The Dispatch by Folk Rebellion, Issue 4—American Dream (May 18)

T H E AM E R ICA N D R E A M I S S U E

Redefining what success and joy mean in a culture where happiness is an obligation that’s rarely fulfilled.

$20

No4

May 2018

E:

IEV WE BEL

- in REAL life - in questioning everything - in face to face convos - nature heals - in wandering where the wifi is weak - phones on the table are rude - in speaking up, even if it’s the only voice - in writing shit by hand - there’s no one “right” way to do things - analog is better - less is more - green is good - toes should be in the grass once a day - the great philosophers should be required reading - in zigging when everyone else is zagging - in the b side of an album - intuition is your compass - curiosity is more than a keystroke - in meditation - because some questions can’t be answered by Google - in boredom - hustle needs to chill the fuck out - in challenging the status-quo - innovation and ideas don’t happen without boredom - in a good glass of whiskey - simpler is better - the word connection needs to be taken back from silicon valley - in getting lost - success needs a new definition - sex and snuggling is better than scrolling - opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one and they’re all full of shit - in the unknown

Dear Readers, I’ve been called a nostalgic dinosaur, but we are living our lives based on an outdated set of beliefs and expectations—things that were created by past generations that we continue to live by, even though the basis might be unfair, untrue, or dangerous for the people living within it. And we know it; the signs are there. Just ask the creators of Woodstock ‘99.

With about 220,000 people in attendance, Woodstock '99 was the day the nineties died.

It was on Griffiss Air Force Base with no trees for shade and temperatures hitting over 100, and was temporarily the third most populous area in New York state. The water supply had been turned off and bottled water sold for upwards of $8...if you were able to survive the three hour wait in line under the burning sun. When Canadian band The Tragically Hip sang "O Canada," the crowd shouted back with "The Star Spangled Banner," throwing rocks and bottles along with the words.

overcome the gnawing pit in my stomach. As I wove my way out, I saw officers in riot gear lining up to come in. Apparently, things had escalated while I was walking the miles back to my car. The overflowing, dehydrated crowds—already hyped—had gone wild. Bonfires broke out, cars were flipped, and vendor booths were destroyed in a senseless act of mob fury.

In no way do I condone this, but I can see how it happened. I could see the tension rising, and I wasn’t surprised when it broke. And I’ve got that pit in my stomach again.

Our ideas of the American Dream need to change. The strange goals we are trying to meet didn’t even live up to the hype at the time they were created, and they sure don’t now. If we don’t take a serious look at basic freedoms like long-term financial security, access to affordable health care, and the right to equality for all, the end result will be society that feels like the crowd at Woodstock ‘99. They’ve been sold a bag of goods, and it’s not what they expected.

If you couldn’t see the signs, you could feel them. I sure did.

If seeing this coming makes me a dinosaur, than so be it.

I left the festival as my favorite band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, took the stage.

Even a shirtless Anthony Kiedis couldn’t

It’s not the end of the world, Jess

The Dispatch, by Folk Rebellion, is made by the community, for the community.

F OUN D E R & E D ITOR-IN -CH IE F • JE S S D AVIS AS S OCIATE E D ITOR • PIPPA BID D L E COPY E D ITOR • JE S S ICA KUL ICK CRE ATIV E D IRE CTOR • RYAN L E M E RE S TAF F WRITE R • L E XI WE BE R M ARKE TIN G COORD IN ATOR • AN D RE E A CHIDU G RAPH IC D E S IG N • S TE FAN PE RKIN S G RAPH IC D E S IG N • S OPH IE E RS KIN E

Brooklyn, NY May 2018 The American Dream Issue Issue 04 | Copyright 2018 Subscribe at www.folkrebellion.com. No part of The Dispatch by Folk Rebellion may be reproLetters to the Editor, classified submissions, and sponsorship duced in any form without prior written consent from the inquiries can be sent to hello@folkrebellion.com. Pitch us at publisher. The Dispatch’s liability in the event of an error is pitches@folkrebellion.com. limited to a print correction.

Less text, more sex

CONTENTS

IRL connection

A better healthcare system Guacamole

INTERVIEWS: BEHIND THE SCREENS S o m e f r e s h aJESS'S i r SNAKE OIL + SOAP BOX DIGITAL CUTLURE HOW WE'RE WIRED: EXPERIMENTS IN REBELLION Courage SLOWING DOWN A MEMOIR Pre-tech clarity CULTURE HOROSCOPES REAL TALK, GROUP TEXT To fold my laun dry POLITICAL THINK PIECE ANOTHER SET OF SHOES A sign

LIFESTYLE DESIGN WORK-LIFE VISUAL ESSAY

Equality

6 11 12

14 19 20 24 27 27 28

29 30 31 33

37

HOW TO GROW A SIDE HUSTLE

40 48 50

COVER FEATURE PERSONAL ESSAY HOW-TO PHOTO ESSAY

57 62 65 66 68

ROCK YOUR BLISS: GANG HANGS REVIEWS THE KITCHEN SINK SIMPLE PARENTING PARENTING 50 STATES OF VANITY PLATES FUNNIES ASK JESS

51 68 71 72

75

A fucking second P e a c e a n d q uGAMES, iet

ACTIVITIES, & PULLOUTS These are tear out, pull out, dog ear, fold, mail, scribble, love, play, pass and use IRL moments.

G o o d c o n v e r s a t i o n POSTER

A clone

SMALL TALK CALENDAR AND “FUCK IT BUCKET” QUOTE

Puppy snuggles

A nap

3 4 16 24

31 38 67 76-

SNAIL MAIL: LETTER TO NO ONE BOARD GAME (YOUR INNER) KIDS CROSSWORD, MASH, ETC.

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

ISSUE FOUR

SMALL TALK WHAT SQUASHING THE STATUS QUO LOOKS LIKE:

• Changing your mind. Again. And again.

• Doing it NOW. • Carving out your own path.

• Tuning out the “shoulds.”

• Pursuing happiness over material wealth.

• Knowing when to pause the grind.

• Not giving a shit about the Joneses.

• Collecting more memories and less things.

• Giving a middle finger salute to the hustle culture.

The American Dream: (noun) The ideal that every U.S. citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.

WHAT SQUASHING THE STATUS QUO DOES NOT LOOK LIKE • Five year plans.

• Choosing security over passion.

• Running the rat race.

• Saving all those plans for after retirement.

• Following the straight path.

• Keeping up with Joneses. Being the Joneses.

• Never turning on your “Out of Office.”

• The pursuit of more stuff.

• Sunday scaries.

“AIN'T THAT AMERICA, HOME OF THE FREE, LITTLE PINK HOUSES FOR YOU AND ME.” T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

—John Cougar Mellencamp, “Pink Houses”

4:44 glimpse at the American Dream from a different perspective. Mellencamp wrote “Pink Houses” as a protest song.

It was his call against a system that wasn’t truly free—but it’s been misconstrued over the years because of the chorus, which could be heard as a cheer for patriotism. “Pink Houses” was even used by the 2008 McCain presidential campaign, as well as by the hyper-conservative and anti-LGBTQ National Organization for Marriage. Mellencamp, an outspoken liberal, got them both to knock that shit off.

“THIS IS THE STORY OF AMERICA. EVERYBODY'S DOING WHAT THEY THINK THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO DO.”

—JACK KEROUAC,

O F I NTEREST More than 44 million Americans have a side hustle.

Top Millennial side hustles: • Running an online store.

The American Dream would cost an average family of four around $130,000 every year. The U.S. Census Bureau found that only about 1 in every 8 households made that much in 2013.

• Cleaning services.

• Selling baked goods.

Like Brooke McAlary’s piece on page 17?

Check out Sick in the Head

by Judd Apatow.

34% of Boomers feel regret about their career and working life.

38% of Boomers are not doing something they feel passionate about.

T H I N G S YO U R 7 Y E A R O L D S E L F WA N T S YO U T O :

STO P D O I NG ASAP SENDING WORK EMAILS FROM B E D AT O N E I N T H E M O R N I N G .

B E I N G T O O B U S Y T O P L AY.

PHOTOGRAPHING EVERY MEAL .

J U S T E AT I T. A L S O , E N O U G H W I T H ALL THE DIETS. TA K I N G E V E R Y T H I N G S O D A M N S E R I O U S LY. S AY I N G N O T O C H O C O L AT E .

I T ’ S S O G O O D.

TOOLS TO HELP YOU BUILD YOUR OWN AMERICAN DREAM: •YouNeedABudget.com •Quicken.com •Happify.com •Joyable.com •DreamItAlive.com

HASHTAGS FOR THE ANTI-HUSTLE CULTURE ON SOCIAL MEDIA:

#nonconformist #stayhuman #revolutionary #liberation #unlearn #thinkforyourself #freethinker #truthseeker #youdoyou #noapologies #ownit #lifeistooshort

#knowyourself #selfaware #liveyourtruth #beyourtrueself #liberateyourself #unafraid #kindredfolk #liveyourbestlife #createyourownha #justdoyou #findyourtribe #takerisks

A 2014 U.S. Census Bureau found nearly half of women between the ages of 15 and 44 did not have kids—the highest percentage since the Census Bureau began tracking this statistic in 1976.

In 2015, the average student loan debt totaled $33,000, compared to $10,000 in 1990.

People 65 and older now make up roughly 8% of bankruptcy filers.

ANTI-ANTI-INTE

• CONFORMITY: Behavior in accordance with socia • NONCONFORMITY: Failure or refusal to conform to • SIDE-HUSTLE: Any type of employment undertake • NOMAD: A member of a people having no perman • POSITIVE ART: Art designed to elevate one’s mood • MEMENTO-MORI: “Remember your death” in Latin • IDEAL: A person or thing regarded as perfect.

• CONCEPTION: The way in which something is per • HYGGE: Danish word for coziness that comes fro spending time at home with your family.

• STATUS QUO: Latin phrase meaning the existing s • TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS: Economic theory tha business investment

4

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

LIVING THE DREAM

RESISTANCE TEENY TINY ACTS OF

Look at all the things you are being told you "should" do, be, or get better at. Write them down. Even the subtle ones. Pay attention to the media, social, radio, billboards, ads on taxis and buses, news anchors, judgemental friends, nosy parents, etc. Write. It. Down. Maybe this is why people are feeling overwhelmed, not good enough, tired, stressed, not present, etc. Take a step back and make up your own damn mind.

What makes you happy? What do you really want? Then: go do that.

T H E N

The whole idea of the American Dream, as Adams defined it, was around long before him.

John Winthrop gave his "City Upon a Hill" sermon to fellow Puritan colonists as they sailed to Massachusetts in 1630. Although he never used the word "dream," he did describe a vision of society in which everyone would have a chance to totally kick ass, as long as they all worked together and, of course, did what the Bible said.

Fast forward to 1776, when the Declaration of Independence stated that everyone in America or, more precisely, white men with land and money, were fully entitled to "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness." Sounds familiar, right? Then came the Industrial Revolution.

At the end of the 19th century, America was no longer a nation of farmers and independent craftsman, but of urban space and people working their asses off for an hourly wage.

Social mobility was achievable for more people than ever before and the dream being sold was: work hard, follow the rules, and you can climb into the middle class.

We ask folks of all ages a question to see if our generations are really all that different:

BOOMERS

Child: I’m 8 and I think the American Dream means you’re rich and famous and everyone on the Internet likes your pictures.

@annapolis3: Being able to achieve any level of success you desire. Again, that’s from the perspective of an upper-class white woman whose family already achieved “The Dream” so I’m probably biased.

@ibedk: What it looks like today is happiness. It’s about you doing your thing and me doing my thing and everyone being okay with that.

Teenager @tokkatobi: House, car, and plenty of cash in the bank.

MILLENNIAL

@M_romo_121: At this point I have no fucking clue. Just trying to get through the divorce...I guess my answer right now would be to have what I need, to be loved and love others, and not have to work a million hours to do it.

Along with being able to spend good quality time with my 3 littles. And being in community. Like actual, in-person community. Not having that kills me on the daily.

TRADITIONALISTS I’m 73 and my American Dream today is very different than I was first starting out. I aspired to the good job with a pension, home in the suburbs, healthy kids, and family vacations every summer. Today, I just want to keep my health insurance and not have the government take away my social security.

By the early 20th century though, America was dealing with the consequences of city life: pollution, overcrowdedness, low wages, and terrible working conditions. Enter the Roosevelt Era. Franklin D. and his squad implemented the New Deal programs, which were like beacons of light during the Great Depression. They promised that if you worked hardest, the government would help you out.

Welcome to today, where social mobility is still mostly a myth and the American Dream has become more about material wealth and less about individualism. If only James Truslow Adams could see his dream now...

OTHER COOL PEOPLE Redefining The American Dream:

ER K C I R E O KER @J EPOD

JOE RICCALARY @SLOWHOM

E U R A L H T E B Y R A M @ E U R A L H T E B Y MAR A.SIMS KE M

BROO

AN H S @ S NA SIM

SHA

MILY

LISTFA T E K C U B E H T @ Y L FAMI THE BUCKET LIST

ELLECTUALISM

TRY THIS:

ally accepted conventions or standards.

o a prevailing rule or practice.

en in addition to one's full-time job, providing a supplemental income.

nent abode.

d and experience.

n.

rceived or regarded.

om doing simple things such as lighting candles, baking, or

T H E “ M E N TA L REHEARSAL TECHNIQUE.”

Have a big job interview coming up? First date? Presentation at work? Imagine yourself in that situation. What are you wearing?

What does the room look like?

Who else is there? Pay attention to Every. Single. Detail. Rehearse the ideal scenario in your mind repeatedly without having to actually do anything.

Visualize everything that could go wrong and mentally rehearse yourself totally surviving your worst-case scenario.

PRO TIP:

state of affairs, particularly with regard to social or political issues.

at advocates reducing taxes on businesses and the wealthy to stimulate in the short term and benefit society at large in the long term.

5

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

GEN X

N O W

American author and historian James Truslow Adams is credited for coining the term “American Dream” in his 1931 book The Epic of America. In it, he describes "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement." But let’s take a step back.

“WHAT DOES THE AMERICAN DREAM LOOK LIKE TO YOU?” GEN 2020

A N D

ISSUE FOUR

the slow traveler.

BROOKE MCALARY WHAT IS SLOW YOUR

in. I’ve been amazing at how many

HOME AND HOW DID YOU

people get on board with these changes.

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

GET STARTED? Slow Your Home began in 2011

WHAT DOES “SLOW” REALLY

as a blog where I wrote about

MEAN?

my experiences shifting from an

It’s come to mean so many different

overwhelmed, deeply unhappy

things, but for me, it’s simply about

perfectionist to someone with a

intention. If we’re intentional with our

semblance of balance. I wanted

time, our relationships, our purchases,

to go deeper into the ideas

our actions, our energy, our reactions,

behind slow living and how we

and our stories, we will live a slower life.

can apply them in a fast-paced

By slowing down, we take responsibility

world, so I started the Slow

for our choices, and we get so much

Home Podcast in 2015. Now

more say in how we spend our days.

we’re more than 240 episodes in, and I feel like we’re only just starting to scratch the surface of

YOU DECLUTTERED OVER 25,000

why slow living is so important.

THINGS IN JUST TWO YEARS. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU MISS?

THE PODCAST HAS

I know it’s kind of a boring reply, but

BECOME A HUGE HIT.

I honestly don’t miss a thing. Once I

WHY DO YOU THINK YOUR

thought I decluttered this epic 17-page

MESSAGE RESONATES

poem that I wrote in school and was a bit

WITH SO MANY PEOPLE?

bummed about that, but I found it safely

I think we’re all tired of being

tucked in a book a couple of years ago, so

told that being busy is the same

crisis averted!

as being successful, but we find it nearly impossible to extricate

I struggle to remember many of the items

ourselves from the mentality

we let go of, to be honest. For me, there

of striving for more. We’re not

was so much more to gain than lose in

prescriptive in terms of how

the act of letting go.

slow living “should” look, which helps it remain accessible. Not

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING

everyone can or would want to

SOMEONE SHOULD DO IF THEY

move to an off-grid cabin in the

WANT TO LIVE MORE SLOWLY?

country, so we’re always looking

Figure out why you want to slow down.

for ways to introduce slow-ness

What is it you’re craving from life? What

to a busy world.

is it you want more of? What do you want your life to stand for? What do you want

We also run Slow Experiments

your life to look like?

every couple of months and encourage our listeners to join

Let that why become the foundation on

@SLOWHOMEPOD

On The Road

which you slowly start to build the kind of life you want. Every choice, every change, every action that comes after can

be weighed against this bigger picture, and it’s in those small, everyday choices that we begin to shape a life.

WHAT IS ONE BOOK THAT YOU THINK SHOULD BE MANDATORY READING? Judd Apatow’s book Sick in the Head is pretty wonderful. While it’s not even remotely about slow living, it is about living in the mess and discomfort of real life. And that’s what slow living is all about, really— the living part.

6

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

the pro with presence.

PRO-SPORT CONTRACTS ARE OFTEN BIG, WITH MORE ZEROS THAN MOST AMERICANS WILL SEE IN THEIR LIFETIME. DO YOU FEEL A RESPONSIBILITY TO GIVE BACK? I do feel a responsibility to give back, but I don’t feel like the only way to do it is financially. The truest way to ‘give-back’ is with your time. I do things for my university and my high school because I wouldn’t be in the situation I am now without them, but I don’t just throw around money. I’d rather donate my time and be a figure that is present versus a check that is written.

HOW MUCH DID YOU PRACTICE GROWING UP AND IF THERE WAS ONE THING YOU’D SKIP PRACTICE FOR, WHAT WAS IT? Growing up I put a lot of time in. My parents gave me a regimen for schoolwork and workout time, and I had to work hard in the time that they gave me.

I was able to skip a practice for anything that had to do with the family-owned business. We owned a hardware store over by the old Shea Stadium, now it’s Citi Field, and if my parents needed a hand and I’ll honestly say that was frequently

HOW DO YOU

happening because of

DEFINE THE

mischievous things I did

AMERICAN DREAM?

around the house.

I believe that the American Dream is truly

YOU’VE USUALLY

doing what you want to

GOT A SMILE ON

do and feeling like you

YOUR FACE. TELL

have a purpose doing it.

US ABOUT YOUR PRACTICE OF POSITIVITY, THE

BORN AND RAISED.

PURPOSE BEHIND

WHAT’S THE BEST

IT, AND HOW IT

THING ABOUT YOUR

CAN INFLUENCE

HOMETOWN AND

THE ATTITUDE

WHAT IS THE MOST

AND OUTLOOK

MISUNDERSTOOD

OF OTHERS BOTH

THING ABOUT YOUR

ON AND OFF THE

HOMETOWN?

COURT?

Yes, I was Queens born

I think that a smile is

and raised and my mom

contagious. I try to create

still lives there to this

positive attitudes around

day. I think the best

me because whatever

thing about Queens

you’re going through

access to everything.

You just have a lot going on to the point that Queens is big enough to entertain you.

The most misunderstood

someone may be going through something

On The Road

is that it has so much

@KYLE.OQUINN

YOU’RE QUEENS

thing is that we don’t

worse. In my seven years in the NBA, I think that’s one thing that’s appreciated in a locker room and that impacts everyone.

New York City

have driveways. We have driveways, I grew up with a driveway. Yes, we have big buildings, but it’s not like New York City’s Times Square.

WHAT IS ONE BOOK THAT YOU THINK SHOULD BE MANDATORY READING? Wisdom Walks: 40 Life Principles for a Significant and Meaningful Journey by Dan Britton and Jimmy

YOU PRACTICE YOGA, YOU DANCE, DO YOU FEEL YOU’RE HELPING BEND SOCIETAL

Page, who are both sports guys. It’s a simple, easy read. I use it, I’ve given it to teammates, I’ve given it to

VIEWS ON THE TYPICAL MALE ATHLETE?

friends, and it’s a 40-day challenge that I’ve been working on for six years.

