Thread by @MalwareJake

Quick thread 🍸:
I’m a gen-X kid. I grew up in an age where I was told that nobody cared what you got a degree in, as long as you had a degree “they would know you can be trained.”

WTAF did that mean, anyway? Why did I need a college degree for that? 1/

But hey, I failed out of college. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. It took me out of medicine (I’d have been a practitioner, not a researcher) and put me on a track for something else. Of course it took a TBI along the way to get me here, but fate and all... 2/

Now I have degrees that are barely worth the paper they’re printed on. Lots of my friends do too. Most of them aren’t doing as well. The vast majority work in fields outside of their study.

But hey, you can still succeed. I come from food stamps, not generational wealth. 3/

I want to say “the American dream is broken, it doesn’t exist, it was all a lie.” But I’ve been privileged to travel the globe.

I can say with certainty the American dream isn’t what I was told to expect (I’m not sure it ever was). But it is still alive (and well?). 4/

As crappy as things can be (and COVID has definitely highlighted our fragility), we still have the ability to escape our upbringing.

This is one of the things that people who never leave the US fail to grasp. We have amazing freedoms and opportunities (still). 5/

We have the freedom of the press (and deity forbid you bring up press bias or Section 230 here, I’ll instablock you). We have freedom of speech. Freedom of religion.

When COVID is over, go see the world (I don’t mean Europe). These freedoms are rare (at least as we have them) 6/

I’m posting this now because I keep seeing people claiming the American dream is dead. It isn’t what it was, but I’m not sure it ever was.

I too wish things were better. I too wish we had UBI, universal healthcare, true social justice. 7/

But take a moment to reflect on how good we have it. I would love to share specific stories about how bad other areas have it, but I can’t.

I’ll likely need to travel back to some of those places, and even criticizing them on social media will threaten my safety there. 8/

But here I’m free to criticize my government and rise out of the caste of my birth. You don’t get that many places. I won the birth lottery and I’ll never forget it.

While you keep fighting for a better America, I hope you don’t either. /FIN

This thread was also brought to you by Cypher, but he wasn’t walking tonight...