The Faster the Better

In America we're all about getting there fast.  This is a theme brought forth by many other students in my American Studies class for which this blog is for.  Businessmen and women will look for the fastest flight to get to a meeting (which they hope will go quickly) and then look for the fastest flight home so they can quickly move on the next day. Cell phones are always advertising "the fastest 4g yet", online directions are automatically calculated for the most direct, fastest route, and we do not like to be kept waiting for our food (thus we created the appropriately named "fast food" to fulfill this purpose). 

Americans are always on the move because a general statement about us is that we are always looking towards the future.  A "Pre-departure Orientation for ChineseStudents" off the Association for International Educators site says under the heading of 'Time Consciousness' that Chinese people pay, "Relatively more attention to the past and to the longer-term future" and American people are, "Less interested in the past; eye on near-term future."  In other words, Americans want to see what's next so they can move on as soon as possible.

Perhaps this is the reason we as a country have developed so much so fast.  The United States is 236 years old and grew from a laughable, loose settlement of former colonies to a booming superpower in that time.  The people that came/come to American, no matter where they were/are originally from, have a drive towards something and work to see that future dream come to fruition.  It's a stretch, but maybe that mentality has made its way into our regular minds.

My 5th grade teacher told us a story that for some reason I still remember today.  He described a trip he took to Italy where the dinner he ate was multi-coursed and lasted hours on end deep into the night.  In Spain, a siesta or a generally accepted "nap time" is commonplace in the middle of the day, everyday.  A camp counselor I had in 7th grade recounted a time to our cabin about when he was in Tanzania, he and his friends went to a restaurant and waited about an hour for a hamburger at a restaurant.  At first, they were infuriated and took the matter personally.  They brought it up with the waiter and he laughed at them saying something along the lines of, "You silly Americans are so caught up in moving forward, you do not appreciate the moment you are in right now."

This whole topic came to my mind during homeroom one day.  The guy sitting next to me was talking about his essay for English class where he argued  high-speed rail trains should make their way to America to replace the traditional style Amtrak currently uses.  An article from The Hill.com says, "Obama has argued that a high-speed rail network could eventually rival the interstate highway system that was built in the 1950s under former President Dwight Eisenhower."  The article talks about how creating high-speed rails can create jobs that are desperately needed in today's economy.  Aside from that aspect, however, this push for super fast trains, trains that can get you from Chicago to San Francisco (a roughly 2000 mile trip) in close to 11 hours as opposed to a day and a half by car.  It seems that we're always looking to go faster.