I think so! I think that yoga is kinda looked at by many people as ‘non-athletic’ or ‘soft’. People say “My wife does yoga” or, “My girlfriend does yoga, but I’m going to go do bodybuilding or run a 5K.” When you really dig into it you see how yoga restores of the body. And I dance because I know I can’t dance.

I’m working on it in case I ever get called on to bust a move one day.

7

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

around the shop, that was a no-brainer. The only other things were sickness or if I was being punished,

KYLE O’QUINN

ISSUE FOUR

the happy designer.

AS A DESIGNER, YOU'RE A STORYTELLER. WHAT IS IT LIKE PIVOTING FROM TELLING OTHER PEOPLE'S STORIES TO TELLING YOUR OWN IN “THE HAPPY FILM”?

When I did research for this film and read many, many psychology books on happiness, I found that whenever a scientist talked about something that had actually happened to her, I took it much more seriously than when she wrote about a scientific study she commissioned. We changed the direction of the film from a general documentation on the subject to focus mainly on personal experiences, which became ultimately much more about me. The film in itself will not make viewers happy (in the same way that watching Jane Fonda exercise won’t make you lose weight), but I do hope that it might be the little kick for some viewers to explore these directions themselves.

STEFAN SAGMEISTER

AMERICA IS OBSESSED WITH THE IDEA OF HAPPINESS. IS IT JUST US? OR DO YOU THINK THAT DESIRE FOR BLISSFUL PEACE IS PART OF THE HUMAN CONDITION? perform is in some way

of a good therapist. When we

related to happiness. There's

fix our house, we might get

a famous quote by the French

three different quotes from

mathematician Blaise Pascal

an electrician, so we should

who says that even the person

do that also in therapy. Drugs

who kills himself does so

clearly worked for me (too

because he thinks this will

much so), and I could see

make him happier—i.e. he'll

taking Lexapro again, but in

be better off dead.

a smaller dose. The reason I

I think it’s impossible to reach

can’t recommend it whole-

permanent happiness. Daniel

heartedly is that, when I talked

Nettle thinks of happiness as

to audiences, numerous people

a carrot on a stick, a compass

came up to me afterwards

designed by evolution to show

confiding that they used

the way. It is designed so that

Lexapro. And I have heard

we never permanently find

every possible outcome. What

it. If we would, we would

our psychopharmacologist says

likely sit around and eat

in the film is true: the brain is

sweet and fatty foods all day,

such a complex system that at

which is not in the interest

this point nobody really knows

of evolution. A compass that

the exact processes.

always points north is not useful.

New York, NY

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Every single act that I

DO YOU THINK “HAPPINESS” IS A GOOD GOAL TO HAVE IN THE FIRST PLACE? There were times during

WHEN YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES AND THINK ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE FILMING “THE HAPPY FILM,” WHAT POPS INTO YOUR MIND FIRST? Being in Bali, walking through

meditation when I felt it. It

very dense jungle, sweating

is also possible with the help

and sweating. The time with Veza in Bali was certainly

New York City

among the happiest of my life

@STEFANSAGMEISTER

ever, but because neither of us had been in a documentary before and often looked into the camera while filming, much of the footage turned out to be unusable.

HOW CAN READERS SEE THE FILM? On iTunes, Amazon, or Vimeo.

WHAT SHOULD READERS DO IMMEDIATELY AFTER SEEING IT? I’ve attended about three dozen screenings of the film and witnessed rather animated Q&A periods. It seems that the film is able to transport a viewer into a space where dealing with this subject becomes possible. I’d hope that it also can help some people try out a strategy like meditation, cognitive therapy, or even medication themselves. And maybe more importantly consider taking Jonathan Haidt’s main message that it’s important to bring relationships, work, and something that’s bigger than oneself onto a level, where happiness can arise from in between.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED BY STEFAN: •The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt •Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert •Lessons from a New Science by Richard Layard

8

Silver Lake, Los Angeles

@MARYBETHLARUE

MARY BETH LARUE

the intrepid mentor.

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

happens? How could you give him up? How could you set yourself up for potential loss?"

It's obviously other people's fear, and I have to remind

YOU'RE THE CO-

myself of that. I have never

FOUNDER OF ROCK

felt more "on purpose." This

YOUR BLISS, A YOGA

path is challenging for sure,

TEACHER, A MENTOR,

but so worth it.

AND ONE OF OUR AWESOME COLUMNISTS. IS THIS THE LIFE YOU IMAGINED FOR YOURSELF TEN YEARS AGO? OR EVEN FIVE?

BREAKING THE MOLD CAN BE SCARY, THOUGH. WHERE DO YOU FIND THE COURAGE

It's not. It's way better. I love reflecting on what I thought I was "meant" to have or what I thought the

TO DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY?

best case scenario was, because this life is so where I'm meant to be and is so quirky and different and

I'm always scared to take big risks. But I know that on the other side of discomfort is major growth.

more beautiful than I thought. I mean, I'm a sober foster mom living in a treehouse—

I wouldn't have this life if I wasn't doing scary things regularly. I'm more scared of my comfort zone now

and it's fucking awesome!

then I am of being outside it!

YOU RECENTLY BECAME A MOM. CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE MORE ABOUT YOUR

YOU HELP A LOT OF PEOPLE CREATE THE LIVES THEY WANT FOR THEMSELVES. WHAT IS

EXPERIENCE EXPANDING YOUR FAMILY?

THE NUMBER ONE THING YOU SEE THAT HOLDS PEOPLE BACK?

My husband and I started our journey to become foster parents and adopt through foster care in June

FEAR. Absolutely fear. It's scary to take risks; it's scary to be in uncertainty; it's scary to let go of things

of this past year. We got certified through a foster family agency and our little guy, Baby A, came to live

or people that keep us small. What I remind myself is this: fear will pass. But staying in a certain life

with us in December. It's been an absolute whirlwind and has already opened and broken my heart

because of fear? That actually won't pass unless we have the courage to break out of that rut. That's what

many times.

I help people do through my coaching with thoughtwork, yoga philosophy, and meditation. The work has saved my own life, so it's what I feel called to share.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE GOING OUTSIDE OF THE “TRADITIONAL” OR THE “EXPECTED” TO

9

FAVORITE PRE-INTERNET HOBBY: Dancing. Salsa, bachata, and some hip hop for good measure.

BEST ALBUM OF ALL TIME: Beyonce’s Lemonade

rebel rouser:

SPIRIT ANIMAL: A dog. Preferably one who knows all the best spots to lay in the sun.

“get ahead" is an illusion. We can be in this together—and, god, it feels so much better that way.

FAVORITE PLACE OFFLINE: The Uinta mountains

What a great question. I think being kind, to ourselves and to other people. Competition and trying to

away. One of the hardest parts to deal with is other people's fear: "What if this happens? What if that

REBEL MANIFESTO: Find your voice, literally. What do you sound like? How do you talk? How do you interact with people? As a writer and blogger, I was swimming in a sea of people who said things like "my sweet friend" and "what's on my heart today." It rocked when I finally realized that wasn't me, and learned to write with my own voice.

JOB MODELING?

to envision. But when I visualized bringing our family together through foster care, I could see it right

DARYL LINDSEY

WHAT IS ONE LESSON WE TEACH KIDS THAT YOU THINK ADULTS COULD DO A BETTER

It has felt really natural to me. I could never picture myself pregnant; it just wasn't something I was able

Each month we feature a member of our community. This isn’t any of that (air quotes) stand-up, pillar of the community glad handing you see in traditional organizations.

BRING A CHILD INTO YOUR LIFE?

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

projections and their own

ISSUE FOUR

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Dear Dispatch, Hi, again! We met the last few issues, but if you missed us, we're Leesa. We believe that a good night's sleep is the first step on the pathway to a better life. From Day One, we set out to build a different kind of company -- one that measures its success as much by our impact on the world as by our sales and profits. So, we pledged to donate one custom mattress for every ten we sell.

Being well rested and getting a good night's sleep elevates life in so many ways, and a safe place to sleep should be for everyone.

As a certified B-Corp, our goal is to ensure that anyone finding refuge from homelessness, domestic risk or human trafficking in a shelter will find a comfortable bed waiting for them.

Since we shared our mission in the latest Dispatch, we've added another 2,000 mattresses to our donations. We're honored to now say that 25,000 people will sleep better tonight due to our donations. Our hope, as always, is that they will dream of a brighter tomorrow and wake up with their heads held a little higher.

Here's to even better nights, Team Leesa

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THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

by Jess Davis

issue iv

AND SNAKE OIL HOW DID I GET HERE? ON PAUSING, PATHS, & PICKET FENCES MAY 2018

I HATED MY 7 A.M. ALARM WHICH DIDN’T MAKE SENSE TO MY BODY THEN, AND STILL DOESN’T NOW.

When I was seventeen years old, I wrote a book entitled So, the same day I was supposed to leave for the “first “Fuck the White Picket Fence.” Or, if I’m being factual, a loose day of the rest of my life,” I packed a VW and hit the road with outline with a few chapters filled with my philosophical ideas my best friend/boyfriend and $1,700 to my name. I dropped a brought on by feeling backed into a corner from society. Back “Dear John” letter into the mailbox to Ithaca College’s Dean of then, I wanted to be successful—but I wanted to define what Admissions on the way out of town. that meant to me and determine my own road to get there.

Now, you must be thinking that none of this is earthI hated that my teachers and parents asked me to define shattering. What is earth shattering is that most people don’t my life’s future with statements like “what do you want to be do this. “This” being the Pause—not the road trip. What I when you grow up?” I hated my 7 a.m. alarm which didn’t make wanted was more freedom, more nature, more creativity, and sense to my body then, and still doesn’t now. In school, I hated more of the unknown. the push towards memorization, the competition amongst This manifested for me through the years with lots of peers, and the expectations and concerns over what people moves, passion projects, jobs, and experiences. I spent some would think. (I’m still not sure who those people are, but “they” time studying the arts in Europe; I didn’t like to stay in a ZIP were brought up a lot. Still are.) code longer than two years; I reinvented my career over and The truth of the matter is that I found school and all its over again until my resume read something like a buffalo constructs boring, easy, and less inspiring than a good book. garbage plate: ski lift operator, professional ballroom dancer, Back then, my teachers and peers might’ve called me a bit marketer, writer, fine art photographer, camp counselor. rebellious. I cut class and earned the nickname Sloane—as in And...I wouldn’t change a damn thing.

Ferris Bueller's GF. This is something I am proud of; it’s on my My path was not a traditional one but I truly believe that’s resume. Somehow, despite the tomfoolery, I was able to keep exactly how and why I’m here. When I sat and paused in the my grades up. To the shock of my principal, other kids’ parents, woods all those decades ago I was able to perfectly picture my and mine, I was accepted to Ithaca College. life: I would go to Ithaca and excel. I would marry my college In the last days of summer ‘97, I spent two weeks prior to sweetheart and we would buy a house. I would take the first job the start of college in the woods. I was born and raised in a little that came my way and excel at that, too. I would have a family town in upstate NY known as the gateway to the Adirondacks. and a dog. And that would be my life: the American Dream.

Those woods were my stomping grounds—and, I later realized, It’s a nice life. Many people do that. my thinking and not-thinking grounds.

But when I paused from life’s expectations, I could see that On that trip I checked in with my gut, removed other was not the path for me. Without looking inward, taking stock, people’s opinions from earshot, and grounded down. I now checking in with my intuition, and mustering the guts to do realize this is where I had my First Great Pause. what I knew needed to be done, personally and professionally, In that pause I discovered that, to me specifically, college I’d still be on those old trajectories. Now my road looks like a equalled everything I hated about the road to success.

I asked myself, “Am I doing this because…”

I CUT CLASS AND EARNED THE NICKNAME SLOANE— AS IN FERRIS BUELLER'S GF

It’s expected of me?

I feel there are no other options?

I’m used to it?

I’m tuned out?

Everyone else does it?

Of status, bragging, or notoriety?

badass squiggly line.

I am aware that by all standard measures, today, I am what most would consider successful: I’m an entrepreneur. I’m given a microphone from time to time. Hell, I wear glasses that make me look smart. All achieved while being a woman, and a mom. I’ve been recognized for my work, but some of my best rewards are the high fives and hugs I get from my kid while sustaining him with pizza ordered between conference calls.

I still hate the road to success—or at least the one imagined for us. You know, the tried and trodden paths, the “that’s the way it’s always been done,” the status quos. I now know and love exactly how I got here.

Maybe I should write that book now. F-word titles seem to be on trend.

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WHAT IS EARTH SHATTERING IS THAT MOST PEOPLE DON’T DO THIS. “THIS” BEING THE PAUSE—NOT THE ROAD TRIP. I DIDN’T LIKE TO STAY IN A ZIP CODE LONGER THAN TWO YEARS

I STILL HATE THE ROAD TO SUCCESS — OR AT LEAST THE ONE IMAGINED FOR US.

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

FUCK THE WHITE PICKET FENCE

ISSUE FOUR

Meme e g A n to Mori f l a t i g i D e or t h

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

By Rachel Newman

F

or thousands of years, people have worn reminders of lost loves. Locks of hair trapped in lockets, portraits turned into bracelet charms, and skeleton-themed rings wrapped around a finger have reminded their wearers of those gone, and of their own eventual death. In the Victorian Era, artists added skulls to their paintings to remind viewers that life, ultimately, ends. Today, we have Twitter to keep loss of life top of mind.

Musician Mikel Jollett sums it up nicely in a Tweet pinned to the top of his profile: Instagram is for announcing, “My life is a party,” but Twitter is for reminding us that, “We’re all going to die.”

On the surface, this macabre focus on death seems counter to the American spirit of positivity. Cashiers are expected to hand over food orders with a smile. “A positive attitude” is listed as a mandatory personality trait in job descriptions. Gratitude journaling is presented as a panacea for all spiritual aches and pains.

In a culture that flinches at the mention of anything unpleasant, Twitter jokes about death and dying are a downright rebellion.

These Twitter reminders could be considered a modern day memento mori. The phrase “memento mori,” meaning “remember that you have to die” in Latin,

is said to have originated during the Roman Empire and was used to remind Roman generals returning from battle that any earthly victory was temporary.

Throughout history, artists, writers, and musicians have embraced such reminders of death. Now, social media does as well.

Search the #mementomori hashtag on Twitter, and you’ll likely come across tweets from Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble, tweeting under the handle @pursuedbytruth.

Noble is a Catholic-raised-former-atheist-turnedCatholic-nun, who started chronicling her experience living with a human skull on her desk about a year ago.

She was inspired by Blessed James Alberione, the founder of the Daughters of Saint Paul, who kept a human skull on his own desk.

“Before I entered the Daughters of Saint Paul,” she remembers, “I read SOOO MANY a biography that FOLLOWERS mentioned this detail and thought,

RIP

Life is a series of little deaths every day.

‘That is so metal. Definitely going to do that at some point.’ Then I forgot about it.” After an eight-day silent retreat, Noble remembered the anecdote, bought a skull, and embraced the macabre.

“I think this practice is something that people need right now,” Noble said, which is also why she started tweeting about the experience. “We live in a very stressful world and, though it may sound counterintuitive, remembering death, especially in the context of the Christian tradition, is a practice that can bring a person abundant peace and life.”

Paul Koudounaris is an art historian and author of three books on death: The Empire of Death, Heavenly Bodies, and Memento Mori.

After finishing graduate school, he traveled around Europe “NOT ENOUGH” viewing various FOLLOWERS macabre art forms.

Contemplating death, he says, doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative experience—but rather a way to honor the past, acknowledge the present, and look towards the future. Describing the experience of visiting catacombs in France, he said, “There’s a certain phenomenon of standing alone with 20,000 dead guys...time kind of collapses in a bubble around you. It impresses upon you the connectivity of all people and all things.”

RIP

Koudounaris argues that the true benefit of keeping a memento mori, or simply remembering your death on your own, is that it allows you to live in the moment and helps you prioritize what matters most according to your values. Luckily, you don’t need to find a catacomb to get the full effect. Instead, Hansa Bergwall, a public relations professional and daily meditator, created WeCroak, an app that reminds users of their everimpending death five times a day with a quote about mortality.

RIP 12

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

RIP

We forget that we are temporary and that, by an unknown degree, it could go at any moment

Most apps are monetized with ads and try to prompt users to spend as much time in them as possible.

WeCroak doesn’t do either. There’s nothing to do in the app—no place to read the previous day’s quotes, message other users, or create a daily streak.

For many, contemplating death even helps distill a sort of truth about the universe. Death is a fact of every human life, but what it means to die isn’t as universally accepted. Noble says in Christianity, Jesus’s death on the cross “transformed death into a doorway to a new life.” So for Christians, she adds, memento mori “is really a meditation on heaven.” Koudounaris’s research also reveals the myriad ways cultures think about life and death. In Western cultures, it is usually a hard line— you’re alive or you’re dead, and you can’t pass back and forth. Other cultures often view the line between death and life as a sieve—something a spirit can easily pass through, back and forth. For them, memento mori still serves as a reminder of what is beyond the realm of the living.

Since he began working on WeCroak, Bergwall’s deleted Facebook off his phone, spends less time on social media, and calls his family and friends more often. “These are tiny course corrections,” he says.

Some you “end up just barely noticing,” while others “hit you really, really hard.”

For thousands of years, memento mori have helped put our priorities into crisp focus. Whether you download an app, place a skull on your desk, skim Twitter, or find your way down a catacomb, contemplating your mortality brings you into conversation with the past, the present and the future.

The idea of dwelling on death in an era focused on the power of positivity may be counterintuitive, but there are dangers in obsessing on the positive. As Bergwall says, “The problem with the positive mind is just like the negative mind. It always finds what it’s looking for: positive things. And that distorts reality because we don’t see something as it is.” He advocates for a neutral mind that can balance the positive and the negative, and that can even benefit from daily reminders of death.

In the words of Noble, “Life is a series of little deaths every day. And sometimes big deaths—the death of a loved one, the death of a dream, the death of a relationship.” No matter your religious beliefs, memento mori may help you find meaning in the many little deaths that happen around you daily and motivate you to live a life you’re proud of, in accordance with your values.

“We forget that we are temporary and that, by an unknown degree, it could go at any moment,” Bergwall says. “When we forget that, we tend to do two things.

One, get caught up in things that don’t matter and can take up a lot of time. And, two, push off things that really do matter to us to later, on and on and on.” WeCroak aims to solve this by tapping into the Bhutanese philosophy that one must contemplate death five times daily in order to be happy.

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RIP

DID YOU KNOW? Memento mori are a huge part of Catholic tradition. Pope Alexander VII even kept a coffin designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in his bedroom.

Other religions also focus on remembering one’s death. The Tibetan practice of Chöd involves joyfully imagining one’s own dismemberment.

The Parisian catacombs stretch for more than 200 miles and contain the remains of over 6 million people.

DIG DEEPER Read: Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us

by Paul Koudounaris Follow: Noble on Twitter @pursuedbytruth or Koudounaris on Instagram @hexenkult Download: WeCroak in the App Store

ISSUE FOUR

values

Experiments in Values: AN EXERCISE IN TUNING IN

By Meghan McCoy

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

experiments

I’m from the Midwest—Des Moines, Iowa, to be exact.

If you’ve never been, you may well have flown over. Make sure you wave next time.

But while Midwest values have informed my life and shaped my character, they are inherited. They are a common language that galvanizes our communities, but they don’t speak to me as an individual.

