I am not saying that I am above corner cutting and overall “softening” of the US’s collective intelligence, if anything, I am a product of it.  I can admit it though, a great example is my job.  I have been working in technology sales for a about ten years.  Some of it has been a never ending grind of cold calls and call metrics while other positions have been so incredibly cushy that I am surprised that someone is stupid enough to be paying me to do my job.  Right now I am in a position that is the latter but shifting to more of the former.  Most of my job is just exhibiting the appearance of work and doing anything in the background that needs to be done to attain my goals or at least be equal or better to my peers.  Sales jobs in general are a cat and mouse game between the salesperson and the executives where the executives try to game the quota system and the salespeople take the path of least resistance to get as much money as they can and not break too much of a sweat.  It disgusts me sometimes but then I look at my W-2 and everything seems OK after that.

That last sentence is part of the point that I am trying to make.  Everything is so focused on the short term results of whatever we are doing that it is difficult to zero in on any longer term damage or what we had to do (good or bad) to achieve those goals.  Sometimes my job success requires me to be shady or tell half truths to get results and I do whatever it takes because if I don’t, someone else will and where will that leave me?  Most issues that are facing the US is a culmination of that problem.  Environmental issues, the collapse of the mortgage/banking system and the health care debacle are all cases of people in charge focusing on the short term and trying to rig the system for their own interests.  Everyone is out there doing the same thing.  Why should I work hard, play by the rules and focus on sustainable long term goals when everyone else is cheating and no one seems to really care?  This is only exacerbated in oligopolies like the government and corporate America where a few key people have control over the destinies of millions.  When I screw someone over on a deal at work it only effects a few people.  When a senator or a CEO is selfish or not working for the good of the community at large it can have a terrible effect.

This sense of entitlement and short sightedness has spilled over into the world of entertainment.  Reality stars surface, skyrocket to popularity and plummet back to anonymity while the public clamors for news about people that are in the public eye not because they are talented but rather because they are aberrations from the norm.  I seldom watch these shows but when I do I watch them for the “train wreck” factor.  Really it is just me revel is other’s misfortune and idiocy.  Is that what our society has come too?  Seeing talentless idiots like “Snookie” is a cheap thrill and diminishes the collective intelligence of everyone involved.  Instead of talking with a friend, listening to some good music or reading a book people get sucked in to watching complete morons make asses of themselves on TV.

In addition to the worship of shallow idiots modern entertainment zealously feasts on the poor decisions of the talented (or at least semi-talented) people.  When someone like Tiger Woods, Michael Jackson or celebrity du jour X       fall, they fall hard.  To the glee of the media and its ravenous consumers the dirt of the fallen is paraded around until they are dropped to the level of the reader.  Only then is the public satisfied, craving the decimation of public, talented people to temper their jealousy and make them feel more important.  It always gets me when people demand an apology from a celebrity for some public gaffe.  Why does anyone give a shit if a celebrity is sorry for what they did?  I certainly couldn’t give a fuck.  It is all part of people’s self importance and the only thing the public likes to see more than no name reality show idiots rise and flame out is talented people crash disastrously.

I think at the core people are good.  Society and the environment are constantly taking that core and shaping it into what we really are at that moment – in the case of most Americans that core has been changed into a narcissistic, lazy conniving shadow of what it could be.

There is some good left though.  How can we change our current trajectory?  Damned if I know but we can’t change anything about what we are until we take a step back and realize there is a problem.  Only then can we move away from a hard fall for our own country punctuated by fingerpointing and apathy.

Geez – I guess Mondays suck… what do you think?  Is there a silver lining somewhere that I can’t see?