We worship the wealthy because of the myth of the “American Dream”. We are constantly told, “You can be anything. You can do anything. You live in the land of equality, the land of opportunity.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They trot out people who have risen from poverty to wealth and say, “There it is! See? They did it!” But it’s all a lie. Those people are the exception, not the rule. If everyone could do it, there would only be bosses, no employees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we look at the wealthy and tell ourselves that is the goal. We look at them to see how they behave, under the mistaken belief that if we behave the same way we will crack the code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We won’t. The American Dream is a lie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Better then to choose your own dream. Idolize the artist who creates for the love of creating. Idolize the dreamers who see beauty in the most ravaged landscape. Idolize the kind, idolize the loving, idolize the charitable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Idolize the ones who strive for wisdom. Make that your American Dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The American dream is untenable. Be realistic about it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-politics","tag-mental-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":403,"url":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/blog\/expectation-vs-reality\/","url_meta":{"origin":421,"position":0},"title":"Expectation vs Reality","author":"The Official Michael Kuhl","date":"October 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"There is an aspect of depression that is rooted in the gap between expectation and reality. Which, ironically, is also where comedy lives.","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":419,"url":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/blog\/releasing-the-stigma\/","url_meta":{"origin":421,"position":1},"title":"Releasing the Stigma","author":"The Official Michael Kuhl","date":"June 21, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Standing between us and successful depression management is the stigma. Get rid of it.","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":249,"url":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/politics\/7-28-19\/","url_meta":{"origin":421,"position":2},"title":"On voting","author":"The Official Michael Kuhl","date":"July 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The reality of the 2020 election.","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":241,"url":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/comedy\/blazing-saddles\/","url_meta":{"origin":421,"position":3},"title":"Blazing Saddles and political correctness","author":"The Official Michael Kuhl","date":"January 15, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Could Blazing Saddles be made in the 21st century?","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mkuhl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/55B78278-5254-409B-AE3E-7C4B216114EB.jpeg?fit=228%2C350&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":407,"url":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/blog\/chicago-as-a-pro-gun-argument-tool\/","url_meta":{"origin":421,"position":4},"title":"Chicago as a \u201cpro gun\u201d argument tool","author":"The Official Michael Kuhl","date":"November 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I hate the use of Chicago as a talking point from people who have no idea what Chicago is.","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":558,"url":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/comedy\/tony-hinchcliffe-cancel-culture-vs-comedy-cause-and-effect\/","url_meta":{"origin":421,"position":5},"title":"Tony Hinchcliffe: Comedy Cause and Effect","author":"The Official Michael Kuhl","date":"May 13, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The recent video of a comic\u2019s opening remarks has quite a bit to say about comedy in general.","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498,"href":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions\/498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mkuhl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}