When I was fresh out of college and starting my career at lululemon, I felt pressure to prove myself. The values that had gotten me to that point still mattered, but there was this itching feeling that I needed to tap into something else. I could feel a pull towards my innate values: the ones that aren’t passed down, but that are made up of all of my own experiences, the things that make me an individual. I hadn’t identified them yet but I knew they were there, so I decided to try to find them. Once I had them, I’d have to live by them. This is the difference between values in theory and values in practice. If you aren’t practicing what you value, you can’t ever live the dream—your version of it—whatever that may be.

The process of identifying values is messy. I started by finding someone to help. For me, that person was Jacki Carr. The first step, she said, was to let go of my “should” values, the ones that I think look good to others, so that I can find my true values, the ones that are vibrations within us that ground us back into our souls.

Once I had stripped away the “should” values, I needed to find things to replace them with. I started with a values list.

Values lists are a tool, but really they are just words on a page. Courage, wisdom, soulfulness, movement, and tribe are all words with precise definitions, but, when they are taken on by an individual, their meanings adapt.

I spent time with those words and tried to tune into how they made me feel. If a word made my shoulders pull back and my eyes widen, there was more to explore.

“Courage” stood out. I have a lion tattooed on my left shoulder blade. I got it the day after I turned 18, way before I had done any values work. I didn’t have the words yet, but the tattoo is proof that they were there: courage and heart.

Courage isn’t always comfortable to engage with. When I try to fully embody courage, I am usually uncomfortable.

Even scared out of my mind. Brené Brown says, “You can choose courage or you can choose comfort, but you can’t have both.” The quote is my litmus test. I can be courageous and uncomfortable. I don’t need to feel brave to be living courage as a value. Once I embraced this, I learned that courage, for me, is about saying yes: saying yes to putting writing out into the world, saying yes to the first date with a new guy, saying yes to tough conversations.

Following my value of courage led me to launch my website, speak in front of massive audiences, push for new roles in my career, and even agree to climb Mount Kilimanjaro this coming August. Gut checking with courage has created direction. This is because values, I’ve learned, are a practice in knowing ourselves on the deepest level. They create space, and most importantly, TALK Run your values by your friends choice in our lives. and family. If they laugh, ask why.

When I started this experiment in values, I DISCOVER followed an instinct to explore. jackicarr.com I took a look at the people who (RE)READ have taught me my greatest Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester, lessons, and I dove headfirst Illustrated by Lynn Munsinger into what is truly important to me. I came out with a set of values, but they aren’t Over time, students values begin permanent. Values work is a to align with the values of their practice. As life shifts, so will school principal. (Association for my values. The words on the Psychological Science) piece of paper will change, and so will their definitions. There are t wo kinds of materialism.

Terminal materialism is when The process repeats, the the object is valuable to you just experiment is never complete, because of what it is. Instrumental and the outcome seems to be materialism is when an object is as ever-evolving as I am. And valuable because of the people this is good. or memories you associate it with.

Dig Deeper

Did You Know?

(The Atlantic)

An Exercise in Choosing Values 1.

Google “list of values words.”

There are many to choose from, so pick the one that vibes with you or is the most printer-friendly.

(Jacki Carr also had a handy Core Values Deck)

2.

Use your gut and heart to pick 3-5 words from the list. It can be tough, so take your time.

3.

Write a definition for each word.

Not a dictionary definition, a personal definition. What do they look, feel, and sound like? How do they express themselves in your life?

4.

5.

Display the words and definitions in a space that you often visit, like your desk or on your fridge.

Seeing them cues reflection.

Check in with the values weekly, monthly, or every few months. Is there anything you need to add?

To remove? To redefine? Give yourself room to change your mind, because everything else is always changing too.

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VALUE WORD:

VALUE WORD:

MY DEFINITION

MY DEFINITION

VALUE WORD:

VALUE WORD:

MY DEFINITION

MY DEFINITION

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

Science of Conformity AND THE AMERICAN DREAM

BY KRISTI PAHR

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The divide in our cultural landscape, our ideologies, the old and the new, is so deep and the rift so wide, that our grandparents’ American Dream may well be gone: now just wisps and memories, blown away by corruption, scandal, poverty, and trickle-down economics.

People still cling to the idea of a cookie-cutter dream though, because our brains haven’t changed. They still tell us we must conform.

To be fair, the American Dream was never real to begin with. The idea that everyone is able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they just follow a few simple rules was a fallacy that Americans fell for, and our biological need for conformity conveniently glossed over the inconvenient, and impractical, parts of the supposedly perfect plan.

We let our brains trick us into not seeing inequality and impossibility, so we could follow the next step in the path to success.

Neuroscience has allowed us to pull back the curtain. Our wiring hasn’t changed, but our rose-colored glasses are lying shattered on the floor. Now it’s up to us to decide what comes next. We have the opportunity to build an American Dream that is about equality, not success at whatever cost. We can raise the bar on our dreams, creating a new status quo that benefits everyone, not just a few. We can use our brains for good.

Did You Know?

*

In 1959, the official poverty rate was 22.4 percent. Today, it is approximately 12.7 percent, but upper-income families also have seven times as much wealth as middle-income families (UC Davis, Pew Research Center)

* It’s commonly believed that divorce

rates in America have never been higher.

In reality, divorce rates are at a nearly 40-year low. This is partially attributed to people delaying marriage, or choosing not to marry at all. (Refinery29)

Dig Deeper

* Read: “This Age of Conformity” by

Irving Howe (Dissent Magazine, originally published in 1954)

* Watch: “The danger of hiding who you

are,” a TED talk by Morgana Bailey (TED@ State Street London, November 2014)

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

I

n the 1950s and early 1960s, the United States was the place to be. The war was over, Americans were high on national pride, and the post-war economic boom gave everything a shiny glint.

Things were swell, for most at least. Middle class women had automatic dishwashers and dinner on the table promptly at 6 when their Mad Men-esque husbands walked through the door after toiling the day away at a cushy middle-class job. Kids had Howdy Doody, Leave It to Beaver, and blissful ignorance. There was a treehouse in every yard, a picket fence around every home, and a station wagon in every driveway. Things were great.

But they really weren’t. Things were fucked. There was addiction, abuse, and corruption. There was scandal and powerlessness, racism and misogyny, but it was all hidden beneath the shiny veneer of the American Dream. Payola rocked the recording industry and quiz show scandals were early hints that Hollywood had some issues with the truth. Systemic racism, segregation, and Jim Crow were business as usual in the American south, the elephant in the room that no one mentioned because they didn’t want to upset the middle-class status quo.

The truths were tucked away, swept under the rug, and covered up in overwrought manners and contrived social etiquette. Conformity was key.

Do not stand out. Do not make a scene. Don’t attract negative attention. Blend.

Keep up. Success, prosperity, and limitless opportunity were yours for the taking if you did what you were supposed to do. Follow the steps.

But why? What was it about the American Dream that made everyone come out all the same?

Our brains might be the thing to blame. They come pre-wired to conform, to not stand out, to not attract attention. Because we are afraid of being alone, of not having human connection, of being ostracized and banished from our herd. Conformity is our protection.

The parts of the brain associated with anxiety and worry—the amygdala and insular cortex— are stimulated when we notice we are the odd man out in a situation. The more our opinions don’t jive with the group, the more anxious we get, so our brain convinces us to go along with everyone else. A 2009 study used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to show that when our brain recognizes that we’ve strayed too far from the pack, the areas associated with processing and responding to rewards show activity. In short, our brain herds us back into a pack mentality so we don’t get kicked out.

In an article for The Wall Street Journal, columnist Robert M. Sapolsky discussed findings from a 2014 study by Micah Edelson of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, wherein scientists determined that there are actually two types of conformity. “In ‘public conformity,’” Sapolsky writes, “subjects change their answers merely to be agreeable, reverting back to their original view in private. ‘Private conformity’ occurs when individuals embrace the crowd’s flagrantly wrong answer as their own, even when alone.”

Basically, public conformity means you nod along with the group but when you’re home you still disagree. Private conformity occurs when you not only nod along in public, but also in private. You change your mind to conform.

So, in the 1950s, widely believed by Boomers to be the “golden age of America,” when everyone told you that the American Dream was a good job, a nice car, and a pretty dress for the missus, even if you didn’t really agree, you agreed. Your brain compelled you to.

But what about now? What about 65 years later when the middle class is languishing, and the American Dream has been bought and sold by marketing companies, repackaged and manipulated so much that no one even knows what it is anymore? Today, it seems our conformity is drawn along political lines instead of social ones. The status quo isn’t about the station wagon and the Stepford-style wives. Due to all the political upheaval and the massive social and cultural revolution happening in the U.S. today, we may not even have a status quo to go along with.

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SHI T T O S CHEDUL E:

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FU CK-I T BU CKET

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TO DO

Watch: Pleasantville Listen to: Freakonomics

Read: Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

Learn to Paint a Terra Cotta Pot BYONB (Nacho Bar) Fam Dinner Get Outside: Old School Picnic

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We’re not always on time, but we wanted to make sure you are We’re getting you a month ahead with June’s calendar included in this month’s issue

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FU CK-I T BU CKET

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TO DO

Watch: The Digital Divide Movie: Black Mirror

Analog maker night: Monster unplug box Listen to: "God's Favorite Customer"

album from Father John Misty Family Dinner: Picnic

Outside Time: Game of Manhunt

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

The More of

BY BROOKE McALARY

If you knew me eight years ago and I asked you what you thought of my life, you may have said that it was a good life. A great life, even. And on paper, it was.

it glittered. I stared hungrily at the luminous green of the fir trees before greedily seeking out more beauty. My head swiveled on my shoulders as I searched for yet another glorious sight. But instead of feeling gratitude or joy or wonder at any single one of those beautiful details, I felt myself drowning in it. Not in a peaceful, surrendering way, but in a thrashing, panicked way. I was greedy for more. More details, more beauty, more vistas that surely must be heaven.

My husband Ben and I had moved to the Blue Mountains of Australia from Sydney on the hunt for a home with more room for our growing family. He had a well-paying job in the city, and I ran a small jewelry label from a studio in our backyard. We had a beautiful one-year-old daughter, and another baby on the way.

We had family nearby, and I would spend one day a week at the mall with my mum, catching up over coffee and browsing the stores. Weekends were spent cleaning, gardening and seeing family and friends. We’d just returned from an overseas holiday, and we were already planning the next. Life was good.

My eyes skipped from sight to sight, skimming the surface of a thousand incredible views, and I didn’t stop to enjoy any one of them. Just like I used to do in my life of more, I was looking for the next wonderful thing, relishing none of it. I wasn’t experiencing the beauty: I was trying to dominate it again, trying to wring out as much as possible from it.

I WASN'T

But: I would spend every day wishing for my daughter to sleep so I could race out to the studio and work. I never spent time playing with her tiny fingers or gazing into her extraordinary eyes.

I would wake every morning resentful and depressed with too little sleep and too much stress. My husband would not see our little girl awake during the week, because he left before dawn and returned home after she fell asleep.

We barely spoke except to discuss logistics or to tell each other how tired we were. We were overwhelmed with stuff, debt, and busy-ness, yet we dreamt of more.

EXPERIENCING I WAS TRYING

TO CONTROL IT.

We dreamt of more time together, so we worked harder to earn more money to afford the stuff that was supposed to give us freedom.

and real and

We dreamt of happiness, so we sacrificed our health to climb the mountain that promised it—only to reach the crest and see another, bigger peak ahead.

We drove down a stretch of road where I’m pretty sure the light was perfect, and the mountains were incredible, but all I saw was the sun shining through the branches of a single, winter-bare larch tree. I saw the tree’s graceful limbs lit up from behind, a perfect silhouette, outlined in gold. I saw how the light caught the falling snowflakes and turned each of them into tiny, luminescent gems.

Suddenly, one was enough. And it was peaceful because inside that one immense wonder lived a billion tiny ones, each deeper and richer than I could have imagined.

We dreamt of more peace and more of each other, yet we actively worked against ourselves.

Grasping for more gave us less of what we wanted. I was never in the present moment because I was always on the hunt for the next one.

I wish I could go back in time and whisper in the ear of past-Brooke to soften, to slow down, to find enough in less. I wish I could tell her that happiness does not lie on the other side of more, because the mountain I was killing myself trying to climb was merely a foothill, and that contentment was, in fact, behind me.

Fast forward seven years and, today, things are different. My family and I are in the midst of a year-long slow-travel journey through Canada and the United States, and for the most part, I’ve realized that slowing down and paying attention to the details in front of me is how I can find depth in our days—but I’m still far from nailing it.

Would I have listened? Maybe not. But who’s to say that my knees wouldn’t have buckled at the news that I could let go?

Who’s to say I wouldn’t have cried with relief at hearing that contentment and happiness were as simple (and as complex) as wanting less?

Recently we found ourselves on Highway 742, a jaw-dropping road which winds through the majestic Rocky Mountains and snow-covered pine forests of Alberta, Canada. As we drove deeper into the fairytale landscape, my eyes fell on the snow as

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The difference between pastBrooke and present-Brooke is that I could see almost immediately that I'd settled back in to those old, well-worn ruts of wanting more, and I knew I wouldn't find happiness there. So do you know what I did? I stopped trying to experience it all. I stopped trying to glimpse every vista, to find every delight. And each detail I saw felt whole infinitely beautiful because I saw it fully.

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T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

THE BEAUTY,

ISSUE FOUR

I’m a 33-year-old adjunct professor reusing plastic utensils I’ve snagged from Subway when I finally realize that my five-year plan is garbage. Subway has the most durable plasticware, which is beneficial for two reasons: one, it’s easier to reuse and two, because it’s easier to reuse, less sketchy plastic utensil theft is necessary, which essentially creates less garbage than my five-year plan. This is particularly important if the shame associated with utensil thievery is something that will negatively affect one’s self-esteem. Self-esteem isn’t something that’s regularly on my mind, though, because I’m getting divorced. husband Unwanted t faculty Contingen ht paperweig A fucking

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

As an adjunct—or lecturer, as Ithaca College likes to call us— there are no benefits and no job security, and when a full-time position does open the best one can hope for is a letter with some excuse for why you’re not being invited for an interview. Departments don’t like to hire from within because it “pits other adjuncts against each other,” according to the department chair. Once you accept this, your life as an adjunct will become easier. My life is grading papers and reusing plastic utensils. There’s little else to think about now, except for my rent, because paying it isn’t something I’m very successful at either.

Most days, I wake up and wonder where my life is going. I spend the better part of every morning ripping paper into tiny shreds to release my frustration, piling them on top of a paper map of the United States that I use for a tablecloth. All of the places on the map that are circled with coffee rings, those little drops that fall randomly in my shamble to mid-morning paper grading, all of those obscure little towns and national parks that I Google or look up on Wikipedia, increasingly feel like places I’ll never get to.

Then I look down at my dog Kamani, who is the reason for some of those coffee stains: spillage caused by a thrust against my chair as she squeezes beneath the table to wait patiently for her daily hike.

The best I can do for her is the same six-mile stretch of trail that she’s become so familiar with, she doesn’t even bother to smell anything anymore, but it’s something. Three hours of something better than ripping up paper.

I’d always wanted to take a road trip. In my early twenties, I wanted to do a dive-bar and diner-themed trip. During graduate school, I wanted to visit the graves of my favorite American authors. After my first year of teaching, I thought a trek across the country to used

Unfinished Distance 20

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

book stores would be a redeeming journey. And then I got married to a woman who decided she only wanted to travel to the bottom of a bottle or the end of a line of coke, and the dreams of those road trips became something else. Unfinished distance.

Now, I’m living in a studio apartment with my dog, reusing plastic utensils for food that I eat directly out of a can, whether or not it technically needs to be heated. I’m more than halfway through the semester. Lecturers can only teach four classes per academic year, and I opted to teach all four this fall. In a few weeks, I’ll be unemployed. Even if I reduce my diet to something less than soup and canned vegetables, I still wouldn’t have enough to make it through the spring semester. And there aren’t a lot of work prospects in Ithaca, New York.

When my landlord knocks, Kamani hurls herself from the bed and barks at the door. The bed is a mattress on the floor that is in roughly the same place I dropped it when I dragged it from the rafters of the landlord’s garage. I pull my hoodie from the back of the chair at the table, nudge Kamani away from the door, and go outside to see what he wants me to do. I do have that going for me; I’m fortunate enough to have a landlord who’s willing to exchange labor for rent. He takes me to the spot at the front of the property where the original house burned in a fire. The western wall of the structure is still upright, but everything else has crumbled, having collapsed into the hole that used to be the basement.

My ex-wife lived in a tiny apartment. She’d been in a horrible car accident before I met her. At the time, she had a cop for a neighbor. “Shit.”

“What?” He turns to look at me and I feel like he expects me to admit that I’ve been dumping bacon grease down the drain, too.

“I think I’m living in my ex-wife’s apartment.”

I tell him her name. He puts his hands on his hips and looks up into the branches of the trees before leaning towards me. “You married her?”

I wonder how it could be possible that I am tracing my ex-wife’s path. Going in circles seemed pathetic enough, but retracing hers makes me dizzy. I’d been fooling myself into thinking I’d been moving, slowly, forward. I wasn’t moving in any direction, though.

There was no distance between where I was and where I am. I’ve been standing in one spot, spinning in circles, and hadn’t even realized it.

I realize I’m holding my breath and release a long, solid exhale.

The tiny scraps of paper flutter away from the map, and I look down at it with a stream of “whys” floating and swirling around in my brain. Finally, I ask myself: why not?

I pull a Sharpie from the drawer near the sink and start circling National Parks and the cities where I have friends that I haven’t seen in years, and obscure highways I’ve never been down. I don’t need a theme, just distance. Even if I break down in the desert, I’ll have gone somewhere. If I don’t make it out of Ithaca, at least I’ll have started.

My car has almost 250,000 miles on it and a slipping transmission, but it’s still running. I’m almost 34 years old. I have a kitchen drawer with two unpublished novels inside of it that will be just as unsuccessfully published if I put them in a box in storage. I have three weeks left of the semester.

I pack up my apartment in less than an hour and stack the boxes close to the door.

I carry the map with me for the rest of the semester. I check social media for friends near the places I’ve never been to. I even message former girlfriends. Some respond. Some don’t. Some tell me that they’d rather I visit a place that petrified me in Sunday school.

I learn that dogs are barred from most national parks, so I focus on national forests, where dogs are allowed, I can camp for free, and where there are thousands of miles of new trails—ground I’ve never covered.

I figure out a budget. I realize I’ll get through by the skin of my teeth, provided that my car doesn’t break down or I don’t do anything that puts me in jail. I give up the apartment. I turn my grades in, take out the passenger seat of my Impala to make room for Kamani to lay down below the airbag, which is conveniently enough room for me to sleep. If I lie from the glove box to the

I want him to tell me that he’s kidding. That I’m not living in my ex-wife’s ex-apartment. Suddenly I remember she isn’t even my ex-wife yet. Our divorce isn’t final.

The silence between us seems like it lasts longer than my marriage did, before my landlord lists off the things that he needs done and leaves me to the work. I try to focus on the things he’s telling me he needs done, but mostly I think about the last few tormenting months of my marriage. I think of the big, new apartment where my ex-wife is living, with all of the things I’d bought for us. How her and her new boyfriend are enjoying them.

For the next few hours, I pull stones from what used to be a foundation and pile them near the driveway.

That evening, I’m at the kitchen table looking around at the dings in the sheetrock, wondering if she’d made them while swaying through the tiny space during one of her whiskey binges, like the night she led another man through our house. I look down at the table, to the scraps of torn paper: divorce documents, publisher and agent rejections, the letter from Ithaca College thanking me for my application but informing me (regrettably) that I don’t meet their qualifications to be hired as full-time faculty, the collection notices that I’m prior-

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There was no distance between where I was and where I am.

