Every Flawless Diamond Started in the Rough

My boss told me the other day that I take constructive criticism well.  I think this was a very high compliment.  I am always trying to be a better me, and I feel even inputs I don't agree with are opportunities for self reflection and improvement. We are all diamonds in the rough.  I'm no exception.

Constructive criticism is a positive.  We are often told it isn't, but that's because a lot of people don't do constructive criticism.  The stereotype is criticism is bad.  It can be. It depends on the delivery.  There certainly are people that only criticize others to drag them down, put them in their place, make them feel bad about themselves. Positive criticism isn't that way.  The person genuinely wants you to succeed.  They see an inclusion that needs to be polished or filled. 

Now I know a couple of my friends look to improve themselves and always listen and then self evaluate.  I also know some of you let someone tell you everything they think is "wrong" with you.  Some of you internalize what's being said, but it's often because you've been over exposed to negative criticism ~ how you aren't good enough and never will be or you must conform to their wants, their lives, who they are.  That's not constructive criticism.  Nasty people like to pretend they are "helping" while tearing you down. They don't want you to be your best because they aren't and will never be their best.

Sure, we all have our rough edges in certain aspects.  No diamond is perfect.  Even a "flawless" diamond has inclusions.  They just aren't visible under 10x magnification.  None of us will ever be "flawless".  You have to accept that, and when those negative ninnies are telling you how "wrong" you are in their minds, you give that the value that you give the person talking.  Are they a positive in your life?  Are they dragging you down? Sometimes we value the opinions of people who only want to see us fail.  These are the people who we should give little value to their opinions. It doesn't hurt to give it some thought, but don't overwhelm yourself with it.

If it's constructive, and if you know yourself you know what positive, constructive criticism should look like, then you take that opportunity to improve you.  But never let anyone beat you down.  You aren't perfect, but no one is.  All we can do is try to improve ourselves everyday, and constructive criticism affords us the opportunity to see what we may have missed.  Not all criticism is bad and you shouldn't shirk from it. Never, ever let negative people criticize you to the point you "lose" your ability to work towards your "flawless".  Be as brilliant as you can be and work every day to be even more brilliant.

Those who can't, teach, or some such nonsense

I often have heard people say, "marriage is work". These people if you sit and listen to their stories often regale moments in life they had to give a piece of themselves up or vice versa.  They required their spouse to give up a piece of themselves.  This is work.  Giving up a piece of who you are.  I have no doubt this can "make" a marriage work, but from observing many truly happy, great marriages over the years, if it is "work" or ever was, it's not a good marriage, let alone a great one.

Now I know I never had a great marriage, but as the old adage goes, those who can't, teach. I think it might be because it's much easier seeing how these things work best, pun intended, when you are on the outside looking in.  There's only one ingredient needed to make a great marriage, yes, one.  But, it must be from both sides, it must be genuine, and it must be understanding.  Love.  As another adage goes, "Love conquers all."

Oh nonsense?  My grandparents appeared to have the most amazing marriage looking at it on its face value.  It was years in the making, not even sure I've fully reconciled, that my grandparents, especially from my grandmother's side, hated each other.  Certainly my grandfather seemed extremely proud of some of my grandmother's accomplishments.  A welder during WWII for example.  Yet in hindsight, I see a man who thought he married one woman and got another.  He probably married more for money than my grandmother did.  He came from a farming family, so not rich albeit not poor.  My grandmother on the other hand was the daughter of a banker.  I don't need to explain my great grandfather had money.  My grandfather married a sassy, independent, outspoken woman.  So when that was squelched by the world around her, marriage, not being able to work in anything that she really wanted to, and my grandfather out drinking, having a life, while she stayed at home and waited, taking care of children, the house, cooking and cleaning with little else for herself, eventually that alone was too much for her.  Whatever love she had for him died in a house she felt trapped in, slowly, as if dying from a hidden cancer, until it was replaced with contempt, loathing, and hate.  Sadly, as was the lot in life for a lot of women then (you married and there was no divorce), she simply made "peace" with it and then it was just "work". 

