I woke up this morning and did my usual routine beginning with ESPN’s First Take, a morning talk show about sports. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers got busted for using performance-enhancing drugs. Even though he’s no longer with my favorite team (Boston Red Sox) I felt bad for the guy and started wondering why we live in an age with such intense pressure to enhance our physiques.

For baseball players the incentives to take steroids are to get that extra lift when they hit the ball, improve their stats, and to get those fat contracts worth more than $180 million (Mark Teixeira, 1st baseman for the NY Yankees). Maybe people in general want more muscles because they don’t look big enough, the same way some use botox to fight wrinkles and look younger. When we really look into why some people feel this way,  it seems there is something wrong with our society. Society is defined as a group of humans or other organisms of a single species delineated by the bounds of cultural identity. America’s identity is one of the worst in the world. When you think of the French, you think of great lovers, amazing wine, and the power of the people. Think of the Japanese: very industrious, well-mannered, and traditional. But when I think “America” I think of a landscape saturated by heartless corporations trying to make more money and the lobbyists who fight for them (tobacco and firearms), fast food chains, the latest celebrity gossip, and presidents who break domestic and international laws and get away with it (Nixon and both Bushes).  How did it come to this? We live in a nation where we should be so culturally advanced, but in actuality we are going backwards (as in the curious case of Benjamin Button). We are a nation with the most diversity of race, religion, food, and freedoms yet we don’t have a clue. How did this happen? Did it begin with the innocent killings of Native Americans? The fear of the “Red Scare” that happened in the late 1940s and 50s? The advent of the fast food craze?  Who knows?  It was Padme Amidla (had to throw in a Star Wars quote) who said, “What if the democracy we thought we were serving no longer exists, and the Republic has become the very evil we’ve been fighting to destroy?”

All I know is that we are brainwashed from day 1 with all this propaganda for a “better tomorrow.” Unless things change our better tomorrow is still going to be filled with corrupt politicians, a faulty “judicial” system, obesity, and corporate domination. We grow up bombarded with propaganda about the importance of making the most money, having the nicest body, and conforming to the norm (creativity = death). When you think about it the people we learn about and read about and admire most are typically conceited, narcissistic, and deprived of true happiness. I don’t want to say all rich and attractive people are like this, but it’s hard to subvert the archetype. This is why it feels like we are in an endless steroid era and heading down a path to the dark side. But there is always hope in dark and gloomy days. As of right now only a small percentage are aware, and as more people become aware, people start to question.  As people start to get answers to these questions, people start to change. And when everyone has changed we will be an unstoppable force that creates a new American Identity, something far more advanced and civilized than any country has seen. But this steroid/botox/greed era can only end when you become aware of reality.  Escape the matrix.