I sat down with my wife for breakfast the other day, and the discussion turned to the economy and politics and what have you, and I was saying some things, and she said I should post them... so I finally got around to sitting down and having a few minutes to do so. I'm kinda late to the party in the sense that everyone had already waxed poetic about what the Obama election means and so on, but I'm going to post anyway, why it matters so much to me, what it means for me. Personally.
I came to this country at the absolute tail end of the dotcom bubble - christmas 1999. By the time I got my bearings the bubble already burst, and I spent the next couple of years switching between rapidly failing dot coms trying to save my work visa. I did NOT want to go back.
Where I grew up, America was always magical. It was not just the land of opportunity, but the land where everything happens. Where self-realization is not just an ideal, but an everyday truth, the basic practice of life, what everyone does. It was a land full of justified pride, a place where everyone wanted to go and to which everyone wanted to belong. Having an american passport was so envious that your social status would instantly increase by quite a few nothces if you were one of the lucky ones. It was the ticket to a different and much better world. And it's not like I grew up in a third-world country; Israel is pretty decent after all. But it didn't matter; the large population of former Israelies in LA and NYC is a testament to that, as many of them have come here illegally and found all sorts of ways to hang around long enough to eventually become legit.
So when I came, I was wide-eyed and open-mouthed, almost overwhelmed by the grandiosity of having made it here, by virtue of my own skills and hard work, completely legally. It was a taste of heaven. For a short while, it felt that way, but all too soon everything was going south, and fear was gripping the nation. And then Bush got into power, and 9/11 happened, and... the country didn't feel grand anymore. It started feeling like Israel. Where politics are so intermingled with religion that it's impossible to have a political affiliation without a religious one. Where fear is so constant, so prevalent, that the only idea of confidence is that of arrogance. Where society is so polarized that the only reason the country hasn't had a civil war is because it keeps having to deal with an external existential threat (being several hostile arab populations). Seriously, if the arabs wanted a good strategy to deal with Israel, just let it be at peace for a decade; it will self-destruct. That's how bad it felt there. And suddenly it felt that way here, too.
It was very disillusioning. Where was the america I was so determined to find? the one I dreamed about growing up? did it ever really exist? it was hard not to become despondent. I started wondering if I had made an error in judgment. If I should have taken one of the much better job offers I had in Europe at the time I chose to move to the US. Every day seemed to bring another stupid argument about faith and religion and who owns the ultimate truth, the same kind of crap that has served so well to polarize and divide the largely secular Israeli society, create such hostility towards religion in general, and make it impossible to achieve anything great. It felt like Shas, the overly powerful party of ultra orthodox in Israel, suddenly took hold of far too many strings in DC, and started to systematically ruin anything they could lay their eyes on, driving an agenda that very few people cared about but mattered to all of us. I hated that feeling. I ran away from it. I never imagined I'd find it again here.
And then... this recent election happened... and suddenly, there IS a change. It has nothing to do with Obama the man and everything to do with the perception of Obama as a game changer. It's almost as if everyone is now holding their breath for inauguration day, so we can all heave a huge sigh of relief and just get back to work. Forget all the nonsense. Regain the national pride and quiet but powerful self-confidence that was so awe-inspiring, and has made america the place I admired so much. The knowledge that there is no better place to live or actualize oneself, reach your potential together with all others around you, without bickering because there is plenty of opportunity for everyone. The place that won the cold war not with military or political power, not with diplomacy, but with culture, with a sense that it was right that was simply unshakable. It suddenly feels like that every day, when I go around and meet people and talk to people and just interact in the world. Hope IS abundant now. And hope drives change like nothing else can. I don't think this country has forgotten how to be great. I just think it was a little depressed, had a bit of a hangover from the big party called the late nineties. And now it's shaking the hangover and waking up.
Doesn't it feel like that to you, too?
