The thing that strikes me the most all the time, is that they use too much of everything. That has been a recurrent observation everytime I've been there, and it applies to everything, everywhere. If you need to buy some headache pills you buy a box, wrapped in plastic, with a plastic bottle inside among a couple of leaflets. You take the bottle out of the box, remove the plastic seal to take the cap off, discard the small cotton/sponge filler to finally reach the pills. All this plastic-carton-cotton-paper heap that is left is immediately put to trash. All these materials come from somewhere, it takes energy and raw materials to produce things you are in contact with the time it takes to throw them away, and that are there for no essential reason whatsoever. That I do not understand, and I feel is absolutely ridiculus.
A special observation under this subject is how much they use the car, and how they have developed everything for it. I have seen drive thrus for your coffee, your medicines, your food, your atm, practically anything you need; you have it handed it to you right through your car window directly to your seat. Cities are built for cars, not for people. Having in mind that everyone is driving, city planners have dismissed the idea of sidewalks, crosswalks, and public transportation.
It amazes me how hard it is to move around the suburbs without a car. Everyone has a car. It is deep buried in American's mind that having a car is one of life's milestones. After getting the first car usually at age 1X (X = any number between 7 and 9) driving becomes a habit, and quickly turns into something they cannot take out of their lives. A car takes energy, space, time, and money to maintain, but still, I do not see in the near future the will of americans to find more efficient ways to move around. And this is not an ecofriendly rant, just a vow towards the way to move people from point A to point B without using more energy than necessary. Simple economics tells us that if you use too much of something, the price goes up as this thing becomes more and more scarce. Suddenly prices rise, and you don't have much left of what you were wasting before. The comfort of a car at full speed, with AC on, and full volume audio system with subwoofers has to be payed by someone and with something. Nevertheless, the one that pays the whole price is usually not the driver, and it is not payed just with money.
The "American lifestyle", whatever that is, is something Americans are really proud of. They boast about the freedom they have to work and live where they want, to eat and shop what they can, to have everything they can afford or to find the way to have it even if they cannot afford it. The freedom to have their weapon, the freedom to openly oppose to those who have weapons. Civil rights, women rights, children rights, immigrant rights, everyone has rights. Yet nobody has wrongs. They seem to focus on one thing at a time, to whatever thing is in the agenda, have news coverage ad nauseam, with little bits of sports here and there until the next big thing comes and the whole thing is forgotten.
Speaking of this, it is scary how hard the media tries to appeal to people, usually with bad news. Americans seem to be obssesed to know about the latest disease, the latest war, the latest thing that might affect their lifestyle, even if it is about a rare bacteria that infected someone under strange circumpstances on the other side of the country. And media know that. Then they rush to make a whole story behind it, how it can affect you, why, and what you can do to avoid it. Next thing you know, after the "We'll be right back after commercials" phrase, you are bombarded with ads of medical insurance telling you how unsafe you are, ads of vitamins that tell you how unhealthy you are, and online travel agencies and lawyers that with just one call, can take you out of the reality you are in. They show you how weak you are, and how easily they can change that. After a few dollars have been thrown into the deal of course. Fear is one of the prime forces that drive most of animals, including humans, and some very well trained marketers realize this and how to exploit it.
I do not write this to undermine United States or their inhabitants. Good citizens and bad citizens are everywhere, and living conditions are vastly different in every country, in every region. Unlike Mexico, my home country, the United States of America has a well organized nation-wide civil infraestructure, with highways, roads, and airports. It provides a good base for enterpreneurs, and it usually rewards hard work both physical and intellectual much better than most countries. It generally provides public safety in ways that are still far from the reach of many countries south of the border. But they say everything has a price. Are Americans paying what they are getting or are they getting more or less than what they are paying for? If they are paying less, who or what is paying for the rest? As I wrote everywhere in my (approved) master's thesis: "This issue is yet to be assesed".
-E.P.