Their marriage was never work for my grandfather.  He probably perceived it as such.  As I stated earlier, the woman he married was not the woman my grandmother was forced into.  It wasn't necessarily either of their choices what her lot in life was regulated to. He loved the woman he married, he knew it was the same woman, but there was no denying she wasn't her anymore.  So he longed for what was gone and regaled me in stories of who she was to remind himself.  Oddly, I don't believe it ever occurred to him that it was partially his fault she withered away from him.  In his imaginations, he just didn't see that he could've easily encouraged her to have her own business freeing her from the fetters of society and not been out carousing with his male buddies while she silently suffered alone as the maid, the cook and the caregiver. It simply never occurred to him that he was just as much to blame as society for crushing the flower he once loved. 

Love is precious. I might be deluding myself that they ever loved each other.  But I also know my grandmother would say "it's just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor one." Is it?  What she was really telling me was the difference between her father's choice, another man from similar upbringing and wealth, versus my grandfather.  We're they ever in love?  I believe so. 

We certainly repeat the mistakes we see as children. What I thought I saw was a "perfect" marriage, at some subconscious level.   As a result, my marriage was a mirror of theirs.  A man who thought a woman's place was in the home but still tried or feigned it wasn't.  When I realized that was the track I was on, I understood that was going to be "work" and wanted no part of the lives they had at a conscious level.  

Oh yes I know. That's examples of failure. How is that proving love is the only ingredient?  So you hear these words compromise, commitment, dedication, loyalty, friendship, never go to bed angry, these all are great advice.  But these alone, hell every single word you throw out there on how to make a marriage "work" is bullshit if you don't love someone.  Love is selfless, bending (not breaking), kind, forgiving, supportive... Love is the glue. One of my favorite sayings when not happy with someone I love, "I love you but I don't like you right now.". You don't always like, approve of, or even want to be around the person you love.  Anyone with kids that they love understands this saying.  The difference with a spouse is you choose this person.  They chose you.  It's not implied as it is for a parent.   If you kill it, all the compromise, dedication, loyalty, etc in the world won't change the rest of your marriage is going to be "work".  Selfish behaviors are often the slow cancer that kills love. Affairs eat at a person's ego, eventually cutting deep enough to end any love that was ever there. Again this is from long term observation of marriages marred with this behavior.  Even if they stay married like my grandparents had to, the smiles and niceties, masks of toleration, don't hide the truth.  Even a child will see it even though they don't know what they see.  

Friendship often can't repair the damage done. It doesn't hurt, but then that friendship, something that takes time to cultivate, can't be the main ingredient.  Why? Because so many people that marry for love only 2 or 3 months in and last a lifetime.  Or the guy who meets a girl and says immediately by the end of that evening that he's going to marry that girl and spends the rest of his life head over heels for her.  Doesn't happen, right naysayers?  George HW and Barbara Bush.  That's actually their story and while extremely rare not actually uncommon for those couples that make it the long haul.   Love, true love, is then the glue holds everything else in place.  

There are lots of movies where we see women of the Silent and Boomer generations hate the men they married.  It's a slow process to that point because it had to be.  When you were stuck married for your livelihood or for your children, you keep trying to tell yourself it's what you want. You can work through it. You can "fix" it.  You can't. Once there, it's like the trap that goes around and around.  In a movie (bonus if you know the movie), a strong, wealthy, Southern matriarch tells her only son's wife when the younger woman catches her husband, the son, cheating that if she wants to be married to a man like him (wealthy, arrogant, etc) she's got to be stronger, put her foot down and accept on occasion this will be an issue because he's a wanderer.  Oh for fuck's sake. 

