The World is Around You, but You are in Your Car

Copyright © 2009 by William M. Trently.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid.

ISBN: 978-1-4401-4283-3 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-4284-0 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-4285-7 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009930580

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 6/15/2009

Contents

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE

THE SHORT HISTORY OF THE U.S.

PART TWO

PHILOSOPHERS

PART THREE

INTERVIEW WITH AN ALERT AMERICAN

PART FOUR

NEW ACQUAINTANCES DOWNTOWN

PART FIVE

DIALOGUES

PART SIX

BICYCLING TO THE OCEAN

PART SEVEN

COFFEEHOUSE

PART EIGHT

IN CONCERT

I was driving around aimlessly with no purpose or sense of teamwork in my car jealous of the guy in the Porsche cruising alongside my beat-up Hyundai when I ran a red light causing two cars to screech their brakes and rushed into a drive-through to get super-sized burgers and Coke which I pounded down and threw the garbage out the window as I listened to suicide bomb updates on the radio and searched for someone to blame or take to court for my own inadequacies but after all was said and done pulled over and got out of the comfort of the automobile to look around and saw that the world was around me.

WMT

Thank you to the following: Michael Pavuk for grammar foundations; Stanley Evans for instilling confidence; David Trently for his early support and typing; Kelley Conway and Dr. Peter Braseth for their critical feedback; Alice Peck for her expert editing; Bertha, Jennie, and Devin for their support and patience; and William J. and Evelyn Trently for being great parents.

PREFACE 

I had often found conversations about current events to be inadequate—mere sound bites and fragmented random declarations thrown about with no anchor. There was so much more that first needed to be said as a prerequisite foundation, a common understanding from which to move forward. How could anyone discuss anything from taxes to military strategy without first addressing deeper issues? How could we understand why many people throughout the world were driven to commit acts of terrorism against us if we did not first explore more profound ideas about ourselves, far beneath the superficial? This book provides pieces of the foundation, the use of which can transform daily discussions so these become more fruitful, helping all of us make a better world.

The education, experiences, and personal interests of a common person living in the States are my only qualifications to write this book. I contribute the small voice of this short story to the world’s ongoing conversations.

INTRODUCTION 

The World is Around You, but You are in Your Car is a work of fiction wrapped around a kind of essay that describes an American problem—the relentless pursuit of the perfect life—and its negative consequences that adversely affect progress and behavior toward the rest of the world. I want it, and I want it now, with its shortage of self-restraint, has been taken to levels not reached before, and the insidious ramifications are eye-opening, such as the easy disposability of people or principles if these should obstruct the path to the perfect life, or the mental depression from the strains of struggling to keep up with the neighbors, or the isolation from reality as people become more and more comfortable in their plush living rooms and cars.

The tale brings history’s great philosophers together to sound an alarm and talk about ways to slow the relentless pursuit. They have already debated the relevant issues with each other; here in this story, their role is only to inform us of their conclusions. They discuss the external and internal controls that restrain the pursuit, agreeing that internal control, involving self-regulation of the individual, is more effective and desired than external, primarily because of its greater conduciveness to freedom, the crown jewel of this civilization. Historically, religion has played a large role in internal control and, when broadly and more accurately defined than the common notion, could be used to rein in the pursuit. Under this scheme, it would be up to each person to find something spiritual on which to hold as he or she makes the journey through life, for there are many paths from which to choose. For those persons who could not subscribe to any of the established religions, an honest and mature bottom-line system is humbly presented as merely one example of many alternatives. The object of the game is to emphasize internal restraint more than ever so that the freedom experiment has a better chance of succeeding.

The World is Around You also brings out two other ideas of particular interest. First, it follows that if a society chooses to cherish internal restraint, it must clarify the rules about what is and is not appropriate regarding religion in the public square. As Plato sets out to do this, he gives us a new way to define god that could be acceptable to even the atheist for use in the community domain. Second, note that Byron Dink is like many human beings when he laments that, despite a profound childhood desire to do something significant to make the world a better place, he felt he had not yet done anything. In Kierkegaard’s suggestion of a common mission for all Americans, perhaps all of us could find something that would bind people closer together and provide our lives with a higher purpose, motivating us to action.

Since the story is fictitious, I have taken the liberty to bend and twist some of the descriptions of Portsmouth, but the overall ambiance of the city is intact.

A final introductory remark: here as we dwell in the first decade of the twenty-first century, it is useful to not only look behind and to the sides, but also ahead into the future when history is interpreted more accurately after time has passed and dust has settled and emotions of the moment have subsided, giving way to objective clarity. With this in mind, we may proceed to Part One.

