For much of my life, I saw my own life in terms of being cast as a character in the story of America. America was idea that was a story, a narrative, one that had been going for centuries, and to be born into it when I was, in the mid 1960s, was to enter that story and be a part of it---the building, the struggle, the evolution of something ongoing and continuous, that everyone knew existed, and everyone found some sort of place within it.
It hit me a couple days ago that I no longer feel like that. I no longer feel as if my life is part of the story of America. What does my life mean in terms of that story? I don't know what America means now, so how I can play a part of it?
It used to be so clear, that no matter what happened, the story of America would go on. Certainly the government of the United States will go on for the time being. It is part of fallen era that we see America in terms of its government, which is just a superficial structure on a nation. What is the "American nation" now? What is the "American people"? Is it anyone who happens to be here? But what is that in terms of continuity. Does the past get a vote?
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