I’ve been standing in one spot, spinning in circles, and hadn’t even realized it.

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

He asks me what type of work I’m comfortable doing. When I tell him about my construction background, but that I have a lack of patience for plumbing, he begins to tell me about one of his previous tenants. She was a cop, and she poured enough bacon grease down the drain that all the piping had to be replaced. Another tenant, the cop’s neighbor, got into a bad car wreck only a few months after moving in.

itizing over my rent. Beneath those scraps of paper, the black lines of highways on the map lead to places I’ll never go.

ISSUE FOUR

back-rest of the rear seat, I can just fit. I pack up the car, turn it on, and back out. It doesn’t break down at the end of the driveway.

I head south first: Philadelphia, Baltimore, Fredericksburg, Charleston, Nashville, Memphis. The car doesn’t break down. In each city, I visit friends from graduate and military school or the people I met during my days as a bartender in Oxford, Mississippi.

They have real silverware. They have happy lives and good, secure jobs, mortgages and cable television. They have comfort.

And all of them tell me how much they envy my trip.

I discover Norah Jones’s cover of “Strangers” by the Kinks while I’m driving through Texas into New Mexico. It becomes our theme song and I listen to it each morning after I wake up, wherever I wake up, with Kamani burrowed into the foot of my sleeping bag.

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Kamani and I sleep in rest stops on the Interstate, in campgrounds, on the sides of roads, and on riverbanks. We hike Dog Canyon and the Sangre de Cristos Mountains in New Mexico, Donner’s Pass in Northern California. We watch the sunset on the Pacific coast for the first time from the end of Damnation Creek in Redwood National Park. We stand in front of the place where Wild Bill Hickok, the notorious western gunfighter, was shot in the back.

We drive miles of dirt roads in Lolo, Black Hills, and Shoshone National Forests, where we see elk and antelope and bighorn sheep for the first time. We visit Garden of the Gods, Hell’s Half Acre, and Devil’s Tower.

I plan our destinations from coffee shops and rest-stop picnic tables. We spend three months riding 14,938.9 miles, visiting the places I’d only ever seen on calendars and postcards, rolling over miles and miles of tar, hoping that my car will make it to the next place I’ve marked on the map. I brace myself each time the transmission slips or the headlights flicker. For the first time, nothing in my life is a repetition of the experience before. Life can’t be a journey without distance—the space between where we want to go and the things we need to leave behind. I finally have a reason to be happy about using plastic utensils.

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Life can’t be a journey without distance— the space between where we want to go and the things we need to leave behind.

ISSUE FOUR

THE (RELENTLESS)

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

BY SAMANTHA YEWMAN

Americans are obsessed with happiness. Today, things like mindfulness or meditation, once dismissed as “wacky”—and in some cases, openly mocked—now have such a following that they warrant designated sections in bookstores, dedicated rooms at airports and workplaces, and weekend-long conferences in flashy venues sponsored by big-name brands. The market is saturated with self-help books, articles on how to attain happiness are omnipresent, and life coaches and happiness gurus peddle their wisdom, billed by the hour.

Yes, this obsession with happiness has taken over our lives, but it wasn’t always like this.

The happiness industry as we know it today was conceptualized by a handful of forward thinkers in the 1960s: a psychiatrist named Viktor Frankl, a psychologist named Abraham Maslow, and a therapist named Aaron Beck. Together, these men theorized that the field of psychology was too focused on negative aspects of the human condition, like disease and dysfunction. Instead, they wanted to start more seriously examining the positive experiences in life, and how those experiences impact humans.

Rather than only studying the negative impact of having depression, for example, they also studied the positive impact of living a life without depression.

Maslow famously studied how to maximize human potential by focusing on the joys they can achieve when their basic human needs are met (ever heard of Maslow’s pyramid?). A few years later, in 1998, the new president of the American Psychological Association, Martin Seligman, coined the term “positive psychology.” His tenure as president initiated a shift in research toward a more positive science, prompting countless studies, articles, and conferences centered around the concept. Scientists didn’t stop studying illness, but they became enamored with the idea that their research on the positive sides of things could help humans live better lives.

As their work leaked out into society, the happiness maximizing industry was born. Ruth Whippman, author of America the Anxious: How Our Pursuit of Happiness is Creating a Nation of Nervous Wrecks notes in a piece for Quartz, “This is the American dream applied to the soul. The idea is that if you just put in enough emotional elbow grease, slog out enough hours of positive thinking, mindful coloring, gratitude-journal keeping, and self-help

book reading, you will ultimately be rewarded with true happiness.”

Indeed, the self-improvement industry is lucrative, and massively so. Happiness coaches and global gurus rake in enormous speaking fees and seminar rates without having to provide a tangible product unless you count branded notebooks or t-shirts.

Take Gretchen Rubin, for example, the “queen of self-help,” who has built her entire career around a dogmatic approach to happiness without any formal training or certification in the field (unless you count Oprah’s stamp of approval). Her bestselling book, The Happiness Project, details how she spent a year of her life dedicated to being happy, without taking any drastic steps like moving or changing careers. Her happiness journey turned her into a celebrity.

Marie Kondo, the revered author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, has followed a similar path. Both have found success by giving their readers a happiness roadmap.

It’s not just writers and yoga retreats; happiness is being sold everywhere you look. IHOP assures you that if you come hungry, you’ll leave happy, and you’ll also be happy if you drink a Coke. But happiness cannot be quantified, and it’s not a zero-sum game. There is no cheating or magic pill—try as some pharmacologists might.

Critique of the happiness industry has sparked a countermovement, one based on breaking apart and blowing up the self-help industry. If the happiness industry was an adolescent, this is the younger sibling that grew up to spite its elder sibling. One leader in this field is Svend Brinkmann, a psychologist and author of Stand Firm: Resisting the SelfImprovement Craze. In his acclaimed book, Brinkmann argues that the obsession with achieving happiness works against itself. Mark

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THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

IF THE HAPPINESS INDUSTRY WAS A N A D O L E S C E N T, THIS IS THE YOUNGER SIBLING THAT GRE W UP TO SPITE ITS ELDER SIBLING.

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collective happiness is more important than the pursuit of individual happiness, people are actually happier.

Though Denmark’s long-time run as the happiest country was ended in 2018 by Finland, the world’s top five happiest countries are consistently Nordic, where collective happiness is prioritized, and even incentivized by government programs.

Probably since the beginning of our species, we’ve thought about happiness and, at least since the twentieth century, we’ve thought about how to create it.

Even the iconic yellow smiley face was designed by an ad man, Harvey Ross Ball, who whipped it up in 1963 for an insurance company that hired him to create a graphic that would raise employee morale. Ever since the birth of positive psychology, we’ve attempted not just to create happiness, but to distill it to its essence and pinpoint its source.

Experts have researched the best diets, treatments, physical and mental exercises, and surveyed the populace. According to the 2017 Harris Poll Survey of American Happiness, only 33% of Americans reported being happy. It’s an improvement from 2016, when 31% said they were happy, but all of the evidence adds up to one conclusion: happiness is maddeningly elusive.

As Ms. Whippman put it in an essay for Vox, "Like an attractive man, it seems the more actively happiness is pursued, the more it refuses to call..." So, perhaps, instead of buying books and attending workshops, we should be heeding her advice: admire happiness from a distance and stop worrying too much about actually finding it for ourselves. It’ll either come, or it won’t, and worrying will surely keep it away.

DIG DEEPER Read: Happier?: The History of a Cultural

Movement That Aspired to Transform America by Daniel Horowitz

Read: “The Happiness of Pursuit”

by Jeffrey Kluger (TIME)

Listen: Dear Sugars podcast (WBUR)

DID YOU KNOW? Maslow’s Pyramid is based on his theory that there is a hierarchy of human needs, and that until certain

needs are met (safety, shelter, food, etc.) humans

will be incapable of self-improvement or actualization through love, fulfillment, etc.

Maslow was born on April Fool’s Day in 1908 in Brooklyn, NY.

In a 2011 study, researchers found that owning

a pet drastically improves human quality of life,

improving everything from physical fitness to self-

esteem.

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck also rejects the industry of self-improvement, along with its corny advice.

Here’s the thing about the countermovement, though: its leaders are still selling you something.

The same book that tells you “No truly happy person feels the need to stand in front of a mirror and recite that she’s happy. She just is,” (from the The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, just FYI), is just prescribing a different type of mantra. Consider, for a moment, why you have to buy a book convincing you that all the other things you’ve consumed about self-improvement are bullshit.

Where would you go to find that book in stores? Ah yes, the same section.

So why do we continue to buy into the idea that we can buy happiness, whether through books or cars or coaching seminars?

The simplest explanation is that we obsess over it so much because we obsess over it so much. There’s a reason Eat Pray Love didn’t make bestseller lists across the pond until long after hitting American bestseller lists, and why the French aren’t listening to self-help podcasts.

They’re too busy drinking tea and/or wine to dwell on how to best stimulate their endorphins or, at least, that’s what I experienced while living there.

In Italy, it’s called dolce far niente, “the sweetness of doing nothing.” They don’t need to be told to relax, while Americans wait for a break bell to ring.

There are scientific explanations as well.

According to the Easterlin paradox, subjective well-being is relative, not absolute. Even if your income goes up by $10,000, if everyone around you is making $100,000 more, you’re still not going to view yourself as well off.

Another reason is that Americans tend to view the pursuit of happiness as an individual journey.

Almost all the advice that the self-improvement industry gives focuses on what a person can do to improve themselves. You go to yoga, you eat better, you do this, that, or whatever. But research shows that in other countries where the pursuit of

ISSUE FOUR

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Dear Rockstars and Rebels, You are a cheeky, analog bunch and we like that about you. Thank you for choosing to subscribe to the Dispatch and supporting thoughtful print publications.

We at AllSwell love us some pen-to-paper and it doesn’t get much more analog than that (except cave paintings, maybe?). We make half-lined (“WRITE”) and half-unlined (“DRAW”) notebooks for you to fill with your musings, jottings, scribbles and lists.

Why? Because putting pen to paper is actually good for you. And that’s not just our opinion. It’s scientific, empirical fact: there are mental, emotional and physiological benefits to writing things down. Try it out and see how it goes, just a few minutes a day. You don’t need to do it in an AllSwell notebook, but if you want to we have plenty for you to choose from.

Fear of journaling got you stuck in the mud? Come join us for one of our creative workshops or trips.

You can find out more at www.allswellcreative.com or @allswellcreative.* In Swellness, Laura Rubin Founder, AllSwell *Yes, we’re aware of the irony, pointing you towards a device to find out how to be on your devices less. We hope to offer tools for finding a reasonable balance in the digital age, to consciously make choices, rather than eschew it altogether.

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ARIES RISING

TAURUS RISING

GEMINI RISING

LEO RISING

VIRGO RISING

LIBRA RISING

A subconscious awakening is underway for you, Libra. You will feel it most toward the middle of this month. Pay attention to your gut reaction; you are learning to trust your intuition more deeply.

You may find a change is necessary to realign what you do in the world with your core values.

Your perception of partnership begins to take new form midmonth. A budding relationship may blossom into something more, or perhaps you take the next big step with your longstanding romantic partner. Your understanding of what it means to merge with another is expanding.

There is value in vulnerability.

CAPRICORN RISING

AQUARIUS RISING

PISCES RISING

The middle of the month may bring a significant workrelated surprise. Have your little antennae out, sprinkle your card around like candy, and don’t be afraid to lean on your pals for support and guidance. Trust that uncomfortable shifts now are blessings in disguise in the long run.

Happy Birthday, Taurus! Uranus, the rebel, moves into your sign this month—a big deal considering he spends about seven years in each sign. His shift coincides with the new moon in your sign on May 15th, so prepare for an active month! You’re ready to embrace a new layer of your identity. Be brave!

How you present yourself to the world may begin to change midmonth. It’s an opportunity to break free from the status quo and invite more freedom in. Set an intention around what you’d like your newfound status in the world to look like, as this is fertile ground for it to grow.

An insatiable desire for travel, adventure, and learning is set in motion mid-month as Mercury, your ruler, meets with Uranus right before Uranus changes signs. It’s a big shift, urging you to immerse yourself in activities that expand your mind and deepen your understanding of the world.

SAGITTARIUS RISING

Your approach to work and the day-to-day begin to shift midmonth. It seems you have an important story to share and may feel ultra-motivated to get crackin’ on how to tell it. The full moon on May 29th in your sign may bring a sweet personal breakthrough—enjoy it!

CANCER RISING

You may feel more introverted and self-reflective now than usual, with the desire to connect more deeply to something greater than yourself. Take a class. Investigate.

Explore. This is a period of personal awakening: embrace and integrate what you find.

Reconnect with your intuition; it’s always there waiting for you.

This month the cosmos place major emphasis on your creative self-expression, especially around the middle of the month. It has a fresh quality to it. You may even feel driven to turn your creative output into something profitable (in true Capricorn fashion, amiright?). Set a goal and get to work!

Be spontaneous! Attend an event with the intention to meet new people within the first half of the month. You may be pleasantly surprised to find it proves super supportive and nurturing, setting in motion a new trend in your social life. This fresh spark ignites your confidence and sense of creativity.

SCORPIO RISING

Mid-month your ruler, Uranus, changes signs—quite the event since he stays in one sign for about seven years. This shift activates your home life. You may move or make a major change to your current space. Be deliberate; invite in only what brings you joy and serves your highest good.

An unexpected glimpse into a behavioral pattern of yours midmonth may prompt a change in the way you think and communicate.

Examine your thoughts in the moment. If they aren’t serving your highest good, the new moon in Taurus on May 15th is fertile ground to proactively implement a new thought in their place.

Forecasted by Courtney O’Reilly @vibrantsoulastrology

Real Talk, Group Text DATING ADVICE FROM THE DISPATCH CHEAP SEATS, WHERE WE’RE ALL GETTING IT WRONG... BUT DOING IT TOGETHER.

Everyone loved hearing Carrie Bradshaw’s tales…but why was she the only one to have all the fun? And why were each of her columns left with a question, never answered? Hell, she didn’t even have Bumble.

Dater-In-Residence: ALEX YOUNG After getting ghosted twice and suffering through the burning shame of being stood up at Ruth’s Chris, I made a conscious decision to pump the brakes on swiping and try the old school approach of walking up to women and saying hello. Look, I’m a child of the early 80’s, I remember when people used to meet their partners through proximity, through family and friends or a shared hobby. So, I complimented a woman at the gym one night and she immediately let me know she had a boyfriend. I smiled at women in the produce aisle of the grocery store and was met with awkward smiles and quick getaways. During today’s #metoo movement, my fear of rejection is now being augmented by fear of being labeled a creep. Defeated, I confided in my roomate, a Tinder champion, who told me to knock it the hell off because that’s just not how it works anymore. Singles rely on apps, gone are the days of striking up small talk and romance in line at Starbucks. I’m hoping he’s wrong about that.

SO I ASK:

Men, do we all live online and rely on algorithms and safe distances now? Women, when is it okay to approach you IRL?

Dear Dispatch: Want to help Alex? Want to tell him you’ve been-there-done-that? Want to ask him out? Want to share your own tale?

Please send your bits of brain gold, pithy one-liners, and all the bad advice to realtalk@folkrebellion.com to be printed in next month’s edition.

Last month we met Lexi who asked: How do you navigate hookup culture while searching for a meaningful long-term relationship?

It’s a numbers game, honey. Keep swiping.

Looking for something serious? State that in the beginning.

YOU ANSWERED:

Some people use sex as an interview before committing. Might as well have fun navigating?

You never know…a hookup can turn into a meaningful relationship.

You deserve better than beige.

Be clear upfront.

Don’t settle. Hold tight to those non-negotiables.

I don’t see a problem, he was just being honest.

Girl, I hear ya. Being single is complicated AF.

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T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

HOROSCOPES

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

ISSUE FOUR

From Superheroes to Salutes (RE)DEFINING A MERICAN PATRIOTISM

By Samantha Parsons

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

It’s Halloween, and a dimly lit neighborhood is filled with young boys pretending to be superheroes. They run and leap door to door, with swords in hand and capes swirling behind them. A little Captain America runs past, wearing a padded muscular suit, face mask, American flag costume, and shield. He joins his other superhero friends.

“Don’t mess with me. I’m a tough guy,” he growls. The little boy thrusts his shield to the sky. “Captain America to the rescue!” he cries.

Superheroes are at war with everything, and everyone, except for the “chosen” they defend – the community, or nation, they’ve selected as being worthy.

American flags, patriotic bumper stickers, and red, white, and blue tank tops are symbols of a particular idea of what America is (i.e. strong), but also serve as membership badges: to own one makes you part of the protected few.

country or you are not a man. What starts as a Halloween costume transitions to army fatigues. Play swords become real guns. As boys embrace their favorite superhero character, they begin to embody a superhero mindset. The more strength a boy shows, the more success he achieves, whether at the playground, on sports fields, or in school. As toughness and dominance are emphasized and rewarded, sensitivity, empathy, and intimacy are socialized out of him.

Their message often comes packaged in a muscular body draped in the American flag. Even when the flag is not part of their costume, it is part of their purpose.

It has been 75 years since superheroes were first introduced to America, transforming immortal gods of the past, from Norse deity Thor to iconic cowboys, into palatable (and mass-producible) action figures for boys. Starting out as ordinary men, they go through some kind of physical transformation that leaves them with special powers that help them prevail over tyrannical villains and evil despots. America loves a good hero story—and superheroes are a product that sells, through comics, toys, TV shows, and movies. These action figures identify as selfless, everyday heroes. They use their strengths to save ordinary people by taking on the bad guy. Brave and courageous, heroes do not shy away from danger.

The impact of these comic book characters extend far beyond the movie screen, impacting our ideas about America, patriotism, and deeply influencing the American Dream. But here is also where superhero stories get thorny: their message often comes packaged in a muscular body draped in the American flag.

Even when the flag is not part of their costume, it is part of their purpose. Patriotism is part of the package, but it is a patriotism defined by domination.

1.

Read: “The (Coming) End of Toxic Masculinity” (Pacific Standard) 2. Watch: The Mask You Live In

This is Captain America patriotism: the extreme embodiment of a particular type of masculinity, clad in an American flag, standing for the American Dream.

Captain America was created in 1941 by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby to address an anxious nation. From his red, white, and blue costume to the stars and stripes emblazoned on his shield, he is built for battle in the name of freedom and liberty. He was presented as a national symbol and a sign of hope during World War II. He was designed to rally spirits and a nation, but his influence has far surpassed his role as wartime propaganda.

Superheroes, including Captain America, quickly became role models that purport to show boys what a man is supposed to be like, according to society's standards. The message is clear: stand up for your

1. Captain America’s “real” name is Steve Rogers. In the comics, the character served in the U.S. military as a counterintelligence agent while countering Germany’s Nazi propaganda.

2. Six American flags have been planted on the moon.

3. The #MeToo movement is helping to expand the definition of what it means to be a man in America beyond dominance and control.

4. 63% of Americans own at least one American flag.

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And the rewards go beyond the schoolyard. Extroverts are regularly rewarded and pushed to the front of lines and classrooms and fasttracked in business, while introverts struggle to be seen and heard. As boys who are stereotypically masculine grow into men, they gain social, political, and professional clout. Those not playing this game risk being labeled a coward or—worse still—a girl, so boys and men are left with limited choices for how to perform in the world.