No, no, you don't.  A man has never, NEVER, had to put up with a woman running around unless he's a geezer married to arm candy and doesn't want to be embarrassed by having to admit he was taken in by a gold digging ho-bag.  So bluntly, no woman should have to either. If you make this choice, then own it.  But again, settle on the fact your marriage will always be "work" and no matter how much you love him, or her, there will be times that you won't believe he (she) loves you. In fact, at those times, he/she probably doesn't.  Love isn't selfish and it drives you passed most of those more selfish behaviors if you really love someone. A single mistake can be a learning moment.  Several of the same mistakes is a pattern for contempt and loathing.

Sure, I do know people who love each other who have made it over a rough patch.  Not many.  Most honestly end up divorced sooner or later.  Again, once the love is gone a crack in the relationship becomes like a cancer that's only treatable in the very early stages.  There's always one trying to cling to what's left.  The other one staying for a myriad of reasons.  It goes back and forth for several years and then crash and burn.  The only exceptions I've seen are where they come to some mutual benefit view. 

Let's call this mutual benefit the Clinton theory. No one in this country believes Hillary and Bill Clinton love each other, even themselves.  His very public affairs alone make both men and women cringe and cause even their most ardent supporters to acknowledge theirs is much more a business relationship than a marriage.  As the advice of that matriarch says it in so many words. Suck it up buttercup and get what you want out of this relationship.  Hillary Clinton set women's rights back 20 years with her version of Stand by Your Man.  No one I know ever denies she stayed and got what she wanted out of it.  Whether a Senator seat and almost the Presidency or a cushy retirement, financial stability, maintaining status quo, people that make these compromises to make a marriage "work" become embittered.  Sure some of you say Hillary isn't bitter.  No probably not anymore, but I bet after the 1st, 3rd, 5th, she was.  Eventually she came to terms with it.  

The Clinton theory is simple.  You feel screwed and you decide to get yours.  You give up on love and make peace with the fact that you've worked your whole life to some end. And a divorce will, in your mind, end everything you worked for to date. You will start over.  You don't want to do that. Doesn't matter why. You've come to that conclusion.  Your marriage is now not a loving relationship but a business partnership where you overlook your partner's failings.  In a loving relationship, you overlook or even find those failings endearing. In these partnerships, they grate you, but it is what it is. You "work" through it for the business partnership and ignore any further dilemmas regarding a real marriage. 

What's a great marriage look like?  Love.  I know this wonderful older couple. They have been married for 57 years and they love each other like it was just yesterday they married.  This is a man who never cheated even though he could've because he loved his wife so.  This is a woman who could've found better options if she had wanted, more money, more this, less that, but never gave those things a second thought because of how much she loved him.  They don't describe their marriage as "work" but as love.  They don't deny they have had tough and rougher patches.  But those aren't how they describe their time, their lives together. They still are just this adorable loving couple.  But neither of them ever forced the other to compromise their love and make it "work".  They may look older but the sass, the joking, the loving looks, all those things we picture as the ideal marriage after so many years, they still have. That's all rolled into one word, Love.

Of course, there are limits each of us have.  Almost all, I'm sure there are some rare exceptions, believe cheating is a deal breaker. Men will almost always cut it off faster than a woman will faced with their spouse cheating. But cheating isn't the only one.  For some it might be a handful of things that add up to a limit.  If we think about our limits, those things we will or can't live with, then we know our deal breakers.  Ideally, we have no shame in sharing what those limits are when we fall in love and vice versa.  When those limits are crossed, especially if they have been vocalized as to not being ambiguous, then there's only two options.  The Clinton theory aka. "work".  I'm not talking about who takes out the trash.  If you can't overlook the petty ante stuff, you shouldn't be married to that person in the first place. But if you thought it was going to be split chores and suddenly you are taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, doing the dishes, laundry, vacuuming, dusting, toilets, while Billy Boy (or Girl) sits on the couch drinking beer and scratching himself? Well over time even that can kill love.  It's a small crack that propagates into the cancer, and when it's over, it's over.  In the in-between, the whole thing will be... You got it. WORK.

