It ain't all that bad...

This article by New York Times columnist David Brooks is a pleasant reality check of the culture we live in. There's no denying that the author has reputation of seeing the sunny side of things in contemporary society, but that in itself is no flaw in evaluating reality. I find his recent books, Bobos in Paradise and On Paradise Drive far more spot on about American life and sociology than his oft celebrated contemporaries Jeremy Rifkin and James Howard Kunstler. Maybe it's because I'm an optimist at heart, yet a lot of it has to do with the fact that I embrace the reality in which I live. I have no wish to change the way things are. I don't live my life with the constant urge to escape what surrounds me. My education has given me a sense of perspective which convinces me that things have never been better than now. It's hard to stay sane if one doesn't agree with such a view of things just a wee tiny bit.