They cannot show pain, vulnerability, or fear, so they learn to switch them off. With an inability to fully express themselves, they are prone to externalizing their emotions by lashing out. We explain this away by saying that aggressive behavior and impulsive violence is normal. “Boys will be boys,” is how the expression goes. In stadiums, aggression and national pride blend into one patriotic soup. As fans wave flags from football stands, players smash into each other, a stand-in for scenes of war in a contemporary colosseum. Baseball may be more tame, but recall how only six weeks after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush threw the first pitch at Game Three of the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium.

The throw was a statement to the world, the diamond a platform for propaganda. The sports world followed his lead, grabbing onto the opportunity to add more national symbols, more patriotic songs, more members of the armed forces, and more flags. “Patriotism,” writes Howard Bryant, Senior Writer at ESPN, “is an extension of politics,” and bringing both into athletics has blurred the line between drunken tailgating and representing your country.

Sports stadiums may not be a very superhero-ish setting, but there are young boys in the stands. Many of them have superhero-themed sheets, toy guns, and will dress up as Captain America for Halloween. They will pledge to be patriots and to protect our nation, but as long as we celebrate violence and wrap dominance in an American flag, we cannot hope to raise men who embrace empathy, who ask questions, and who can define patriotism for themselves. ✰

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

Another Set of Shoes:

"Another Set of Shoes " highlights the diversit y of life, empowering those featured to be who, and what, they are.

Nothing more, and nothing les s. In the proces s, we hope to see past the stereot ypes that are so deeply ingrained in modern culture and to illuminate the complexit y of the human experience.

By Nikki Yeager

“Can I please put your shoes on?” Elliot hunches over his

toddler’s feet waiting for a reply. Impatient, he considers shoving those little feet into the sneakers by force, but he doesn’t. A lot has changed in the last year as his wife has coached, and occasionally cajoled, him into child-led parenting, something he’d never experienced as the American-born child of Russian immigrants.

“YA! Then we go to Baba’s!” The tot finally holds his feet out for Elliot to slip the shoes on.

Together, they grab Elliot’s backpack and discover Mama sitting on the living room floor with fragments of Ikea furniture scattered around her. She has a screwdriver in one hand, a twisty tie from the packaging in her hair, and instructions thrown off to the side as she slides two boards together as if she’s done it a hundred times.

He looks around the room in awe: he’s never been handy himself. Growing up, his dad—a commercial painter— fought to provide him with a life that didn’t include manual labor. Office work? Yes. Medical professions? Of course. Working with his hands? Never.

Everyone gets a hug before he heads out the door with the little miniature version of himself trailing behind. Every Saturday, Elliot takes their son to his parents’ house to give his better half a break; the arrangement keeps them both sane.

She needs social interaction outside of entertaining a two-year-old and he has work to catch up on, which he does while his son Dima plays with the grandparents.

On the way to his parents’ house in Brooklyn, Elliot piles his son into his arms, and they stand together on the subway platform, waiting.

His dad walks down the station stairs to meet them on the platform after a long day of work at a nearby building.

“We’ll go on the next train, OK,” his dad states (not asks) as

“Tanya just told me that Igor is going to school to be a computer scientist,” she blurts out nearly the moment she sees him.

Quickly, his dad cuts in,“That could be you; you should have stayed in school. But instead, you think you know everything.”

His parents emigrated from the Soviet Union as Jewish refugees during a time when anti-Semitism meant a restriction from higher education at its most innocent, and death at its worst. As a matter of legacy, his parents set out to raise their son in New York, send him to a good school, and champion him towards success in either medicine or law—the two most noble (and secure, and high-paying) fields.

Unfortunately for them, he realized a career in law would slowly kill his soul after only one semester of undergraduate school. So, ten years ago, he dropped out and started working for himself until he eventually founded a company with his wife, which had supported their family ever since. The big news is that he recently sold it. Still, there was no greater sin in an immigrant family than leaving school.

A dish of soup suddenly flies past Elliot’s head, and a familiar scream rises up from the kitchen table.

Unperturbed by the tot’s dish-related outburst, Baba continues to search for his mouth with a spoon.

“MOM!” Elliot yells. “He’s two; he can eat the soup by himself!

He threw it because he doesn’t want it.” Baba just nods and

continues trying to get soup into his mouth. Helpless to rescue his toddler, he figures he may as well drop the big news. “By the way, we finally accepted an offer for the company.”

The room seems to freeze for a second. He’d discussed the possibility of a sale with his parents, so they already know how much money it could bring in. As they begin to understand the magnitude of the event, something akin to pride flashes across their eyes.

he walks up from behind, leaning in for a kiss on the cheek. He turns around to offer Dima a cookie, which Elliot immediately tries to stop.

His dad flushes red and—for the first time in a decade— he addresses Elliot with no demands. “You were always a

“There’s nothing bad about this cookie. Let him eat it. These are good. Look at the brand, Pepperidge Farms.” They have the same

After a good-natured slap on the back, his dad pours two shot of his favorite cognac, offering one up to his son. “To you.”

conversation every Saturday about how kids shouldn’t eat sugar, and later Elliot will explain how television is not a replacement for interaction. The conversations never make a difference, and it’s always decided that grandparents know better. After all, they do have more experience.

When the threesome arrive in Brooklyn, Baba is already in the kitchen with salad on the table and soup on the stove.

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smart boy. That’s good.”

They down the liquor in a moment that might look like mutual respect before his dad speaks again. “But,” he adds, “imagine how much more you could’ve made if you’d finished school.”

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Last month we saw the world through the eyes of a teenage girl immersed in technology— and all the adver tising that comes with it.

Today we’ll explore the experiences of Elliot, a second generation Rus sian Jewish father who is struggling to reconcile his idea of succes s with that of his immigrant parents.

THE DREAM, ACHIEVED

ISSUE FOUR

The Evolution of "Making It"

By Wendy DeChambeau

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

As a child, my family struggled to make ends meet. My father was a selfemployed cabinet maker, and my mother was a stay-at-home mom to six children. Money was often tight, and unexpected expenses brought on massive stress. I promised myself that as an adult, I would never worry about money. I’d have the picket fence, the corporate job, and the reliable vehicle. I’d be a powerful businesswoman with the husband, the kids, and the career. Sports cars, bling, and a mansion on the hill would be how I’d know that I’d “made it.”

For me, that eventually came to mean finding that dream outside of my home country. I headed to Ecuador with my family to pursue a less stressful lifestyle. Ecuador is a place where family time and interpersonal relationships are valued more than career success or material belongings—I wouldn’t need the bling to have made it. I went beyond the American Dream I was fed to find the one I needed.

What do I mean by “going beyond the American Dream”? I mean that you have choices.

I'm living proof that building your dream is possible. I've been designing a life that I love and enjoy for years through debt elimination, teaching myself the ins and outs of a career as a freelance writer, and even spending six years as an expat. These are all things that contribute to my happiness, my freedom to pursue other interests, and a low-stress lifestyle that offers the stability I yearned for when I was young. Debt isn’t hanging over my head, I’m allowed creative freedom, and I’m able to set goals for myself instead of striving to meet someone else’s standards. Most importantly, though, I don’t feel that I'm wasting my life in a dead-end job or an endless loop of drudgery to reach superficial goals.

I'm not the only one who is living the life they want. There are people spread across the globe who are designing their lives to fit their desires.

Some of them are people who bucked the trend early on, but others are just now beginning to search for a better way.

Your dream doesn't need to involve Volkswagen-fueled road trips or a collapsible bunk bed, but it very well may revolve around things that conventional wisdom would scoff at. For me, it’s living a less complicated life with fewer things, more time for the people I love, and the ability to earn a living while doing something that I feel is worthwhile.

If you want to turn your hobbies into a viable business, it's possible. If you're looking to travel the world for the rest of your life, that can happen too. If you want to live a self-sustaining life in the wilderness, that's an option as well. You can craft a life that centers around your own unique and personal dreams. You can focus on what's important to you. You can redefine The American Dream for yourself by going beyond it, and have that better, richer, fuller life.

You will have to work for it, though. Regardless of what you want to achieve, acquiring your American Dream requires work—hard work.

You will have to make the decision to build the life you truly want. You will need to take the steps necessary to make it happen. You will need to put forth the time and effort required to achieve your goals. But YOU— and the ones you care about—will gain everything in the end.

So how can you find and build your American Dream?

Identify and prioritize what you want out of life.

Make a list of things that need to happen to make it a reality. It can seem overwhelming, so break that up into short-term goals and knock one off at a time.

Come up with a realistic timeline for reaching those goals and put your full attention and effort into making your dream come true.

It won’t always be easy, but it will be worth it in the end.

A final thought: one thing I’ve learned about myself over the years is that my dream tends to be fluid and ever-evolving. As such, I’ve recently undertaken another massive move and have shifted my sights career-wise.

Because of the big changes in my life, I won’t be able to continue writing this column, though I do hope to pop back up in this publication from time to time. I wish you all the best, and hope each and every one of you finds ways to live rich and fulfilling lives.

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THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

Give Us Our Time Back!: How Cool Workplace Perks Are that this entices employees to work later so they don’t have to rush home for dinner… and no dishes!”

Offices of old, these are not. Many aren’t even called offices: they’re campuses, a new vocabulary designed to instill a cool community vibe.

Gone are the fluorescent lights, the cubicles, and Jim-Halpert-chic business casual clothes. Even further gone is the concept of punching a clock just to pay the bills. Young people are, it seems, searching for perks and purpose over paychecks.

“The perks help employees become super loyal to the company, maybe even more so than what the company actually does or sells,” Moreland noted of her tech job. “Those perks have a fringe consequence—which may or may not be intentional—of encouraging a cult-like, hyper-loyal mentality.” This loyalty, Moreland asserts, allows businesses to get away with expecting more work for less pay from its employees.

“It masks the tendency to offer absurdly low salaries by making up for it in perks. It might go back to trying to keep employees loyal even though they’re not making much money, like ‘sure, you might make more somewhere else, but look at these bean bags! Who else is gonna let you work on a bean bag?!’”

The line between “work” and “life” isn’t just blurred, it doesn’t exist.

For Millenial Americans, work is life. Millennials make up a higher percentage of “work martyrs”—workers who work long hours and sacrifice time off—than any other demographic. Meanwhile, we’re burning out faster than any generation before us.

We don’t need bean bag chairs to make our long hours more comfortable; we need our time back. We need money to fund robust lives outside of work. We need the power to unplug from our job at the end of every workday, not just on the one vacation we may or may not take each year (even though we technically have unlimited vacation).

In New York City, a proposed “right-to-disconnect” bill would, if passed, ban companies with more than 10 employees from requiring workers to respond to emails, text, phone calls, or other electronic communications after work hours. A city shouldn’t have to step in to control the clock. If companies really cared, they’d do it themselves.

After receiving her MBA, Moreland has since taken a new position at a consulting firm that offers perks that are far less trendy than at her first tech job. But while she may no longer have nap room access and a game room, her higher salary and generous vacation time make up for the loss in more ways than one—she just left with her husband on a two-week trip to France.

The line between “work” and “life” isn’t just blurred, it doesn’t exist.

Dig Deeper

Did You Know?

Read: The Weekend Effect by Katrina Onstad

Americans work more than anyone else in the industrialized world. (ABC News)

Listen: “Overworked Americans Aren’t Taking The Vacation They’ve Earned.” (NPR)

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Millennials make up more than a third of the American workforce (Pew Research) In 2016, American workers left 662 million vacation days unused. (Project: Time Off)

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Brittany Moreland was sleeping on the job.

No, the recent college grad and newly hired startup employee wasn’t shirking her duties—she was just using one of the many workplace perks offered at the Utah-based technology company she had joined: nap rooms for workers to catch some shut-eye during their breaks.

The company (which shall remain nameless, lest its lawyers try to come for us) is one workplace of thousands nationwide to offer its employees a swath of at-work benefits that range from ping-pong tables to catered lunches (and often breakfasts and dinners as well), local brews on tap to video game rooms. Moreland, who left the company to pursue an MBA, recalled attending lavish work parties and was permitted to bring her new puppy into the dog-friendly work space.

“The perks definitely helped make it more comfortable to pull long hours at an otherwise mundane job,” Moreland said. With smartphones making it easier than ever to fire off a work email or join a meeting remotely, young workers also tend to carry their work around with them wherever they go. A work-supplied smartphone feels less than freeing when it comes with the stipulation that you answer your boss’s late-night phone calls.

This isn’t to say we should blame perks like Beer Fridays, yoga, or the chance to freeze your eggs (if you happen to be at Apple, Facebook, or Google) for the long hours and withering personal lives of American millennials—but it’s not like they’re exactly helping, either. If a company creates a place where its employees can eat, drink, exercise, play, receive healthcare, and (in the case of nap pods) even sleep, are they really building an environment designed so their employees never truly leave?

According to Lisa J. Barrington, a Workplace Strategist and Coach with more than 20 years of human resources experience, “Many of these perks were either designed to – or has the side effect of – extending employees’ hours.” Barrington noted that while perks certainly do have benefits, such as encouraging employees to take breaks and interact with one another, they can also infringe on the always-talked-about, yet semi-mythical work/life balance.

“Google’s buses, used to transport tech employees from their city homes to Silicon Valley, have wifi in them. One could argue this is intended to encourage riders to work during their commute,” Barrington said. “Google has long been known for the generous availability of food, free for all employees,” she added, “but again, you could argue

Damaging Our Real Lives

By Daryl Lindsey

RAD LIBS

Teenage Angst Edition

By Rachel Roderman

Instructions for Mailing An Analog Text Message: Step 1.

Fill it out

Dear

high sch o ol guidance counse lor,

It’s been a while since we last spoke. Like, while. Time flies when you’re having

2018 minus t he ye ar you graduate d f rom high sch o ol

f un /lunch at yo ur de sk /h o t f lashe s

years. Wow, that’s a

.

Step 2.

Tear it out

How am I doing, you ask? I’m good. I’ve been spending a lot of my time working on

Step 3.

Fold it up

still keep in touch with

Step 4.

Find an envelope

goodness that is not being a teen. Will it always feel like a hundred years ago and yesterday at the same time? Sure

Step 5.

Put it in an envelope Step 6. Write your return address in the top left corner if you want them to write you back. If anonymous hate/revenge/stage-5-clinger mail, we suggest leavingblank.

Example:

Seymour Butts 742 Evergreen Terrace Springfield, Mass 90210

feels like it. I can still taste those cafeteria.

Washington, DC 20500 Step 8: Buy a stamp. Currently being raised to 49 cents. Still cheaper than your data plan.

Step 12: Walk to a mailbox. Either the big blue R2D2 looking things at the street corner or to your own mailbox.

Step 13: Place your letter in the mailbox and brush pretend dirt off your hands in an act of satisfied completion.

h ate d/love d/sk ippe d

from the

school, I also couldn’t wait to get

ge t t ing conce rt t icke ts/k is sing t he

human r igh ts/gun con t rol/t he e n v i ronme n t/your f avor i te

, all while still battling the inevitable teen angst. Most of them will graduate and go to college. Get jobs. f unc t ioning/sur v i v ing/t hr i v ing

adult.

I spent so much time doing things that I thought I had to do—make money, be a person people considered “successful.” I’m not sure I would advise them to take my path. I still w i t h myse lf

on the daily. I still have

f igh t w i t h my pare n ts/f igh t w i t h my f r ie nds/f igh t

my he art broke n /inse cur i t ie s abou t my t ale n t/acne

on the reg. Despite all of that, and

against my 18 year old expectations, life is fine by me.

I hope the kids graduating know that success isn’t a million dollar contract or your name in lights—al-

Step 9: Lick stamp Step 10: Place stamp in top right corner on front of envelope

. Today, high schoolers are fighting for

Deal with the stress of becoming a

Example:

President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

to t all y art if icial co ok ie s/mys te r y me at h amburge rs/gian t bo t t le s of Sn apple

out. I can’t imagine being a teenager right now. All I had to do was worry about r igh t pe rson at t he dance

.I

and we revel in the magic of yearbook nostalgia and the

Graduation must be on the brain of every senior! As much as I

poli t ic al c ause

Step 7: Write the address of the recipient in the middle of front of envelope

f avor i te te ache r/be s t f r ie nd/sch o ol co ok

late s t proje c t/re ce n t e piph any

though that’d be

co ol/am azing/to t all y no t gre e n

.

They know something is only worth anything if it makes them happy, right? That they can WiFi/re ad a bo ok /conne c t w i t h t hemse l ve s

t ur n of f t he i r

. That just because something seems like a loss at the time doesn’t mean it’s a

loss at all. Often, those are biggest wins of all.

Now, back to trying to convince my boss that I deserve a full summer break. That’s something I certainly miss about high school. Maybe I should’ve become a teacher.

Go

high sch o ol m asco t

yo u

!

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

A C A L L F O R PO S I TI VE A RT D URI NG D A R K TI M E S

R

emember when Bob Ross was everyone’s favorite art teacher?

My husband is a painter who says that he thinks in pictures and I’m a writer who can’t imagine what he means, but even I sat rapt before The Joy of Painting as a kid in the 1990s. Ross made art less intimidating and more accessible. He brought the artistic process down from its elitist pedestal. With Ross in the room, making art wasn’t something saved for tortured souls. Anyone could create a beautiful mountain; anyone could paint a “happy little tree.”

Bob Ross continues to inspire positive artists today, and you can catch a selection of soothing episodes of his long-running PBS show on Netflix, should you need a positivity boost of your own. Somehow, though, Van Gogh’s “Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity’s Gate)” and Picasso’s “Guernica” still seem like more serious art. They sit on spare museum walls, while Ross’s work has found its home in cozier spaces.

In high school, I learned that the works of Van Gogh and Picasso, Miró and Kahlo were more akin to lauded literary works than the sketches I stumbled through in art class. They were timeless. They were to be treasured. They were to be interrogated, but their worth was never to be questioned (unlike my art projects). I can’t think of a single example of an assigned book or a piece of art that I would count as having positive energy. Curriculums have hardly changed, and the most attention-grabbing media of today, from The Handmaid’s Tale to artist Sarah Levy’s portrait of Donald Trump in menstrual blood, is dark.

But dark art—like speculative fiction—doesn’t actually stop the bad stuff it predicts from happening. While it’s neat (and a little spooky) when writers and artists accurately divine the future, it’s hard to motivate peo-

B Y ME G A N W I L D HOOD

ple to save the world by saying how it could go terribly wrong. Saving the world may come from something else: seeing beauty and recognizing potential.

In the creative sphere, all too many artists, writers, and makers of any kind believe that “real” art requires struggle. It’s a recurring trope. If you’re not miserable, you can’t create things of value. If an artist isn’t fighting with themselves—or against something or someone else— their work can’t be good. Instead of pursuing happiness, many artists find themselves stuck in cycles of self-doubt.

Maybe it’s America’s roots in the Protestant work ethic. For all of our efforts to imbue every aspect of life with convenience, the principle that discipline, hard work, and frugality are rewarded remains. We have cultured a suspicion of things that come easy. For anything to be worth it, it has to be a struggle. If it’s not, you didn’t really earn it, and so you don’t deserve for it to be successful. What doesn’t kill you—we tell ourselves over and over—makes you stronger.

Or maybe it’s that people, or at least “grown-ups,” don’t have a frame of reference for depth without pain. While children see the potential for magic in even the bleakest scenarios, we think that things can be “too good to be true.” It’s less common to think of this being too bad to be true. Bad is automatically accepted; good is questioned. There is positive art, and there is the art of the art world. The two, it often seems, don’t mix.

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ISSUE FOUR

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Detroit, 2016, courtesy of Swoon Studios

IT'S A RECURRING TROPE. IF YOU'RE NOT MISERABLE, YOU CAN'T CREATE THINGS OF VALUE. Since Freud, it was thought that people needed to express their anger to be happy.