My boss would tell you I love work. Even most of my previous bosses would say that, but they would all be referencing my actual work. Job.  A relationship shouldn't be a job.  A relationship can try your nerves, but love really does conquer that. You find those things become the most endearing eventually.  The thing you wouldn't change because it's become your special thing about the person you love. Something you would be annoyed by with anyone else but somehow it's not in the least bit bothersome because of love. Think about it from another perspective. I love my boys.  They could grate my nerves but the love I have for them has always made it easy to continue to try and help them become the best men they can be.  Sometimes I'm really not happy with them, even not liking what they have done, but I still love them and still want to find a way to help.  That's what love is. It's the glue between us and our children when they drive us crazy.  It's the same glue when your spouse does something ridiculous.  Eventually love makes you look back at it in humor.  Once love is gone? It's just one more thing that you hate.  

Sure I'm not really the one to be giving advice, but truth is simple. I've never remarried again because I've never been in love again.  I've never gotten to that point that "this is the one" again.  I've seen it happen for other people. Divorced isn't the end of the world.  But if we've ever been in love, we know the difference. Initially there's just something that happens.  You can't put your finger on it. It's intangible.  A moment where you just know. Not a moment where you think. Not a moment where you settle. Just that split second where it comes into focus. I'm not sure it happens at the same time for both parties. I suspect it doesn't since we are afterall still individuals.  So then it has to happen for both to have that perfect equation.  Maybe as we get older, we get less bright eyed and everything looks hued over.  Maybe I just figure if I'm going to do all the "work" I may as well be single. But being single has given me the luxury of looking in and at some of the most and least successful marriages without my own cluttering my mind.  Those who can't, teach, because those that can't see the good and the bad of everyone else's choices.

Fake it until you're still just faking it

We live in a world of phonies.  I think when most people think of what made America "great" we tend to idealize it.  When men were men and women were women, when hard work paid off, when kids could play in the street from dawn to dusk and no one had to worry.  Then our rose colored glasses got stripped off.  Men beat their women to pulps and everyone turned a blind eye.  Hard work didn't pay off.  It meant you worked for the guy who was a total asshole who would back stab you if you crossed him faster than diarrhea.  Where rich men got rich off other men's hard work.  Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Edison, JP Morgan, Westinghouse.  These were our idols growing up.  Successful businessmen.  We are only now realizing, in spite of books and news articles of the times, often portraying these men as vindictive, uncaring, making their money off other people's hard work, we somehow began to idolize the idea of being an asshole to be successful.  As far as kids being kids, well, I left the house regularly in the summer at the break of dawn on my bicycle, bag lunch in tow, to go hangout with my friends on the shores of Lake Erie several miles away.  We thought nothing of this.  But I remember when they first started putting kids pictures on milk cartons also.  I don't remember ever seeing the same one twice, although I'm sure I might have.  To my point, there were a lot.  We just didn't realize how big of an epidemic abductions were.  The world of phonies had re-written history quietly turning themselves into heroes and scarring our make up for the last 100 years, if not the next.  Phonies and bullies are who we idolize most.

