Accomplishment.

Okay, my thoughts on this whole deal...


A guy clears a bunch of logs from a downed tree out of his back yard.

When he's done, between exhausted breaths, he says "well, there, at least I got that accomplished".

Another guy at a desk, stamps a pile of papers on his desk, shoves some of them into envelopes, and once the stack has moved to one side of his desk to the other, he says the exact same thing "there, got that accomplished".

Life is full of its little accomplishments.

And we all have them.

Yet something about American society causes some to raise the bar so only things like, say, Trump's phallic buildings count as "accomplishment".

And the raising and lowering of the bar seems to be not only relative, but situational.

It's the kind of cognitive dissonance you only get in a competitive culture.
And it seems to be only a sub-culture.
And it seems to be only a man thing.

And this subculture also seems to buy into "THE American Dream".

But absent what this contradicting dissonant sub-culture thinks, what IS accomplishment, actually?

Is there a consistent definition that can frame, say, the Corporate Warrior as the Übermensch, and the guy in the trailer home as a lower form of life, possibly even fit for passionless extermination like stepping on a bug?

Mmmm, not really....

At least Merriam Webster doesn't think so.

I've thought of this a lot, because it's a word I've seen abused a lot.

A lot of words get abused though.

"Patriotic", "heroism", "miracle", maybe humanity's most annoying problems don't stem from actual attitudes, but from vocabulary.

Maybe the self-help gurus are right, and it really is all a matter of communication.

Here's one little narrative in our popular culture that breaks down rather quickly due to the concepts not being communicated properly.

Raising a family is considered an accomplishment.

Being a deadbeat dad, who's essentially a sperm donor, isn't.

Being an actual sperm donor at a clinic isn't.

BUT, going to a high-end clinic, as a single mom, to get high-end sperm based on a detailed questionnaire for desirable traits, from a pool of accomplished men, is seen as some sort of positive stride.

An accomplishment?

If it is, why isn't the donor's donation?

And if it is, why not the random shlub off the street?
Maybe he's got brilliant sperm, and doesn't even know it.

What transforms it from a negative to a positive?
The act of "measurement", with the questionnaire?

The sperm-daddy still isn't there for his biological children either way.

Maybe it's the "accomplishments", of the sperm daddy.

But then we get into the whole situational cultural mess with that.

How about reality television families?

You got your "Jon & Kate Plus 8", and all the soap opera surrounding those fools.

Then you got your Duggers from "18 and counting".

The Gosselins, no one thinks they're heroes.

The Duggers,...well, not heroes, but they don't have a fucked up marriage, and their little family unit sticks together.

...despite that they're a more than a bit on the creepy-culty side.

So, you have to be there for your kids, no drama, no being a donor and running off, but you can be a donor if you're "accomplished", and can do well on a questionnaire.

Okay, what if you're a good dad, but a shitty husband?

Jon Gosselin fits that mold.

But so too does Donald Trump.

The latter gets more leeway because he's rich.

Being rich trumps "pardon the pun", everything.

...unless you have brown skin, a funny sounding language, and kill people, then you're a damned Arab oil baron.

Well, the killing people thing doesn't seem to be such a big deal, cuz Cheny, and his sidekick Bush did that for 8 years, and a lot of Red-Staters thought that was just jim-dandy.

So, being rich and WHITE trumps everything.

So, be white, rich, christian, (or feign piety in this particular faith), squeeze out some babies that look like you, don't have family drama on a public stage, and don't screw up your kids so they end up on a stripper pole.

...unless you're the Hiltons, and you spawn Paris onto the planet, then money once again trumps everything.

So just be stinking rich.

Do what it takes to get stinking rich.

Even if it's criminal.
Outrun the fuzz long enough, get rich enough, and you can buy your way out of what your crimes were.

Banking, and the arms industry seem pretty bulletproof.

So, be successful in business, especially businesses that kill people, and you can have a messed up family, messed up kids, hypocritical morals, do whatever you want.
Fuck family values, those are for the middle class.

But if you're middles class, then you've got to keep your nose clean, your checkbook balanced, and a Bible at the ready.

And your reward for this is urinating on the lower middle class, and working poor.

And if you're lower middle class, or working poor, and raise a family, and the kids turn out all right, none of them end up on the needle, or the pipe, or the stripper pole, no one gets to call it an accomplishment but you, because the upper-middle, and upper classes are too busy urinating on you to care.

And wonder why people get desperate to chase fame and wealth with lame stunts like the Balloon Boy family...

Course, Balloon Boy's family is messed up, and the dad's a fucking idiot.
But, he's not rich.

So, be an idiot, but a rich idiot, and if you're chasing wealth to be a rich idiot, succeed.

....and that's America's little bit of accumulated wisdom on the accomplishment of raising families.

So what about business accomplishment?

Well, again, the rule seems to be succeed.
Lie, cheat, steal, kill, just get away with it.
And if you don't get away with it, get away with it with lots of money.

Well, it's a cynical morality, but an internally consistent one.
But, it's not the one this culture sells.
America wants to be "shrewd", but idealistic at the same time.

And that's where all the dissonance, and contradictory language seeps in.

And then wonder why all the mis-communication occurs.

Me, I'd rather keep it simple.
You get something done, it's an accomplishment.
I accomplished this blog, I accomplished my stories, I accomplished some yard work, and some fixit work.

Anything above that is an accomplishment of varying big-itude.

It's been working so far, me and my friends can congratulate each other, and there's never any cynical or competitive undercurrent.

Rest of America, feel free to adopt this perspective.
Maybe you'll find it handy.

Or don't.
We'll see how the culture unfolds over the next 10 years or so.