies.

The worst of it (to my mind) is our current state of constant discussion about pedophilia. Yes, it's serious.  Yes, it matters.  Yes, it's a crime.  But is it our responsibility to try this extremely taboo issue in the court of social media?  Should we be discussing it at every turn and in every circumstance?  When someone seems to blank out at the mention of Epstein's name, I think, good for you.....you've stayed out of that fray.

In this time of constant information and every answer just being one Google click or Wiki away, do we TRULY know more?  Or just think we know more?

I find myself retreating more and more every day.  My home was once a quiet respite of country sanctuary and now it is becoming an all-out bomb shelter from the world.  And the world is dropping bombs of more discontent everyday.  I've never been a "bury your head in the sand" kind of person, always believing that we all have a vital part to play in our society.  A part which includes good deeds, healthy living, setting examples for our youth, stepping in the way of societal wrongs.  But is all of that even possible now? 

I've said to many people that I don't believe the world is ending, but I do believe America is.  Our 250 year experiment is beginning to crash.  And it was a damn good run.  But today in 2026, just 50 years after our blessed Bicentennial, our American culture is failing, falling and faltering.  And like most reasonable folks today, I don't have an answer.  Only disappointment and sadness to watch it happen right in front of me. 

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