The first time most people got a glimpse, and some still haven't, at what phonies were in control back then was when the Tesla story came out.  We knew him, if we knew him at all, as a brilliant scientist that died a destitute drunk loner.  These images couldn't be further from the truth.  Tesla is the reason we have just about everything we have developed in the last 100 years.  Tesla in his creative ideas expanded our capabilities exponentially.  Wireless power?  Tesla.  Water power on a mass scale?  Niagara Falls ringing any bells?  Tesla.  Wireless communication and radio?  Now credited correctly to Tesla instead of Marconi.  DC, aka. direct current?  Many people gave Edison credit for this even now.  However, this is in fact laughable upon closer examination.  Edison was notorious for running around the country stealing other ideas (more than 2000 of his patents invalidated due to theft).  Tesla was under his employ when he supposedly "developed" direct current.  In fact, Edison did create one thing--the intellectual property contract.  Everything that Tesla developed under Edison belonged to Edison.  In fact, Tesla's rarely mentioned in anything Edison "did" while Tesla was in his employ.  It is therefore to this day in debate whether Edison or Tesla actually created DC.  We know the famous light bulb was a mistake--not even Edison's mistake.  A glass blower's.  We also know that everything that Edison's labs created from DC were in fact Tesla's from Tesla's research books.  Therefore, it's highly unlikely that Edison ever created anything except a mistake and a contract.  In support of my opinion, I would point out that even the patents that have not been revoked that still remain in Edison's name would require that he was submitting a new patent for approval every 3 days from his first to his last.  Add in the known stolen intellectual property that resulted in half being revoked, he would've been creating a new patent every 1.5 days.  Really.  Yeah, any idiot that knows anything about new ideas, 1.5 days would have been impossible, even for Tesla.  And Edison, in spite of all his blustering, was no Tesla.  

Why then did Edison for a century have this admired reputation?  Because Tesla was a genuinely nice guy.  He worried about other people.  He had empathy.  He was not a loner.  One of his best friends was Mark Twain.  In fact, when Edison was telling everyone how "dangerous" the Tesla coil was, Tesla's initial experiment to prove wireless power was safe, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemmons for you pickier people) volunteered to help Tesla prove to the world otherwise. 

Mark Twain holding a Tesla Coil 1894

Almost all of you have touched a Tesla coil.  They were super popular in the 1970's and 80's and anyone could buy them at their local mall in Spencer's.  None of you died from it as Edison had claimed.  Surprise, surprise.  But Edison had made it his life's mission to "end" Tesla and erase his name from history.  Tesla had several patents on the radio way before Marconi.  Yet, for decades, even after the Patent Office had invalidated Marconi's patent for the radio in 1943, schools and universities, yes universities, were still teaching Marconi had invented the radio in 1901 as late as 2010.  In fact, Tesla had done so 5 years earlier, patent and all.  Yet, again, Edison would praise Marconi for decades.  Edison was a vindictive, petty little man, and when I was 7 he was my idol.  If you didn't know he was a fake, you probably still are idolizing him.  

The reason the Tesla versus Edison story is so poignant?  It illustrates the greed, vindictiveness, lies they were willing to tell, just in their petty grab for cash and notoriety.  Tesla is also unique in that he crossed paths with Westinghouse and JP Morgan, who also would abuse Tesla and his memory relentlessly.  Westinghouse's contract with Tesla is well known today--he paid Tesla $60,000 for his patents (1887's $60,000) and $2.50 per hp (horsepower) of electricity sold, plus a salary as a consultant.  Edison and Westinghouse had long been rivals prior to Tesla entering the picture, but Edison's attacks in the news media and his propaganda ads purchased in various medium had some people terrified of both.  Westinghouse went to Tesla with a sob story about losing everything, and Tesla famously tore up the contract.  Westinghouse no longer paid him the $2.50 per hp, and Tesla's money dried up.  Arguably, this shows Edison was a petty little man and Westinghouse's greed trumped any friendship anyone thought they had with him.  Tesla' interactions for funding then lead him to JP Morgan who had become a true believer in wireless power.  That ended abruptly when Morgan found out that Tesla had no way of measuring the power once delivered and Tesla in fact wanted to distribute "free" power to everyone on the planet.  JP Morgan had no vision.  No real intellect.  An actual intelligent man with any vision would've realized that once the wireless power was created a tracking system could be created.  He was not as vindictive to Tesla as Edison or scheming as Westinghouse, albeit he did make it impossible for Tesla to gather any further funding.  These men were not visionaries.  They were greedy and they didn't care how they got rich so much as they got rich.  