They needed to blow off some steam. Now we know that, while venting can feel good in the moment, it isn’t necessarily the “best” way to address a problem. Researchers have found that dwelling on the things that cause us to be depressed actually makes our depression worse—significantly so. What we really need is to flip the script. When we feel bad, surrounding ourselves with darkness isn’t the cure: light is.

Not all gallery art is dark and depressing, of course. And some artists are actively working to elicit positive feelings (as opposed to just positive responses) from the people who engage with their pieces.

Swoon is a mixed-media artist who creates life-size wheatpaste prints and paper cutouts of human figures. Though her work is not whimsical, it is deeply playful.

Swoon started in street art while studying at the Pratt Institute. Her work is often politically-motivated but, refreshingly, that doesn’t seem to mean a deep dive into darkness, since her most common references are her family and friends. Her most famous work has an ominous title, “Anthropocene Extinction,” but her sculptures and paintings honor the human form, and make it beautiful.

The balance she has struck has led to significant attention. Her 2014 solo show at the Brooklyn Museum, “Submerged Motherlands,” was the museum’s first exhibition dedicated to a living street artist. She isn’t greeted by hundreds of fans at events, though: the price, perhaps, of not going all-in on either side.

Anne Lindberg is another who has yet to become a well-know name, but her work

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The Long Sun, Thread And Staples (16 By 35 By 9 Feet), 2017, Courtesy Of Ann Lindberg, Photo By Derek Porter

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

POSITIVE ART IS THE BEACON WE NEED TO YANK US BACK FROM THE BRINK. It is at once harmful and futile to deny the fear and violence of our times, but it seems likely that the ability to find calm and beauty, rather than focusing on the looming storm clouds, will be more effective at helping us climb out of the destructive ruts our culture plows. There are only so many times you can run the rage circuit before your neural circuitry starts to wear.

Artist and children’s book author Oliver Jeffers has made a career out of being positive.

A print for sale on his website is captioned with "It looks big, Earth. But there are lots of us on here so be kind” and his books have titles like How to Catch a Star. You can pick up a pink sweatshirt with the alphabet scrawled across it, highlighted letters spelling out “Story.” The work is colorful, emotive, and it’s hard to look at without suddenly assuming that it’s a sunny day.

With over 140,000 Instagram followers and a suite of merch for sale (with a portion of the sales going to the International Rescue Committee), Jeffers has built a cult following, especially among the children towards whom much of his work is oriented. But beyond the over 10 million children’s books he’s sold, he has formed partnerships with Tattly to produce versions of his work you can (temporarily) ink on your skin, as well as a collection of apparel and collectibles with Collette, the Parisian department store.

GOING THE SLOW ROUTE, BY BOAT

has a sort of beauty that is rare to see. Lindberg’s drawings and threedimensional sculptures are simultaneously visceral and calming. When we think of the subconscious mind, we may think “unknowable,” “dark,” or even “self-sabotaging.”

Lindberg’s work—thread sculptures of the sun, pencil sketches of insomnia, and colored-pencil drawings of poems—come from a subconscious that is deep and clear, that tells a more nuanced story of looking beyond the dark side of a subconscious mind to the potential and beauty within. She takes the ordinary event of a sunbeam at the end of the day and transforms it into a striking yet soothing physical structure.

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ISSUE FOUR

Photo of Oliver Jeffers

Jeffers’s work has also been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum and Gestalten Space in Berlin. While his gallery art and installations are held separate from his child-centric projects (literally as well as figuratively—he even has separate websites), the gap between the two is rapidly shrinking.

Rainbows and reminders to embrace our creative selves are serious business, as today’s culture of optimism and obligatory happiness reinforces.

In the spring of 2017, he showed KICKABLE, a collaboration with Mac Premo, at The Invisible Dog Art Center. The installation challenged the tension between viewers and the formal gallery setting, offering them the opportunity to kick soccer balls and footballs at a target on the wall dotted with breakable objects. It was a playful way of saying “please break shit, including the wall between you and the art.”

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Not everything has to be kittens and moonbeams, but kittens and moonbeams – and long stretches of sun, color blobs that aren’t stressed about not having a strong personal brand, and mandala-like intricacy – serve a very real purpose, and a positive one at that.

Our cultural programming would have us take images of weeping and gnashing of teeth more seriously than positive art. But it is because of the darkness that we need strings of sunlight, reminders that it’s cool to hug our friends, and books like Jeffers’s Here We Are to keep on our coffee tables (even if we don’t have kids). There’s little use in denying that art wrought from pain resonates in these tediously chaotic and anxiety-packed times, but that’s exactly why artists like Swoon and Lindberg and Jeffers are necessary. Positive art is the beacon we need to yank us back from the brink, whether it’s printed in a children’s book, slapped on a coffee mug, hung in a gallery, or on the street.

THE WORK IS COLORFUL, EMOTIVE, AND IT’S HARD TO LOOK AT WITHOUT SUDDENLY ASSUMING THAT IT’S A SUNNY DAY.

Illustration by Oliver Jeffers

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THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

(Without Making Your Family Hate Your Guts)

BY JACQUELINE FISCH

Several years into my management consulting career, when my first child was about a year old, I found myself zoning out in meetings and wondering, is this really all there is? While plopped on the couch every evening, laptop fired up to squeeze a few more work hours out of the day, wine in hand, I’d wonder what the hell is all this for? The especially depressing part was that I’d cram myself into uncomfortable pencil skirts and rush my little kids out the door in the morning—usually in a sweaty frenzy because someone couldn’t find their boots or backpack.

Frustrated, I thought, “Why am I wearing clothes I hate, rushing around, and yelling at the people I love all for a job I don’t care about?”

I felt a pull towards my creative zone, I yearned to do work that lit me up, and I was certainly willing to ditch button-downs, dress pants, and closed-toe heels. It took me eight years, two countries, three layoffs within five years, and a few failed businesses before I finally built enough momentum in my side-hustle to quit the 9-to-5 for good in March 2017.

I didn’t do it with a sugar daddy or a whopping inheritance, and like many Americans living the dream, my family is a dual-income household, so I couldn’t just follow my passion and leave bill paying to my partner. According to the Department of Labor, from 1996 and 2006, the number of dual-income families in the US increased 31% overall, from 25.5 to 33.4 million families.

It took more than 13 years in the corporate world before I finally got to say “peace out.” Here’s how I worked like a boss, stayed sane, and kept the peace in my family. I didn’t want to be that frazzled working mom anymore, so I had to find a way to follow my passion while making sure my family wouldn’t end up hating me.

BUILD A FENCE Setting up non-negotiable boundaries in the early months will pay off, especially if you decide to go full-time with your side hustle.

In your 9-to-5, this could mean blocking an hour for lunch, and refusing meetings during the last hour of the day so you get out on time.

Then, you’ll have space to decide when to work on your side-hustle. It could be from 5-6 AM before work, again from 8-10 PM after things settle down, and a few hours over the weekend.

The mental focus of growing a business, keeping a job, and maintaining a life (or others’ lives, in the case of kids) is enough to make anyone run crying into the forest. If you’re planning to leave your day job, do the minimum amount of work you need to do to keep it and to sleep at night.

LOVE THE GAME If you’re in a soul-sucking gray cubicle where the hours, the work, the people, and even the coffee sucks, you have the right to be pissed off. Even so, you must find ways to be grateful because the energy you put into the job you want to leave will spill over into the hustle you wish to have. Even if you want to maintain both, it needs to feel good. It might be hard to find the good in the game, but knowing you’re working towards something bigger will make it worth it.

To help yourself stay positive, tell anyone who will listen about what you’re up to if it won’t jeopardize your day job. Let people know what you’re building and ask your network to spread the word. Make sure you over-communicate with your family, so that they understand you’re going to be working a lot for several months, but you’re doing it for them.

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SCHEDULE IN UN SCHEDULED TIME You’re going to be plugged in so much it may start to hurt. Designating brain rest time will help you stay healthy. Maybe it’s from 9-10 PM or, if you bust your ass Monday through Saturday, taking Sunday off. Even if you feel the pull to work, spend the time instead listening to an audiobook, enjoying some podcasts, and doing some journaling. Switch the phone to airplane mode and enjoy your family. Because at the end of the day, your life is what it’s all for. When 63% of women and 73% of men ages 18 to 34 can't go an hour without checking their phones, the call to unplug could be considered essential to our well-being. These chunks of quiet time could even make you more creative.

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Pensions are out and side-hustles are in. If you’re not sure what a side-hustle is, it’s a side business or an extra job you do in addition to your regular day job. According to CNN, more than 44 million Americans have a side-hustle and, if you’re a millennial, there’s a 1 in 4 chance you have one.

That’s a whole lot of hustling. But if you’re a parent, the idea of adding another job to your neverending to-do list is enough to give you a full-on panic attack. I was no exception.

I’m a big fan of meaningful work and of modeling that for my kids, so when work stops lighting your fire, you need to follow those hunches. It’s the curiosity of what’s next that will lead you to new and exciting projects, which leads to more exciting days and, ultimately, a more exciting life.

I donated all my pencil skirts the day I quit, and my family (still) loves me.

Half of millennials have a side hustle.

Online selling is the most popular way to earn income on the side.

31% percent of women ages 25 to 34 have a side gig to make extra money, to get experience for what they want to do next, or because they just enjoy the work.

DIG DEEPER: Read: Die Empty by Todd Henry Read: Deep Work by Cal Newport Listen: “Courage & Clarity” podcast

ISSUE FOUR

how to play

HEAL

OBJECTIVE OF THE GAME:

STOP TAKING TIME TO PAUSE.

YOU’LL NEED Board Dice (2) Pennies

@FOLKREBELLION

#A N A L O GA S FO L K

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Be the first player to freedom by successfully reaching square #64.

This is a tear out, pass along, IRL moment Stay in the moment, but if the mood strikes to share, use a #latergram.

SCROLL THROUGH DOG MEMES ON INSTAGRAM.

TO BEGIN

GET OUT IN NATURE.

LADDERS

HANDS FREE TO CATCH THE GUITAR PICK.

The first player rolls the dice and moves their penny as per the number rolled. For example: if you roll an eight, the player has to move their penny eight spaces. The turn is over once a player has moved their penny.

If a player's penny lands at the base of a ladder, that player must climb the entire ladder up to the square where it ends.

CHUTES

Unlike ladders, chutes slide you down!

If a player's penny lands on a square marking the beginning of a chute, then that player slides all the way down to the square where the chute ends.

WINNING THE GAME

A player only wins if they’re the first to reach freedom. They need to arrive at the 100th square by exact count. So, if a player is on square 97, they must roll a 3 to win. If they roll a number greater than 3, then they stay put for that turn. Got it?

BURN OUT

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THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

CREATE CONNECTION.

BOOST YOUR CREATIVITY

SKIP THE B-SIDES

UNPLUG FOR AN AFTERNOON

KEEP YOUR PHONE BY YOUR BED

MEET A FRIEND FOR COFFEE OR WHISKEY OR BOTH.

MISS OUT ON THE BEST TUNES.

ATTEND A CONCERT, CAPTURE ZERO FOOTAGE ON YOUR PHONE

DON’T SLEEP

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T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

LOSE AN HOUR OF YOUR LIFE

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

ISSUE FOUR

DISMANTLING THE AMERICAN DREAM ON REINVENTING WHAT IT MEANS TO “MAKE IT”

by Anna Dimond, with Jessica Kulick

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THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

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ISSUE FOUR

I T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

t’s accepted that the architects of the United States—Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and their Declaration of Independence co-signers—truly thought that they were creating a nation of opportunity built on a series of heroic ideals: freedom of religion, freedom of professional pursuit, and freedom to define life on one’s own terms. Their work was revolutionary (no pun intended) and far-reaching, even if it was limited to a very small sliver of society (i.e. wealthy white men).

In the centuries since, rebels of all stripes have left their native countries for an enduring promise of opportunity— the chance to make a newer-better-more-prosperous life, in a place where everyone has an equal chance to do so.

Many came to the United States seeking physical safety or religious refuge, and more came to achieve the symbols of status for themselves, their family name, or simply to send money back to relatives in the “old country.” All embody the archetype of the search for the American Dream: that profound ideal imbued in every facet of the nation’s narrative.

Even for Americans born within its borders, the promise of that dream and the set of expectations that it comes with—financial success, job security, a college education, professional stability, 2.5 kids, and a picket fence—is practically absorbed in utero, woven into each citizen’s DNA, and espoused from political platforms on both sides as a human right.

T H E PR O MIS E OF O P P O R TUN IT Y “I came here when we ran out of food.” For Felipe Marcondes and his family, breaking their last egg in the sink was the moment they knew they had no choice but to leave Brazil.

Marcondes’s father moved from Rio de Janeiro to Los Angeles first, his mother a year later, then he and his older sister joined them. This was 18 years ago, when Marcondes was 16 and his sister was 17. The siblings landed in the United States with virtually no English and no idea what America was like besides what they saw in exported movies about surfing and comedies like Coming to America.

promise can be elusive, a shiny carrot replete with its own complexities and problems.

“First you have this image that [America] is awesome, and everything is better,” Marcondes said. “Then you get this impression that people are racist.” When he first arrived, his classmates assumed he was Mexican or Guatemalan, like a number of his immigrant peers. Even now in the corporate world, he senses that his skin color and his accent come with a set of judgments that occasionally hold him back.

In the centuries since America was created, people of color and women of all ethnicities have had to fight for basic rights including the right to vote, access to education, and equal pay. On some, they have succeeded, while on others, society still falls woefully short. According to a report from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, as recently at 2017, white women earn only 81.9% of their white male counterparts. For black women, that gap widens; they earn 67.7% of what white men make.

For Hispanic women, the gap is wider still; they earn just 62.1% of white men’s earnings. And in 2016, the Pew Research Center revealed that, “Black and Hispanic men have...made no progress in narrowing the wage gap with white men since 1980…[and that] some of these wage gaps can be attributed to the fact that lower shares of blacks and Hispanics are college educated.”

Statistics like these are unsavory reminders that, even today, “the land of the free” is not equal to all. For millennials and the generation now known as “Gen Edge” (encompassing those born after 1995), the American Dream can feel particularly slippery, as the traditional prizes sought, like a fully-paid-for college education, property of one’s own, and a healthy nest egg for retirement, become increasingly hard to access.

That elusiveness can be attributed in part to the twin legacies of racism and misogyny—two of America’s most deeply-rooted roadblocks, affecting everything from lower college entry rates for minorities, to normative social roles drawn according to lines of sex and gender.

“Right when I got here, I was like, ‘this sucks,’” said Marcondes. “They had gangs in my school. We were far from the beach.” Instead of the utopian beach life and open arms he had imagined, Marcondes was dropped into de facto segregation. “I only hung out with my sister for a long time,” he remembers.

T H E PR O MI SE O F PR O D UCT I VI T Y Truusje Kushner, author of the forthcoming book, Sex, Drugs, and My Sister: A Front Row Seat to the 1960’s Cultural Revolution is a Baby Boomer. She grew up as part of the generation that followed the post-World War II economic boom in America. She was also among those women for whom marriage, children, and middle-class affluence were explicit expectations.

What Marcondes saw in the L.A. suburbs of the early 2000s, more than 200 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, was that writing something on paper doesn’t make it a reality. Instead of a wind beneath the wings of every hard-working citizen, the American

“We grew up with that promise of security,” she said.

“You’ll have a house. You’ll have a husband; you’ll have children; you’ll have a car. You might even have a summer house. You’ll have nice furniture and nice clothes.

All that stuff.

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43 T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

THE PROMISE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM IS PRACTICALLY ABSORBED IN UTERO, WOVEN INTO EACH CITIZEN’S DNA.

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

ISSUE FOUR

INSTEAD OF SETTLING INTO THE DOMESTIC LIFE FOR WHICH SHE HAD BEEN GROOMED SINCE BIRTH, SHE PURSUED HER CAREER. country, a better place. Building a school wasn't just a way to make an income, but investing in the next generation.” For the generation known as Traditionalists (those born before 1945), the American Dream was at once material—and moral.

The ‘50s were all about conformity.” From early childhood, nearly everything her mother taught her and her older sister was geared toward future viability as a housewife.

The final touch was a college degree. Kushner, who’s now 73, graduated from Simmons College with a B.A., but with the understanding that she was actually there for an M.R.S.—cutting shorthand of the time that signified women’s pursuit of a spouse taking precedence over academic interests. Kushner did find a boyfriend. They didn’t end up getting engaged, however, so Kushner continued her search post-college.

While the far-reaching program achieved its aims, creating federal agencies for housing programs, agriculture, farm subsidies, and home mortgages, it also excluded black Americans. According to recent analyses, the Federal Housing Authority (the New Deal agency responsible for home building and administering new home loans), effectively blocked African-Americans from its benefits and deepened segregation.

The expectations that Kushner’s mother established for her were the prevailing values and beliefs of the time, the latest incarnation of the original promise of America. Not long before Kushner was born, that ideal had gotten a name.

Moves like blocking black Americans from accessing home ownership have had lasting consequences. According to the Washington Post, the median net worth of white households in 2016 was, on average, ten times greater than those of black and Hispanic households. As of 2017, unemployment and underemployment still disproportionately affect black Americans. Add to that the underlying sense in the general population that we still haven’t quite recovered from the housing bubble and Great Recession of the early aughts, and you’ll get today’s stew of the gig economy’s wages not keeping pace with climbing home prices, an increasing demand for rental units in urban areas, and hell, even the phenomenon of Instagram-friendly #vanlife.

In 1931, John Truslow Adams, a businessman and historian, encapsulated the American promise in a single phrase: “the American Dream.” While the architects of America had defined their mission in the Declaration of Independence, Adams elegantly boiled it down to three words.

The same year that Adams coined the term for what was already an unnamed trope, the U.S. government codified it with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, a set of policies designed to help the country recover from the Great Depression. In 1931, at the height of the Great Depression, fully 24% of the American workforce was unemployed.

FDR had campaigned on the promise to put Americans back to work, in great contrast to incumbent Herbert Hoover’s belief in limiting government spending during financial crisis. Not only did Roosevelt win in a landslide, but a Democratic majority would fill both houses of Congress.

T H E PR O MI SE O F P ROSP E RITY The weight of the American Dream’s contradictions could crush the hopes of even the most ambitious—and yet, that doesn’t mean that personal achievement, prosperity, and opportunity are impossible for those who aren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouths.

For Jenny Park, a 40 year old, first-generation Korean-American living in Chicago, the pursuit of the American Dream not only spawned a new life for her parents (who emigrated decades ago), but also spurred her desire to achieve.

It’s important to remember that the New Deal was based on the largely progressive idea that the government had an obligation to its citizens. As Matt Blitz writes in a recent piece for Popular Mechanics, “in Roosevelt's America, digging a drainage ditch was not just a job, but the workers' contribution to making their community, and in turn the

Park grew up on the motto that, “If you worked hard, you could get a good education.

From there, you could establish your own path, and do what you want to do and not be forced to do something that you don’t...My parents worked their asses off to do that. And

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THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

I understand that if I want to get where I want, I have to work my ass off, too.”

After landing in the U.S. in the late 1960s, Park’s father opened a Tae Kwon Do franchise in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It didn’t hurt that Bruce Lee was at the height of his popularity at the time, and the elder Park rode that wave to upper-middle-class-comfort.

While Jenny Park was a black belt by high school, her dad never wanted her or her sister to take over the family business.

But instead of settling into the domestic life for which she had been groomed since birth, she pursued her career. She got married in her late 20s, rubbed elbows with artists like Andy Warhol, and got divorced. She went on to become a documentary producer in Los Angeles and marry for a second time. She didn’t have children, and while she and her second husband owned a home in Orange County, they quickly sold it, preferring to rent in more “creative” communities where ownership prices were out of their reach.

