“An agreeable person is one who agrees with me.” Essayist and Novelist Joel Hirst and I Are Running in Sync

An hour AFTER I wrote and posted my small meditation on new happiness of Americans my fellow essayist and fine writer Joel D. Hirst wrote and posted Not The Days of Revolution | Joel D. Hirst’s Blog. What can one say except, “Two minds with but a single thought.”

Don’t look now, but a quiet contentedness has settled upon the land. A Pax Americana might be upon us. It seems most Americans are pretty happy; 90% if you believe the polls. Certainly much of this has to do with finance; economics – if you cannot set before your family a table of plenty, if your children want for not only needs but the fullness of opportunity in prosperity; if leisure eludes you, you perhaps might be justifiably frustrated. For it is these things; but more than that the hope of more of them to come which keep Americans satisfied. The founders called it “Pursuit of Happiness”, which is predicated by the “chase”. Without this oh-so-American action, stasis – even the luxurious stasis of our vast opulence – will lead to boundless frustration; to wonder ‘why’, to let the seeds of jealousy begin to take root in our heart of hearts, fertilized with bitterness and boredom. It is rarely about what you have – but what you think you can attain, what you might obtain, wherein lies American satisfaction.

And in this, our situation really hasn’t been better – more than three years of unprecedented growth; of rebalancing against a stupidity cold and violent now resolutely in our past; of reexamining that which really matters. Of ending our costly wars and reinvesting our treasure away from foreign prison-camps silent and dank in which festered away the call for global jihad until it was no more, into a space force which will take us to Mars and beyond. A world of tomorrow, brought to us by the technological advances which spill forth from our new quest and will assuredly seep into society to fertilize free-enterprise: the possibilities are mind-boggling. Recall, if you will, that not too long ago our soldiers made the internet – that which has revolutionized the world. Imagine what will happen when they set their sights on the stars?…

READ THE WHOLE DAMNED THING AT Not The Days of Revolution | Joel D. Hirst’s Blog