Rockefeller Political Cartoon in reference to concerns of his creating a monopoly via legal and illegal means

All 3 of those men though didn't hold a candle to Vanderbilt, Carnegie and Rockefeller in their quests for money and power.  These men didn't work hard.  They were notorious bullies earlier in their quests.  We now know that Vanderbilt was horrible in their treatment of the Irish and Chinese immigrants they brought over to build the railroads.  These men and their families treated like indentured servants, little more than slaves even after we abolished slavery.  Carnegie was known as a brutal boss who hired Pinkertons to bully (possibly even kill) workers' leadership and workers who didn't like the long hours and shitty pay.  Ironically, he's the most hypocritical of all, with one famous saying attributed to him, "The man who dies rich dies disgraced."  Perhaps, that is why Carnegie in his old age began to fear for his soul.  One of his most famous donations was to his wife's cousin to start a university in Tennessee that we now know as Vanderbilt University.  His extensive giving includes the now famous Carnegie Hall and an endowment that keeps it up to this day.  It's certainly debatable whether it was more on his wife's fears for his soul than his own that he became such a benefactor of the arts and education, but in Vanderbilt's case, he was actually demonized fairly regularly.  Older than the other two, we as a society let the bigger dogs eat the smaller dogs back then.  So Vanderbilt's only philanthropic donation of his entire life, shortly before he died, was to a university made in his name to the same cousin Carnegie donated to (yes, these families were so intertwined it's a bit of a straight tree back then).  In fact, both Carnegie and Vanderbilt are given credit for the "founding" with their initial donations for the university to Minister Holland McTyeire.  Who?  McTyiere's wife was second cousin to Vanderbilt's second wife and Carnegie's wife.  Seeing a pattern here?   It was the wives more likely that pushed for their husbands' souls.  Eventually both families turning into quite active philanthropists, but a couple generations later--not the men who we supposedly revere.  William Vanderbilt was more demonized than his father Cornelius, albeit this was arguably because newspapers of William's time were no longer owned by only a handful of rich people that used them exclusively as propaganda.  William faced even more trouble in the papers with his anti-people rhetoric.  These men we somehow have been convinced were "good" because they wore a smile, while stabbing their friends, their competition, and anyone who they perceived as crossing them as disloyal and something to be crushed, bullied, ended...Sound like anyone you know?

William Vanderbilt Political Cartoon circa 1890's: Running over and holding up the average man

Arguably, anyone that worked for one of these men, hard work didn't actually pay off.  Finagling, learning when to dodge a bullet, kissing ass, doing questionable things both legally and morally questionable, was the order of their day and failure to comply was the end of a career.  Worse with a vindictive nightmare following you around until the day you died preventing you from being anything but a milkman.  Their companies had notorious harsh work environments where men and women from the lower classes would work 12-20 hour days, often 6 to 7 days a week.  Where children would start working as young as 9-14 years old.  There was no medical coverage.  There was no dental coverage.  There were no breaks, just a lunch once a day.  Workers were expected to do as they were told regardless of the danger that might entail and regardless of whether there was a better way.  Ideas from non-management were non-existent.  They didn't want to hear your ideas.  "Shut up and do your job" was how both my grandfather and my father describe most managers.  Why both eventually went to work for themselves one in the late 40's and one in the late 70's.  Not much had changed in 30 years.  Hell since the 1800's.  These men would walk through and smile at everyone, and then arbitrarily tell managers and supervisors to fire people because they didn't like the way they looked.  God forbid you tried to explain you had an idea that might make your job easier or more efficient.  They might blackball you from town.  This was the world for almost all workers, regardless of education into the 1980's.  Hell, who am I kidding?  This is still the world for some people here in the USA.  Except we do have laws to protect the hourly.  You can't work 20 hours a day legally unless you are salary.  You get health benefits if you work a full time job (40 hours or more).  You have legal recourse if certain laws are not followed.  So, yeah, not exactly the same.  Unless you are salary.  Then you better work for a good company and good boss or some of what I'm describing might still be part of your daily routine.  Things weren't better then.  People just didn't have enough time to think about it and they were too tired to fight about it if they did.  

