Basically my prompt allows me to create my own prompt: I came up with Often times in life, we learn fundamental lessons about ourselves, others, and the world around us from close family members. Describe a lesson that you have learned from a person that you are related/close to and elaborate on how they exemplify this lesson.
I wrote this:
The Pursuit of Purchasing Power: A Palpable Phantasm of Paradise
The "American" Dream is a lie even within the realms of its own syntax. The dream uses the word "American" but it is not a dream commonly held by Americans but rather it finds its home within the minds of immigrants, the lower classes, and to some extent the lower middle class. The dream is defined by an unquenchable thirst for power, money, status, and more money, unchanged by the power of time. Its appeal is strong to those of the lower class and to immigrants because they have been deprived of these benefits for most of their lives. For the upper classes, their children sit in posh English classes with teachers who complain about their "menial" $80,000 salaries learning about how the rest of America is misguided into following this very dream. They do not fall prey to its allure. What some do not understand is that although the American Dream is hollowed and flawed, its magnetic pull is strong enough to draw in people from nations thousands of miles away. Money and status represent a sense of security that many people have never had in their lives; however, the people searching for this haven will only find that they have become more dissociated from themselves than ever before.
The Dream centers around being somebody with power and prestige, being somebody people will look twice at, being somebody who people care about even if that care is just pretense. I can imagine a man representative of the dream in a portrait.
The reclined, suit wearing "man" represents these desires. He wears an expensive custom tailored suit appearing strong and confident, making an impact on those around him. In his pursuit of money and power, he went straight to the stock market to make it big. The parents wanted him to be somebody they could be proud of, someone whose name they could drop at their social weekend gatherings. He has accomplished the "American Dream". He is able to buy his iPad to follow the appreciation of his various assets. He is able to sit around with money and his various Visas and MasterCards lying about his lap. He can sit and relax, not having to worry about his next meal as he did in his childhood â- a visage of the past. He has won.
But he has not won. The American Dream sends people careening into problems of a metaphysical nature. Having become accomplished, the man has not realized he has lost who he used to be. The man in the photo does not even exist; he has metaphorically ceased to exist. The path of money, riches, insider trading, and ridiculous stock options has made him forget who he is. He has no identity, having lost it in long, grueling years in which he lost his culture, his friends, and his old passions, choosing instead to jump into the shark tank of the modern business world. The world of money is a cutthroat society and after seeing scandal after scandal the man has lost his strong convictions. He is empty. There is a lack of color in his life; the iridescence which used to color his life so brilliantly has dissipated. Everything in life has become black and white save for his material possessions which hold some color. To add brilliance to his bland existence he continues to make money and keeps on purchasing more and more goods all in the crazed hope that enough possessions will give him sustainable pleasure. However, even though the material possessions hold some color, their color is muted. They provide simple pleasure at the moment of purchase and for a year or so after, but in the end, every single item will either be replaced or tossed, never to feel anything save for a fine layer of dust over its $600 chassis. They are not brightly colored because they simply will not give anyone pleasure that is sustained, that is, they do not provide true happiness â- happiness is a longshot.
There are no other people in the portrait, just the man covered in a dark vignette. There are no people in his life anymore having all left one by one as the man grew more and more obsessed with the Dream, placing the pursuit of wealth and power over his loved ones. The Dream is more addictive than the strongest opiate, and it has clutched the man into spiraling into a lonely, miserable state, represented by the fact that he is the lone figure in the portrait. A vignette is commonly used to draw attention to the center of an image, but that is not the way it is used in the photo. It is supposed to give the photo an old movie type of feel - something timeless. The Dream is timeless. There is no cap to wealth and power due to the fact that economic shifts and swells are perpetual: mortgages keep defaulting, banks keep investing, and oil prices keep rising. The man will continue to watch the rising price of his shares, never actually selling, just accumulating. He will continue to do this until his death, forever in wait of some feeling of contentment. What he does not realize is that after his death, all of his collections pile into one big nothing. That man is my Uncle.
I have learned that the Dream provides a small sense of security, but also that it can never bring about true pleasure from life. It will provide power, prestige, and apparent happiness, but the happiness is just a phantasm. It seems so real, so palpable, so within reach, but in the end it is as transient as life itself. The fruits of this dream will provide marginal warmth comparative to the ones it takes away. These fruits are addictive and never ending; they will continue to ravage away at any hopeless dying soul lost in their company. The Dream is inherently timeless because it reflects upon the human condition. As long as humans are born into unequal environments, humans will have an instinctual desire to get to the top â- it is evolutionary law, and up until humans can break it, it will perpetuate. The ones at the bottom will forever look towards the American elite because they have everything that society and primal instinct tell them to want. Ironically, for losing oneself, one's friends, one's family, one's passion, the returns on this investment are dismal.