PART ONE

THE SHORT HISTORY OF THE U.S. 

September 11, 3000 CE

Student sitting on campus bench reads newly-published (circa June 3000), critically-acclaimed college textbook.

Student looks up, waves to approaching second student.

Second student: What are you reading?

"The Short History of the United States—for my sociology class."

Cool.

Excerpt is graciously reprinted below, with permission, making up the remainder of this first chapter.

*

People everywhere, from the beginning of human time, pursued wants. They wanted food, water, and shelter. They wanted things not absolutely required for the most fundamental levels of survival, such as a recreational boat, home decoration, or CD player. They wanted intangibles like freedom, comfort, safety, and happiness.

The pursuit of wants, as always, meant different things to different people based on different personal desires. What was desired, why it was desired, when and how much was desired, and how intensely it was desired—all varied among people. One person liked ska while another preferred rock. An ascetic and a hedonist held very different views on what would be regarded as comfort. Another individual was happiest when reading a book on the beach, while someone else only when surfing the waves at the same beach. One girl wanted earnestly and enthusiastically to study for several hours a day, while a second girl could never sustain study beyond thirty minutes. One health-conscious person wanted to eat a maximum of one sweet each day as his only dessert. A second person craved at least five donuts, five cookies, and five candy bars daily. If it was discovered there were no donuts left in the pantry, the first person would not bother to make a special trip to the store to replenish the supply. The second person would undertake an emergency expedition.

The pursuit of wants also, as always, meant different things to different people based on limitations. The amount of money required to buy something could be limiting. Certain products might not be available everywhere. The amount of effort required to get something could be regarded by a minimally-motivated person as excessive, thus restricting its acquisition. People were limited by their mental and physical abilities—a consistent D student could not be valedictorian; a person with a broken leg could not compete in a marathon race.

People everywhere in the world, as always, wanted. There was a cartoon sketch of the generic human with an arm outstretched, hand gripping an object he desired, pointing with his other hand in another direction at some other object he also sought to obtain.

People living in the United States of America increasingly tended to pursue relatively more wants than people living elsewhere. Americans, as they were called, had a great degree of personal freedom and abundance of resources, among other factors, that promoted this tendency. Those conditions provided a fertile ground from which individuals could desire and actually acquire more. The cartoon sketch was modified to portray the American as a human with ten arms outstretched from one body, each hand holding a yearned-for object or pointing to one.

The culture of freedom in the United States allowed its inhabitants the opportunities to achieve personal goals and develop their own unique abilities to the fullest. The high degree of freedom was perhaps, arguably, the most significant factor influencing and provoking the greater wants. Having liberty to speak, assemble, create, inaugurate a club or charitable organization, pursue vacations, or start a new business opened doors to needs for additional materials and benefits. People from places that did not offer such freedom could only dream of those possibilities, while Americans could take their wishes a step further.

The United States, experiencing such a wealth of freedom, represented an experiment that might help determine for the world how much freedom could be safely bestowed upon humans before the privilege was abused, becoming counterproductive. Numerous scholars dubbed this the freedom experiment.

Although there were many people who did not admire the ideas and actions of the Americans, there were many throughout the world who did. Many felt that a free society like the one in the United States, although imperfect, offered the greatest hope for a better future. People everywhere watched the experiment and, some of them, at times, adopted certain ideas from the Americans to use in their own unique homelands on the planet.

People saw that, in the United States, the greater wants led to much progress. As more individuals strived harder to get things, higher levels of progress resulted. Progress was the advancement of American society toward the status of being better, which meant such conditions as being safer, more comfortable, healthier, more efficient and happier. It was the forging ahead to an elevated, more advanced stage.

Many inventions resulted, such as the television, the airplane, and the automobile. An abundance of medical advances arose. Astronauts landed on the moon. The middle class prospered. Impressive strides forward were made in the realm of the arts. The civilization made it easier for handicapped persons to get around and participate more fully in society. Social, cultural, and political gains were observed. When people were allowed more freedom to pursue their wants, as they were in the United States, much positive progress resulted.

In time, however, there emerged a deep-seated negative development that infiltrated the American character. By about the year 2000, the pursuit of wants gradually evolved into what was eventually called by some individuals a relentless pursuit of the perfect life, a derogatory description.

The word relentless meant showing or promising no abatement of severity or intensity. It portrayed conditions that were unrelenting, tending not to let up, slacken, soften, mollify, or yield. It was good to be relentless in the sense of not giving up, in being tenacious in seeking the attainment of goals, but