Pullman (which would eventually become Pullman-Eastman then Kodak):  Using the "mill hill" to keep wages low and then charge the same workers high rents for property owned by Pullman.

What we did find time to fight for? Our kids' futures.  My grandmother was a young girl, pre-teen when women were fighting for the right to vote.  She and her older sisters had spent more than one night in jail for being "difficult" young ladies "fighting" for the right to vote.  We call them Suffragettes.  Yet, it's hard for most of us to fathom that women only were given the Right to Vote 100 years ago this year.  She had also been a welder in the Jeep plant during WWII.  The "taste" of her own accomplishments, her own "real" paycheck (female welders in WWII were still paid way less than male counterparts), and her own sense of dignity?  It was priceless.  To be sent back to being just a teacher?  I think it was humiliating.  My grandfather would often tell me while sitting in the barn working on Bertha that my Grams was the best welder he had ever seen.  Her other grandchildren had no idea.  She never talked about it, like when a piece of you dies because you know you will never be able to see, do or hear something again.  The one time I asked years after my grandfather had passed.  She looked at me blankly, a tear rolled down her faee, and she said, "I haven't thought about that in years." Why not, I had inquired.  "It's not something I like to think about, but you girls can do anything you want to do now because of us."  It was a bit gut wrenching (still is) when I think there were others just like her that found they could do something a man could do and love it...but couldn't, simply because they weren't men.  Half of our population limited in what they could contribute because of one chromosome.  Wrong chromosome meant you had to fake being happy being a housewife.  Sounds silly, doesn't it?

1920's political cartoon: "PROTECTION Motherhood is the noblest profession in the world.  Therefore, You must be given inferior jobs; the lowest pay and your hours for work shall be limited.  (Except in the HOME)"

Sure, we knew, at least the women of the day knew, that we were needlessly limiting our children.  But there were men also who knew.  How difficult would it be to have a son who you knew was an Einstein, or at least a genius, that was never going to be anything more than a coal miner in our society because you were a coal miner?  True story.  Homer Hickam Jr. (b. 1943) was the son of a coal miner who was very intelligent and didn't quite fit with your average coal miner.  Inspired by watching the launch of Sputnik, young Homer wanted to figure out how to launch a rocket.  His father more than once told him it was a pipe dream, accept his lot in life.  Born to a coal miner meant you were going to be a coal miner.  End of story.  Lucky for the United States that didn't happen.  Homer Hickam Jr and his friends solved a rocket propulsion issue.  Hickam Jr would eventually join NASA and work on the Space Shuttle missions.  Where would we be if some of these geniuses were pushed into their "lot in life"?  I don't know.  I still hear idiots who say to their own children, "It was good enough for me; it's good enough for you." That is what is killing the American Dream and has been slaughtering before it got started even when we look back 100, 200, 400 years.  What if Homer Hickam had decided to fake it as a coal miner to appease his father?  The only reason the Dream keeps living are the Homer Hickam's out there that ignore nonsense talk and march to their own drummer.  

