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We live in an age of marvels and wonders and there are still jerks out there that ask questions like: Who am I? What a dumb thing to ask. It’s really an easy thing to answer, but for some reason folks just can’t do it nowadays. Something is terribly wrong with the world that we live in when we have all that we do and we aren’t grateful for it.
Think about the pioneers, walking across the country in shoes made from dead animals next to a stinking ox pulling a covered wagon, watching their friends die of dysentery (a.k.a  Indian Burns —the meaning of the phrase has changed substantially since the frontier days). Do you think they stopped to ask themselves who they were? Of course not! They were more focused on finding shelter so their stout young wives could give birth to a seventh child at the age of 25. Think of the thigh muscles on those women.
That’s the problem with over-thinking. It requires sitting and not doing anything. I like to think of action as an extension of thought. But if all you do is sit around thinking, you aren’t allowing your thoughts to conclude in action. Ours is a generation that doesn’t do much, I think we can all agree on that. Do you know why that is? Because ours is a generation that doesn’t think much. Instead of doing or thinking something worthwhile – like building a house, or getting a job, you hippie – we have existential crises.
I really dislike the fact that our lives are so easy. Change comes too fast for us. If we have the thought, “Is this where I am supposed to be? Am I really in my right place?” and we decide that no, we aren’t, we can buy a plane ticket and fly to a new place. If you were a pioneer you’d have to ride at least six horses to death to go as far as you do with a plane ticket. They used to measure distances in horse deaths, you know. The distance from Elsah to St. Louis was two horse deaths. And after your beloved animal died, you would either have to eat it, bury it, or risk being stalked by a pack of wolves.
That brings me to my next point: I wish humans had natural predators. You know why? Because then we wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not our lives had meaning. When you have a close brush with a bear or a shark (or a bark, the most dangerous animal in existence besides the fabled “gorroctopus”) it doesn’t matter whether or not you “like who you’ve become.” What you’ve become is alive. That’s all that really matters. If you stop to think about your purpose, something hungry with sharp teeth will tear you limb from limb.
Back when the west really was a wild frontier, people didn’t know if they were going to live to see the next year. They were honest and hardworking.  Our generation is largely spiritually dead because we don’t tend to be either honest or hardworking. There are people who go through the motions of living without actually experiencing life. Modern day mindless zombies that exist to consume this world’s precious resources without a thought as to what they are eating or what they are wearing (stop eating animal feces– go vegetarian!) We’ve all had days like that, but to be that way permanently in an age of wonder like ours is inexcusable and just plain ungrateful.
We can communicate with other people across the planet almost instantaneously and we still complain about the rate at which it happens. We can fly from one side of this country to the other in a few hours with no risk of dysentery (unless you eat the complimentary roast beef dinner.) We can spend several hours watching television without worrying about tending to our crops or animals because someone else does that for us.
So this is my message to you, you directionless jerks that are literally weighing down the rest of humanity: be grateful for all that you have, it will be taken from you at some point. If you aren’t working, you aren’t living.
That’s all I have to say. Have a happy summer!