“It has become my dad’s life’s work,” she said. “But that was his. It was, ‘I put you through school so you can do what you need to do,’ and my mom was of the same mind.”

Kushner is part of a generation that’s facing retirement on entirely new terms. With 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring daily (yes, you read that right), they’re mostly facing their golden years on their own—perhaps a holdover from the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” mentality passed on from the prior generation. Recent studies estimate that the average 65 year old American will need to spend upwards of $180,000 during retirement on medical care alone—and that number only goes up for women, who tend to live longer.

The Park family was able to take advantage of opportunities that didn’t exist in Korea at the time, but the dream they were pursuing in America still had its drawbacks. For one, the beginning wasn’t one big-warm-fuzzy American melting pot, and it was Park’s mother who may have suffered most.

After a loosely-arranged marriage in Korea, Park’s father brought his new wife back to Sheboygan. Before coming to America, she had been a creative writing major in college and worked as an executive assistant. “Then she came over here and lost all that stuff and wasn’t able to regain footing,” Park says. “There she was, the only Asian woman [in town], not knowing how to speak, not having parents around to help with babies. She had it so hard.”

And while governmental programs like Social Security offset some of these costs, the average monthly benefit payment is just $1,317 as of January 2017. Boomers are generally catching up on their savings in their later years, or preparing to work part-time even in retirement, assuring both an additional income stream and the sense that they’re still contributing members of society. (Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Edgers can relax a bit, though, as reports of Social Security’s imminent demise are greatly exaggerated: it’s not at risk for losing funding, since the program is mostly maintained by payroll taxes. So as long as there’s a workforce, the money will keep rolling in.)

While her mother was isolated and living a life that was far from dream-like, it was these sacrifices that strengthened Park’s determination to succeed. Add to that a sense of a generational responsibility—breaking through barriers to civil and women’s rights— and the pressure has sent some people, like Park, to new heights.

“Me and my sister broke their hearts,” Kushner said. “Imagine, one daughter becomes a feminist, doesn’t have children, gets divorced, and then remarried. And the other is a revolutionary whose husband [Abbie Hoffman, the famed American anarchist] burns money!” It wasn’t the American Dream either of them had been prepared for, but thanks to Kushner, her sister, and others like them, many of the hurdles they faced in blazing their own trails have been knocked down entirely—or knocked down a peg at least.

“I think that’s part of the American Dream,” she says. “When I think of my mom—an immigrant and a woman—in a way, I think I have to do what I’m doing and achieve because my mom couldn’t.”

2 0 1 8 AN D BEYO N D If we’ve learned anything about the American Dream, though, it’s that one universally attainable dream is a myth. No single experience holds true across an entire generation, gender, or ethnic group. Some focus on checking traditional boxes and some decide to write their own to-do list. Some follow the path their parents laid out for them and some blow it to smithereens.

T H E PR O MIS E OF S E CUR IT Y For Kushner, the American Dream that drove her mother to fill her closet with pretty outfits was on track at first. Graduating college with a B.A. but no M.R.S. wasn’t an insurmountable roadblock. Neither were earning a Master’s degree and moving to New York to become a magazine reporter.

INSTEAD OF THE UTOPIAN LIFE AND OPEN ARMS HE HAD IMAGINED, HE WAS DROPPED INTO DE FACTO SEGREGATION. 45

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Now, Kushner and her husband—both of whom are in their early 70s—are keenly aware of how their lives, economically and professionally, are huge departures from those of their parents.

And though women like Jenny Park can be seen as part of a new version of the American dream, that vision still bears many similarities to what many Americans see as conventional signs of success. Park runs her own architecture firm, Jurassic Studios, which just received a commission to design part of President Obama’s library in Chicago. She owns a home with her corporate-lawyer husband and just had her second child. All of it, she says, is built on what her parents achieved.

ISSUE FOUR

Dear Sweet, Sweet Rebels, There’s nothing quite like sitting near a crackling fireplace, tea steeping, newspaper in hand, sun rising, soft ink marks on fingertips, feeling connected to the source just by being . . .

Here.

Now. In this present moment.

The Folk Rebellion Dispatch community has taught us to be more aware, awake, and eager. Riding this wave has helped carve out a deeper mind-body-spirit connection, and we feel blessed to be here with you, as we all become part of a higher vibration.

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

For us, it all started on an organic farm two hours north of New York City. The intent was to grow food, live off solar power, and evolve sustainably—in an often unsustainable world. The dream was to create a place to plant seeds, harvest fresh vegetables, build primitive structures, gather friends, have workshops, and nourish the body with a farm-to-table approach.

The goal was to inspire ourselves and others to retreat, unplug, and connect with Mother Nature. Growing plants, herbs, and live food became the highlight; soon after, we realized the farm was the source to many other avenues of health and a greater wellbeing.

Two

people—one

being

a

medical

doctor

who

studied

western

medicine through and through, and the other (myself), a holistic nutritionist/plant-based chef with an eastern medicine approach— came together in the greenhouse.

After hours of studying, growing, and experimenting, we discovered there are synergistic healing properties to functional herbs when combined properly. Having a genuine passion for the health of our bodies, and especially our skin, we developed a Superfood Skin Supplement with conscious, medicinal, and powerful ingredients.

Skin Pastilles was born.

Sometimes the only way out is in, right Rebels? And honestly, if we don’t take care of our bodies, where are we going to live?

Glow on Rebels.

See you on the farm, Jess Krux Founder | www.organicearthkitchen.com Co-Founder| www.skinpastilles.com

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THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

Perhaps in 2018, the American Dream is, ultimately, about the freedom to choose—with the understanding that not everyone is given the same set of options, and that being able to choose doesn’t guarantee the expected results. Is this far less marketable than the white-picket-fence version? Yes, and good riddance. The American Dream is still a compelling cultural force that cuts across every race, class, and gender.

To Marcondes, the idea that hard work could pay off, even if it isn’t guaranteed to do so, is remarkable. The United States is far from a fair playing field, but the starting line—for him and countless others—is sometimes a better place than their home countries.

After his rough start in Van Nuys, Marcondes joined the high school soccer team. He became a standout, and a soccer scholarship eventually carried him through college.

Now, 18 years later, he works in social media, where he shares a rental apartment in

constitute a • Homeowners now of the United minority in 22 pulous cities. po st mo ’ es Stat vernment hasn’t • The federal go ted resources to seriously dedica tructure in over American infras st time dates la e th 60 years— t Eisenhower's en id back to Pres te and Defense ta National Inters 1956.

Highway Act of l the Equal • It wasn’t unti rtunity Act of Employment Oppo deral government fe e th at th 1972 n discrimination—o nt me oy pl made em sex, r, lo co , ce ra the basis of tional origin— religion, or na l. ga ille wrote the ‘60s • Abbie Hoffman classic, Steal counterculture ed ich he encourag wh in , ok Bo This at. th st ju do to readers

Santa Monica with his girlfriend and their dog. His sister lives in Indiana, where she runs a duck farm with her husband and children.

At one point, a few years after college, Marcondes returned to Brazil with the idea that he could succeed by playing by the rules. He came back to the States just a couple of years later.

Of Brazil, Marcondes said, “You either live like a poor person, or you live like a rich person. I never knew about the American Dream until later. But here, there was more opportunity to make money. One thing that the U.S. does provide is that, if you work super hard and focus, you might go through hard times, but there is a big chance you’ll make it.”

Somehow, neither the problems of America’s original promises, nor the burdens of history that we still carry, seem to have dampened the spark of possibility that the American Dream represents. The idea of that dream is still imbued in our narrative, in our collective and individual memories, past and present political rhetoric (recall President Trump’s victory speech promise to reinvest in American infrastructure), and even in pop culture (think: everything from It’s a Wonderful Life and The Great Gatsby, to Gordon Gekko and Don Draper). What else accounts for our portrayal abroad as a place built on grand ideals, or even for shows like American Idol, which assert that if you’re good enough and work hard enough, you can be a star.

At its heart, the American Dream may be the blending of democracy with opportunity, and opportunity with material success. But there are a series of flaws in that logic.

Democracy does not equate to equal opportunity; having opportunities does not mean you will become materially successful; and even being materially successful does not guarantee the boundless happiness that “the American Dream” is purported to entail.

How we define “making it” is changing, from college diplomas to college-drop-outstaffed startups, from homeownership to the freedom of life on the road, from stable jobs to passion-fueled pursuits. Maybe this is a rejection of the American Dream—or maybe it’s just another reinvention.

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T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

HOW WE DEFINE “MAKING IT” IS CHANGING.

ISSUE FOUR

OFF THE COUCH, INTO THE RIVER. T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

A Personal Essay by Shana Sims

I

grew up in a house in small-town Connecticut with two-story windows, a pool, and a swingset in the yard. In the months that it didn't snow, I would throw my sleeping bag over my shoulder, stuff a pillow under my other arm, turn the trampoline into a bed, and look up at the stars. Some days the sky would threaten me with clouds, on others it would show me galaxies, but it was always beautiful. The lightning bugs danced, the wind played with my hair, and the crickets and frogs sang to me until I fell asleep; I thought it was strange when I didn't grow out of the desire to sleep outside.

I never lost that deep sense of belonging that I felt in the outdoors. Growing up, I spent most of my time getting lost in the nature preserve that bordered our house. I would bring my notebook, sit on an old wooden bridge, and write. When I approached the end of high school, continuing on to college didn’t feel encouraged—it felt culturally mandatory. I remember my gut telling me that it wasn’t the right road, but my parents took me all around New England looking at schools and I didn’t know anyone who didn’t have one picked out for the fall. I found a small liberal arts college in Rhode Island right on the ocean with a journalism program, that was only 45 minutes away from my sister in Boston. I moved into a tiny dorm room with a view of Mount Hope Bay, and I joined the student newspaper my first week.

rejections, refilled my wine glass, and apologized to my rabbit for being a bad mother.

over obstacles. I learned not to hesitate. I learned to speak with conviction so that others would listen.

One night, I searched for rock bottom in a bottle of Jack Daniels until I found it. I woke up in the emergency room with a dangerous BAC level, an IV in my arm, and no memory of what had happened.

I knew I needed to change a few things in my life, starting with drinking less and loving myself more.

During the course, I went back and forth between "I should quit before I kill myself or someone else in a violent, watery catastrophe" and "I don't know why I've ever done anything else in my entire life." I was cold and tired and wet, all the time. I was thousands of miles from home and anyone who would raise their eyebrows when I got a cold one from the cooler, but I didn't want to drink. I didn't want to be numb.

I think that's what happens when you're living a life you're not supposed to live. It hurts.

I spent my time writing articles, editing stories, going to the bar to blow off steam, assigning another story, going to a party, checking Twitter, interviewing another professor, editing another story. Most of my time was spent in class, at the newspaper office, or in my apartment trying to cope with the stress with a glass of whiskey. I think that's what happens when you're living a life you're not supposed to live. It hurts.

I was considering a desk job in San Diego when I received a message from an old friend that I used to sail with. "You should go to river guide school!"

He included a link to the course he had taken in Northern California. I had the resources necessary to turn this crazy idea into a concrete reality, so I clicked on the link, signed up, and packed a bag.

Like most other people, I imagine, there is a schism in my life story. A wide gaping crack that marks two different parts: before and after. In the spring of 2016, less than a year after I graduated from college, I found myself unemployed and living with my parents. Every day, I sat in my pajamas and searched for jobs. I read

I showed up to the two-week-long guide school with a life jacket and no fucking idea what I was doing. It was an intense course that taught us how to navigate whitewater and how to respond in emergencies on the river. We swam rapids, we practiced rescues, we tried not to go upside down. I learned how water moves

48

I stayed the summer after they hired me as a guide for the season. Every day I trained, until every day I worked. I was living in a broken tent that I bought at Walmart, and I’d never felt happier.

Author Gregory Bratman, a graduate student in Stanford’s Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, has published multiple studies on the effects of nature on the human brain. One study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in 2015, found that people who walked around in a natural environment showed decreased activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain associated with negative emotions, compared to participants who walked in an urban area. In another study, Bratman found that time in nature resulted in a better mood and decreased anxiety. Nature is good for your brain.

One night the following summer, I was going to bed after a day on the Tuolumne River in California.

I set up my sleeping mat on top of an abandoned powerhouse, high above all the guests camped on the beach below. I got into my sleeping bag, switched off my headlamp, and gazed out over the river. The stars and the moon spread up above mountain ridges with the river rushing below. I heard the rush of water, the crickets and the frogs singing me to sleep. I heard the sound of being exactly where you're supposed to be.

I'm still getting used to that.

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

THE

CONTEMPORARY NOMAD A Personal Essay by Alex Reich

Seasonal workers are today’s nomads. We flow in and out of towns with the high-season summer and winter jobs. We live where we want to live, and then we leave for the next interesting place. Our calendar is pretty simple.

There is work in the winter season (November through April), and the summer season (May through September). The in-between months are the fall and spring “shoulder” or “mud” seasons. In a tourist town, there is either a glut of work opportunities or hiring goes dry, depending on the season. The shoulders are very dry. During these months, I will neither have a home nor an income, so I, like other seasonal workers, have to be willing to become a little creative to make things stretch. I visit family, or take an extended backpacking trip.

is at the top Harper, let’s go find out.” She isn’t, and I’m pretty sure we both know that. But by now, Harper’s three year old attention span is consumed with the ebb and flow of anticipation and sensation that is skiing. She is in the zone, and I am free to teach my lesson.

Harper’s mom arrives at lunch to pick her up early. I hadn’t been told about this change in plans, so I’d left her skis alongside the magic carpet up the hill from

population are truly something. With an air of entitlement, they parade from the flatlands into the mountains. They do not respect this ski town for what it is. The center of their attention is their own experience.

Once, in the local restaurant, Teocalli Tamale, a Texan tourist yelled “Texas owns this town!” a little too loudly. The owner overheard and refused to serve him a burrito. It was an act of rebellion, shutting down the people who came in with overflowing wallets they fully intended to empty. Texas does not own this town...yet.

When I run at night, too many of the houses are dark, instead of being illuminated by the life of a family.

Even though my work revolves around catering to tourists, I only catch glimpses into their personal lives.

What I learn from what I do see tends to be based in the material.

I am handed a crying child in ski school. She is three, and screaming her face off. I try to pass her off to another instructor like a game of hot potato.

“Harper always does this,” my supervisor tells me, “she will calm down once she’s on skis.” I have five other young children to teach today, all beginners, so I am grumpy. I spend 20 minutes coaxing Harper into quieting down. “I WANT MY MOMMY!” she screams as I firmly clip her boots into the skis and send her up the magic carpet. “Maybe your mommy

the lunch area. Why lug them back and forth if we were going back there anyway? Unless, of course, she wouldn’t be going back there.

“Go fetch her skis,” Harper’s mom commands. I decline on the basis that I need to supervise five other children. This is not the correct answer. “Time is money!” she chirps as she struts off, Harper in hand.

No tip, I note.

The tourists are who we work for, but the tourists are not the reason why we are here. The seasonal life is a life of freedom and independence. To achieve it, though, I need the tourists. They are my income.

Mostly, I’m OK with this, but the worst of the tourist

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Some tourists are excessively rich and not afraid to show it. Most work conventional jobs in cities at the kinds of places where your work week is 9–5, Monday to Friday.

They tell me how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place. I nod and agree and ask them how their day of skiing went as I smile a big “you-should-tip-me” smile. Sometimes they do, sometimes they’re like Harper’s mom: more focused on their convenience than my survival in the shoulder season.

Tourists like these, both tippers and nontippers, sustain mountain communities.

Heartbreakingly, they are also destroying them. Crested Butte is often called the Last Great Colorado Ski Town, but I can feel even this bastion of the west dying. When I run at night, too many of the houses are dark, instead of being illuminated by the life of a family. A fox pauses near the street, staring me down with eyes that are unafraid. It knows there aren’t any dogs around. It’s a neighborhood of rentals and vacation homes, mostly abandoned for much of the year. The houses stand dark and alone. They creak in the wind.

As for me, I will leave with the tourists. I will leave this house surrounded by mountains. I will pack all of my belongings back into my car and drive out the way I came, same as most of the other seasonal workers.

There is not enough money in this town to sustain us right now. Some will return in mid-May, when the summer season picks up. I will not come back, though. At least not so soon. The San Juan mountains are calling, and I must go.

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

S

unrise dances on the low clouds as a snowstorm approaches over the western mountains. We desperately need more snow. Snow brings tourists and tourists bring money. My house is surrounded by the mountains, each with their own character. I’m still trying to learn their names.

Snodgrass is directly west, low-angled, covered in bare aspen and shrubs. Gothic peeks over Snodgrass, an avalanche path carved between each magnificent arête. To the south, Red Lady and Axtell look down on town. To the north, a series of copperstreaked mountains whose names I have yet to learn. And to the east, Crested Butte. My mountain. This winter season is my first as a ski instructor, and my first winter in Colorado.

R OWN U D YO

N AM

MONTHLY HOW-TO

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

The concept of one unifying American Dream is as outmoded as a Betty Crocker recipe for tuna casserole.

There’s some kitschy nostalgic worth, but no nutritional value. Thank goodness we are no longer saddled with that stifled perspective. After all, at our best Americans are iconoclasts, explorers, inventors, and entrepreneurs.

This country was created by people that looked at an existing system and decided we could do better. Questioning prevailing wisdom is one of the most American and patriotic things we can do. They didn’t just dream, they dreamed big and then put that plan into action.

To that point: do you know what your dream is? Not the one that others have handed you and said, “This is what success looks like.” Nah. The other one. The one that is uniquely yours; that speaks to your guts; that makes your toes curl. It might even scare you a little bit, but that’s okay. The point is that you picked it.

Our dreams are deeply personal, but they’re woven with imagery borrowed from what we’ve seen, heard, and been taught along the way. That archetypal soup is a fine starting point, but please dig in deeper. Stretch to places of investigation and innovation. Peel away the layers of what we think looks good to others and tune into what feels good in your bones.

This doesn’t require spending thousands of dollars to go on a retreat or running away on a multi-country Eat Pray Love-style trip (though if that’s your jam, by all means, go for it). The tools for discovery are simple.

Open a notebook, pick up a pen, and start writing. It’s that easy and that daunting. There’s no external expert telling you what to do, no guru or healer to blame if it doesn’t work. It’s intimate, and it’s important.

The act of writing brings things into focus in a way that is scientifically proven to provide positive results that you can’t get by typing words out on a device. Maybe the best benefit of all is that, through the process of writing a bit each day, your authentic voice emerges.

Unfiltered, unfettered, just you.

Just as it takes time, it takes iteration. You may achieve a particular dream, love it for a while, and then be ready to move on to the next. Check in with yourself periodically and make room to revise. You’re allowed to change your mind.

Case in point, I wanted to experience being bi-coastal, and for several years I bounced between Montauk, Long Island, the East Village of New York City, and Venice, California. I was living my dream. Then one day, while writing in my journal, I realized that I was jet-lagged more than I wasn’t and it didn’t feel good anymore. I wanted to slow my roll and savor calling one spot home.

So, I switched up my dream and picked California as my base. I gave up some things in the process but gained far more than I lost, and I don’t regret any part of the experience. My dream had worked until it didn’t, and then I made adjustments.

D RE A M

BY LAURA RUBIN

WRI TE

ISSUE FOUR

Some folks are so afraid of being trapped in one dream—or failing to reach it—that they don’t even try.