Herman Pulk, age 9 in 1911, working in a canning company for $0.25/day

Still how many of those Homer's were beaten into submission by their fathers? We have learned over the last 50 years how children have been abused by their own.  Abducted and murdered without a single trace.  It's not that these things weren't happening.  It's that we didn't all have phones that vibrated with an Amber Alert as soon as one goes missing.  Remember I mentioned those milk cartons.  I know anyone 40 or older remembers these.  I honestly never gave them a thought.  I would glance as I ate my cereal usually imagining it they were abducted by an estranged parent.  We know that's not true now thanks to how quickly we get information now.  We lived in a bubble.  The bubble wasn't really a bubble though, was it?  Those monsters were very real and still existed.  We just had rose colored glasses on that made us naive and think those things didn't exist.  But talk to an old cop.  They all know of that one case, if not more, that haunts them to this day.  Child, woman, sometimes even a man, went missing.  No trace.  I've never met a retired cop that doesn't have one of these stories, and they usually are more than willing to share if you ask.  That hope of finding some random stranger that might unravel the whole thing so they can finally bring peace to the families, to themselves.  It wasn't a safer place.  We just were unaware it wasn't as safe as we thought.  The world was worse, because we literally had no idea unless it happened to us or someone we knew.  Worse, we know now that many of these predators can fake being the most amiable person you've ever met.  We would still be looking at all the homeless guys and blaming them, like was the most common assumption for decades, if not centuries.  Centuries?  Really, centuries.  Little Red Riding Hood got eaten by a wolf?  Or was it a story that little girls shouldn't be walking alone after dark because some crazed man might abduct them?   Hansel and Gretel?  Same story only now a woman abducting a boy and girl.  We tell these horrific stories to our children to warn them in some "cute" story...for centuries.  These human monsters have been around for as long as we can remember.  We just didn't realize how many of them there were, because we allowed them to fake being nice, fake being good neighbors, and if they could fake it really well, we ignored anyone who tried to voice concern.  How often have you seen interviews with so many people (ID channel will have you sick to your stomach in just a couple hours) go on and on about some sociopath was such a nice person and only one seems to be like "oh you knew something was wrong with him"?  Yeah, fake it till everyone else thinks you are what you are not.  

Children in a southern cotton mill working for an average of $0.11/day in 1909

The United States was founded by a bunch of men that didn't necessarily know what all these things were, meant.  They were not all geniuses.  Some of them just didn't want to pay taxes.  Who does?  But what the smarter ones in the room knew, and were able to convince the others of, was we can grow.  So they wrote the framework, the Constitution, to be a living, breathing document.  It was to be the backbone of a society that would endeavor to be better with each new generation.  Sometimes, that has been realizing we were wrong.  Sometimes, that has been rallying our strength.  Maybe the Silent Generation faced both.  They were wrong about WWI; it was not the war to end all wars.  The verdict is still out whether they set us on the path where WWII would be the war to end all world wars.  The Founding Fathers intent was never for us to move backwards in an effort be "great".  It was always intended that we would move forward, dealing with obstacles with the knowledge we accumulated as a collective.  

Were any of them "faking" it?  A new country? Maybe, but probably not.  Our systems from Congress, the Courts, even our military structure still follow a very similar structure as the parent they kicked out--England.  They built upon what they already knew, and then tried to improve it moving forward.  They didn't dream of going back to being a colony.  The Silent Generation didn't dream of going back to 1840, like some dream, or delude themselves, that 100, hell 50, years ago is better than now.  If you look back at papers we knew who some of these bad men, like Edison and Vanderbilt were, but we let them write their own version of reality.  Most of which now we all know was crap.  They didn't work hard to get where they were.  They did on the backs of those that worked hard for them.  We have allowed "fake it till you make it" to become the genre of the American Dream.  You can't be a great basketball player by faking it.  But unlike in sports, those that have actually worked hard, often go completely unrecognized in our society.  They may or may not have mild to middle level success, but that's on us.  Men (and women) who are good at what they do, but not cut throat, backstabbing nutjobs, those like Tesla just always doing the "right" thing, still are often mediocre in our collective view.  Fake tax cuts, fake economic boosts, hiding real issues like market instability, savings and retirement savings at all time lows, average middle class families one to two paychecks away from losing everything.  "Faking it" isn't working, and fake is not the American Dream.  There's a never ending cycle to those faking it.  It never stops because it's lie upon lie and still another lie upon that.   The one thing we all know, whether we admit it or not, no matter how well you fake it, you are still just faking it.