"Most Americans hate their lives, but to get through the day they talk themselves into believing..." (Morris Berman in The Atlanic)

"Most Americans hate their lives, but to get through the day they talk themselves into believing that they want to be doing what they are doing.

"They hate their lives, but to get through the day, besides taking Prozac and consulting their cell phone every two minutes, they talk themselves into believing that they want to be doing what they are doing. This is probably the major source of illness in our culture, whether physical or mental."

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"Americans are probably the most superficial people on the planet".

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"Over time the hustling culture swallowed everything up. There used to be margins, interstices, where creativity could flourish. But as things began to speed up in this country from about 1965 on, a kind of industrial, corporate, consumer “frenzy” took over, which meant there was no time for anything except getting and spending. It takes silence and slow time to be creative, and those things are threatening to most Americans, because they understand on some level that that’s what health is about, and that they don’t have it. So they are angry, intolerant. Fear, power, and desperation dominate their lives instead."

-Morris Berman

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/how-americas-culture-of-hustling-is-dark-and-empty/278601/