That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? . . . Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
In my conversations with unemployed and underemployed friends, family, and clients, I have been struck repeatedly by the large number of great ideas that fail for lack of funding. Just last night, for example, a brilliant, fabulous, talented woman in her 40s wept in my office as she described the frustration of being undermployed as a single mother with too much credit card debt and not enough equity in her home. I know that she's not alone - millions of families are on the brink of home foreclosure while millions more are just one illness or crisis away from losing everything.
I just saw a report out of Memphis (featuring a Booker T. Washington HS graduate) that said that young black men ages 16-19 have an unemployment rate of 45%. 45%.
We say we want to promote freedom and opportunity in this country. But truth be told, our economic system is on the brink of total collapse because the middle class is being destroyed and Republican lawmakers insist on cutting taxes for millionaires and hedge fund managers instead of reinvesting in job creation.
We are seeing a new generation of kids growing up without hope for jobs after college. Parents lack the funds to send their kids to college, even though these parents have invested all their lives to save and prepare for the launch. Marketing messages inundate us everywhere we go, making promises to fulfill our longings before we even know what we want. And we have a generation of kids who are being raised on cell phones and text messages and Twitter and Facebook, but without the ability to pay attention to themselves and their spiritual development.
Perhaps this is nothing new. Perhaps the impulse that led Thoreau to Walden and Emerson to inwardness is the result of an American culture that is everything and nothing all at once. Freedom feels intoxicating, but we don't know what to do with it. So, we get on the XBox or look for a drug to medicate that longing in our soul. Too many Americans live with the illusion of freedom, but without any prospects for real freedom.
There is a different kind of spiritual movement in this country, however. While pastors and business owners promise that they hold the keys to our salvation, there remains in America an entirely different message - a message that encourages us to listen to our own voice and find the divine power within our selves. No one else can take your moral inventory for you. No one else can tell you the answer to the anguished questions: "Who am I and why am I here?" And while the crowd may belittle us, demean our crazy dreams, or demand that we fall in line, the desire for true spiritual freedom and self-determination remains.
Viktor Frankl said: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." Our nation needs to take a moment and pause, collectively, from the constant hunger for titillation and entertainment. We are coming out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and unemployment remains stubbornly stuck around 9% as job growth is slowing. Companies and businesses that create wealth without labor and denigrate the value of human capital do not deserve our support or subsidization. Wealth doesn't create jobs. The desire to empower others creates jobs. And the conservative impulse to protect property, withhold charity, and avoid change is what we must fight with every bit of freedom we can muster.
Over the next month, the Obama 2012 campaign is hosting a series of grassroots neighborhood meetings to start a formal, national discussion about the future of our nation. You can host a meeting in your community. This is not about telling what you should think. It's about asking you to think, and listen, and create an ongoing national dialogue about the future direction of our nation.
The power of human capital, creativity, and ingenuity is going to be our nation's salvation. If we squander this opportunity and fail ourselves, we aren't worthy to be called the greatest nation on earth.