But I’m going to let you in on a secret: your whole life is a creative act. The choices you make each day on how to live, where you invest your time and energies, or where you don’t, are all an ongoing act of creation, and it’s entirely subjective. It only has to speak to you and to reflect your tastes and desires. Some folks want the big house and lots of kiddos; others want big waves and the freedom to chase them.

Take the time to pick up a pen, tune into your authentic voice, and see what emerges so you can name, picture, and then live into your American dream.

you going… s to get me prompt so e ar ? Here Need help y? Track of your da justments ts in po w the lo Make ad and parts and happiness. st st be mo t you up e e th that ligh gs you th What are ts in en br em at el e wh the them to se re time on n focus mo at bum you out. ca u yo so th e pieces less on th fe that eated a li s of cr s ha o st? Wh aspect specific respect mo ople you and which a public pe e, , e at ow th ul kn e Who ar want to em meone you so ly ek for a ar be we ul n a people u? It ca o you partic yo tw to ted. ck k Pi spea story. ed or crea s their life ve achiev on from hi ie ha rs ar pe ey nt a th me h docu figure, or ve into what it is which them, watc wn t do ou di e ab d it an month u can find interviews, and wr yo ng hi yt Read ever to them in excite you. , listen about them their stories most of elements ing time is an amaz is is cr a a ve, but loved one, ies terintuiti ss of a job or a it un un co rt em se oppo It might al. The lo credible ca new norm p—these are all in a new dire in d ea ah nd, to create ku e ie ea rg fr br fo d a d te sue, you are an and a trus Nothe r health is er pe wh pa ke. ock of ece of to look li to take st wn with a blank pi it out. Go your life do aw t nt dr Si wa d . u an yo tion wn , at do wh ite it rk, Health through sacred; wr : Love, Money, Wo and talk or ts mi f li like ing is of ry, things by catego category iendships.

Family, Fr a list of including g, in day. rn ery mo lish that minutes ev to accomp to 12 r nt nt fo wa wa e I I writ where d what I try to ul for an npointing Try it ef pi at t s. gr ou rk m ab wo time it things I’ st, it’s tes seems a to-do li ds hokey, but over If 12 minu than writMore than un . so lf se It ur . yo gy er r er tt put my en and see fo t every day is be works few weeks g a bi ythm that in rh it a out for a Wr nd . fi ve fi so y h, tr nt daunting, once a mo long time ing for a for you.

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THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

WORDS AND PHOTOS

BY NANCY HILL

I

’d been on the road for hours and still had two more to go before reaching Las Vegas, New Mexico. I pulled into an empty parking lot, tossed a sweater across the camera dangling across the back of the passenger seat, and headed inside to the McDonald’s.

I scanned the parking lot for a decent place to shoot. “How about over there?” I said, pointing across the street. * Each year I fly somewhere, rent a car, and drive without any plan other than to take photos—typically of boarded-up main streets or abandoned farms. This year I’d chosen Las Vegas, New Mexico because I liked the idea of being able to tell people I’d spent my vacation in Las Vegas.

A young man in sagging shorts, covered in tattoos, with a skateboard tucked under one arm stood in front of the counter speaking to an employee on the other side. “Well,” he said, “got to be going. Getting new pictures taken for my portfolio.”

But my happenstance encounter with Julian had put my mind on people.

His friend, the employee, snorted. “Yeah, right.”

All across our country, strangers share the same hopes and dreams. We have families and jobs, hobbies and passions. Among us are artists, students, business owners, and office workers. Some of us have regular jobs; others cobble together a living. Some have lived in the same place for years, while far too many go without shelter or security. In the web we call America, our lives may have been guided by different opportunities, choices, and beliefs, but sometimes you accidentally stumble into viewing things through a different lens. Still with no agenda, no plan to focus on a particular gender or ethnicity, age or occupation, I switched my search. After the serendipitous encounter with Julian, I wanted to photograph strangers.

“Just wait. You’ll see. One of these days it’ll happen.”

Closing the distance between us, I held out my hand. He had clearly been joking, and I couldn’t let the opportunity to be the punchline pass. “Sorry I’m late.”

He cocked his head in confusion.

“I’m serious,” I said. “I’m a photographer. I’d be honored to take pictures for you.” He introduced himself as Julian Jerome Marquez Jr. and followed me out to my car where I retrieved my camera.

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T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

STRANGERS

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

ISSUE FOUR

I stopped for the night at an inexpensive motel and arose early to get to Las Vegas by mid-morning. When my stomach started growling, I exited the highway and followed the road to Maxwell, pulling into a convenience store and gas station for a snack to tide me over until lunch.

Inside, a pudgy dog kept close to the woman who appeared to own the establishment. A few postcards on a nearly empty rack caught my eye. A few featured Roswell.

“Have you ever been there?” I asked.

“As the matter of fact, one of my sons was born there,” she replied, “We didn’t live there long, but I always wondered if he was an alien.” She told me that her name was Peggy Gervai and that her husband kept photos of his bulls in his wallet rather than pictures of his kids.

I told her the story about meeting Julian and my decision to photograph people I met and asked if I could take her picture, too.

“Oh, why would you want to take my picture?”

“How about one with your dog?”

She sat down at a table, her dog climbed on top of it, and as I took her photo, we swapped stories of the various dogs we’d had.

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ALL ACRO STRANGER SAME HO

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

OSS OUR COUNTRY, RS SHARE THE OPES AND DREAMS. 53

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ISSUE FOUR

IN THE WEB WE CAL MAY HAVE BEEN GU OPPORTUNITIES, CH

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THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

I returned to my car with a soda, pretzels, and a pack of animal crackers and didn’t stop again until I reached Las Vegas. Arranged around a town square were a handful of galleries, several cafés, and some small shops. There wasn’t a single chain store in sight.

In one gallery, I met Bill Anderie, a wood artist. He let me take pictures of him alongside his art. Before I left, I bought a handmade ragdoll. It was for my sister, but I admitted that I was considering keeping it for myself. “First,” he said, “we give gifts to others. Then, as we get older, we begin to think in terms of self-preservation. Keep this for yourself.”

Mary Chavez greeted me when I wandered into another gallery along the square. Tito, her husband, sat at a workbench on one side of the space. Together, they’ve owned the gallery since 1976. Long before they bought it, it was a jail, and there’s still a cell in the back. Today, the metal cage is filled with boxes stacked precariously on top of each other.

Next, I met Lupe Vigil. He sat in a quiet spot off the main walkway sanding an aspen branch.

He was lost in his work, but, when he raised his eyes, I asked what he was working on. He told me he made walking sticks to sell at the farmers market in Albuquerque. He’d learned the craft when he was in grade school. It was part of his family’s traditions. “I come from Spaniards,” he told me.

On a day trip from Las Vegas to Sante Fe, I met Terry Theis. He sat on an old metal chair playing the accordion, his dog resting by his bare feet. There was a crowd around him. When I finally had a chance to speak with him alone, he told me he lives in Harper, Texas. He was just visiting.

“I was ‘struck by music’ at 42,” he said.

“The Pied Piper of Harper,” I joked.

“That’s me,” he grinned.

Around the corner stood a second street musician. As I walked toward him, a police officer stopped and asked him for his ID. He hadn’t been disturbing anyone. When the officer moved on, I asked him what it was about. He thought it a little unusual, too. His name was Char Rothschild. As I took his photograph, he told me he’d once been a musician in the circus.

“Once you play for the circus, the circus always plays in you,” he said.

Back in Las Vegas, I settled onto a bench on the town square to do some reading. I lost myself in my work until I heard the sound of wheels. Looking up, I saw a boy no older than 10 riding a skateboard on his stomach. On his head were two top hats, one stacked on top of the other.

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LL AMERICA, OUR LIVES UIDED BY DIFFERENT HOICES, AND BELIEFS.

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

ISSUE FOUR

“I like the one on the outside the best, but it’s too big, so I wear another one underneath it, so it stays on my head,” Elijah said. After taking a few photos, I realized that parental permissions would be ethical, if not entirely necessary. His mom was at a gig in a café across the street. “She won’t mind,” he said, but he pointed me in her direction anyway.

Stella Martinez and her bandmate, Kenze, came outside just as I walked over. I showed her the photos of Elijah and asked if I could take her and Kenze’s photo as well. Stella told me that they live in Albuquerque, but play in any venue (within a reasonable distance) that they can book. Great life for a kid, I thought, traveling from place to place, skateboarding with two top hats.

I took my time heading home, stopping along the way and continuing to photograph strangers. At the Taos farmers market, Marshall James Kavanaugh sat in front of an old typewriter. The open typewriter case on the ground beside him advertised “Dream Poet For Hire.” I asked him to write a poem about strangers. It seemed fitting given the theme of my trip, but I couldn’t have imagined how close it would get to what I had experienced.

“Strangers” the fear of each other is often the reason we never talk but in our own voices we find two hearts beat the same rhythm at once so open dialogue and create change embracing another is like finding oneself.

by marshall james kavanaugh july 15, 2017 taos, nm

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FOLLOW NANCY’S TRAIL • Las Vegas, NM is 60 miles east of Santa Fe, along Interstate highway 25.

• The town was founded in 1835 and is known for its many historic Victorian homes.

• Check out the jail cell in Tito’s Gallery before going to El Zocalo, an artist-owned co-op gallery.

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

Welcome to our Rock Your Bliss corner in the Folk Rebellion universe.

We are best friends and the creators of Rock Your Bliss, a yoga-inspired coaching company. We started our company almost five years ago and now lead transformational online programs, retreats, and workshops all over the country as well as write and record our Rock Your Bliss podcast. We take turns writing a column on not just how to find your bliss, but how to rock it.

— Mary Beth LaRue & Jacki Carr

I

remember writing a paper about the American Dream in a gender studies class in college: the husband-and-wife marriage, the 1.5 children, the big home you own outright because of your successful career with a major paycheck, and the white picket fence with a dog (certainly not a cat).

This was not my dream, not my ideal.

Someone else wrote it and they put it on the cover of a magazine, on the front of the newspaper, in every blockbuster film, and even the children’s books that were read to me growing up.

How weird, though, to have 1.5 children?

How absurd is it that the only “happy” families were those with a husband and a wife? What about the renters, the I-don’twant-kids-ever people, the queer people, the non-monogamous people, even the cat people? And shit, my fence is raw wood and looks great.

What if we took the time to ask ourselves what our American Dream is? Yes, it can look like exploring the globe with dreadlocks and a guinea pig sidekick. Or it can look like living in a teepee with seven dogchildren you co-raise with your nonbinary partner.

Oh, and yes, it also can look like a house with a white picket fence— if, and only if, that is what you really want.

wear what you want, and to truly be who you want to be. And to change who that is at any time. I see choice, I see diversity, I see people vision boarding, I see possibility, and I see community coming together.

And I see living in the mountains in a cabin with my flannel-clad children, my bearded husband, some chickens for fresh eggs, and a desk where I work from home on a successful business I built from the ground up.

And that is my (American) dream, my vision.

What do you think of? What do you see when you close your eyes and dream about your ideal life? Who is there with you?

How do you feel? And how close are you to it today?

Are you striving towards “the American Dream” or are you living your American Dream? All you need to make the switch is to give yourself permission.

I see freedom to love who you want, create what you want, wear what you want, and to truly be who you want to be.

And so even though I didn’t believe in it, I thought about the American dream. I saw the “work hard, play hard” mentality, the house, the make-it-rain dollar bills in my bank account (no set numbers, just dollars raining from the sky). I worked really hard to reach that ideal, I hustled for this “perfect” image, this vague dream that someone else had dreamt for me.

The magic of the American Dream is recognizing that we have choice in the matter to write our own dream.

Examples: I give myself permission to define happiness my way.

When I close my eyes today, I see freedom to love who you want, create what you want,

I give myself permission to live my own American Dream.

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The American Dream & The Power Of A Permission Slip By Jacki Carr

ISSUE FOUR

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Right now, there is a lot of talk about what divides us...but, have you ever stopped to think about all the stuff that unites us?

Stuff like Dungeons and Dragons and feminism and longboarding. Stuff like Blockchain, Crossfit and Kayaking After Dark. It is stuff that might seem trivial but to us, itĂ­s everything. Because behind every women-who-code Meetup and dads-whorun Meetup, is a thriving community.

And community matters.

Communities - the ones where real people meet in real life - help us feel a sense of identity and a sense of belonging.

They help us create change.

So we can choose to see what divides us or we can choose to see what brings 35 million people around the world, together.

We choose the latter and we'll continue to do everything in our power to inspire and enable everyone who wants to Meetup.

Yours in community, Meetup

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ISSUE FOUR

GANG HANGS IS A MONTHLY ROUNDUP OF WAYS TO CREATE MORE CONNECTION IN REAL LIFE.

Let’s leave the group texting, evites, and Facebook groups to the plugged-in population. We prefer postcards via snail mail. Buy a handful for 25 cents a piece, stick on a stamp, and get all the deets down in 3 short sentences.

Something like:

We are big fans of the good old fashioned house party.

If space is tight, keep the guest list short.

Hey There, Help me revive old school house parties.

Swing by my place on Thursday night for a slow cooked meal fueled by gluten and some awesome conversation fuelled by whiskey.

-FR

Thursday. Think about it: you’re nearing the end of a long ass work week. It’s just before weekends set aside for date nights and other plans involving food, but right at the cusp of ugh-don’t-make-me-have-to-callUber-eats-one-more-time. People are hungry (pun intended) for a slow cooked meal and good conversation they just can’t get with the delivery guy.

Of course, no cell phones allowed except for the token group photo. We want to see your smiling faces in a latergram. Tag #folkrebellion and tell us how it was.

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The silver screen used to mean people gathering and watching the same thing together, yawnyour-arm-over-the-backof-the-seat moves, and sharing a tub of popcorn.

Now it means watching it whenever and wherever you want, instantly. And usually someone is watching something else on another device, live-tweeting it, or mindlessly scrolling.

Podcasts. We love ‘em. As you go for a morning jog, you can learn how to launch a new product from an expert on anything; while riding in the car, you can daydream about who actually committed that crime in that small town; you can get your political arguments up to snuff while folding the laundry. They’re mobile, don’t require your eyeballs to be stuck to a screen, and they often drop some major knowledge, entertainment, and inspiration. But sometimes they can be solitary. We’re changing that.

What’s your take on the American Dream—real and achievable, totally dead, or currently living in Canada?

How does Chetty propose we measure the state of the American Dream?

Do you agree with the five significant explanations as to why poor neighborhoods seem to depress income mobility whereas the better neighborhoods to increase it?

Book clubs have always been a thing, but now they are even more relevant for the camaraderie it creates for people in our screened-in world. Here are some questions for y’all to mull over, perhaps over mulled wine.

Poverty is a nationwide epidemic, but Vance feels the cycle of generational poverty is persistent in the Appalachian region and the cities nearby. Why is the American Dream particularly elusive for the residents of Jackson and Middletown?

Looking at the role of globalization in industrialized communities like Middletown, what factors cause some residents to stay, despite the economic warning signs?

Does Vance’s analysis of the drug epidemic offer clear insights into the issues facing America?

What are your thoughts on “learned helplessness” versus “learned willfulness”?

How do systems within higher education work to discourage upward mobility and keep people within their social groups?

Critics referred to this novel as a cultural analysis and possible explanation of the 2016 election. What do you think are the challenges in using one individual’s experience to explain larger social shifts?

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How do you feel about Raj Chetty’s research with colleague Matt Jackson on the role of social networks in inequality?

Are people able to network themselves out of poverty?

ISSUE FOUR

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Bye Seamless. (Well, at least for one meal, today.) We’re bringing back the kitchens of our youth: where people gathered around the island, sat on counter tops, and got drunk on wine while they collectively made dinner with some music on.

Go old school arts and crafts by upgrading your flower pots. Invite friends over for a night of pot painting and beer drinking or set up a DIY craft night for the fam. Everyone gets a pot, a succulent, and some quality IRL time.

Did someone say fiesta? Tape up crepe flowers and decorate tables with succulents and colorful plates.

Put someone in charge of stuffing a piñata. Don’t forget the chilled cervezas and margaritas in fun glasses. Need some tunes? We’re thinking the Ultimate Santana album and salsa music on repeat.

Potted succulents Terra cotta pots Paint brushes Painter’s tape Rubber bands Craft paint or chalkboard paint Cups for the water Towels Tape

Rinse your pot with water to get any dust off of it. Let Dry. Unless you’re a pro with a paintbrush, it helps to use guides to get straight lines.

Want stripes or polka dots? Begin by taping off sections, applying cut-out circles, or using rubber bands.

When you’re using painter’s tape or rubber bands, remove them while the paint is still wet. Otherwise, they can pull tiny pieces of paint off with them.

Once the paint is dry, seal your pots with a good solid coat of clear acrylic sealer.

Basket or reusable grocery bag Blanket Cloth napkins Utensils Cups Sunscreen & bug spray Board game or a deck of cards

Use a muffin tin to serve condiments and toppings.

Mason jars keep salads fresh.

Lay a shower curtain under your blanket to avoid any moisture from the grass soaking through.

Use frozen bottled water in coolers to keep food and drinks cold, then drink when thawed.

Ditch the perfectionism and tap into your inner kid’s creativity. Be messy and have fun.

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PIPPA BIDDLE

“THE GOLDEN SHORE”

AN AMERICAN STORY

JANESVILLE: 65

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

From a recording studio in San Quentin State Prison comes Ear Hustle. Now in its second season, the podcast is a partnership between Bay Area visual artist Nigel Poor and inmate Earlonne Woods and was co-founded with fellow inmate Antwan Williams. A podcast recorded in prison may seem strange, but for San Quentin, it’s a new format for a nearly 100-year-old tradition of giving inmates methods through which to tell their stories. Listen to “Episode 13: Dirty Water” for a look at the horror of sex trafficking crimes and the power of restorative justice, but I recommend going back to the beginning to “Episode 1: Cellies”—finding a roommate is tough, but especially if you’re in prison.

EAR HUSTLE

Janesville doesn’t need us to sell it. Written by Amy Goldstein— longtime Washington Post staff writer who shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting— the story of an American town was named a New York Times Notable Book, as well as an NPR Best Book of 2017. Despite the accolades, it isn’t a glamorous read.

After the closure of the General Motors auto plant in Janesville, Wisconsin—Paul Ryan’s hometown—the town is sent on a downward spiral. Goldstein’s herculean reporting captures the human moments and the family struggles in the years that followed the 2008 closure. If you’re looking for simple storylines and “everything-will-get-better” optimism, this book is not for you. But nonfiction isn’t or, at least, shouldn’t be that simple. What Goldstein accomplishes is far more valuable than a happy-pill book. In Janesville, a small town becomes a symbol of a nationwide struggle. Without sacrificing intimacy or getting lost in grandiose arguments, it tells a fascinatingly familiar tale.

BY WE ARE THE WEST

Some music blends into a space, some music morphs to match the space in which it’s played, and some music shapes the space it’s in. We are the West’s debut album “The Golden Shore” transforms rooms to fit its needs. Songs like “More Machine Than Man” make colors swirl. Play it in a hospital room and try to see only beige—I dare you.

I was listening to “More Machine Than Man” immediately before I called Brett Hool (voice/guitar). In a twist of fate, it is also the song his bandmates were practicing as his phone rang, with me on the other end. They were driving through Arizona’s petrified forest on their way to New Mexico, all packed into a van in the most hip of band-touringvan colors: gold.

It’s a fitting ride for a band that began when Hool and John Kibler (bass/voice) started jamming in Holland, in a turquoise-colored shipping container that was surrounded by sheep. After Holland they travelled to New York, where they played in the chapel of a Brooklyn convent and a tow lot in Greenpoint.

We are the West has built their name on these scrappy yet highly-crafted shows.

When they returned to Los Angeles, they started playing a monthly show in a parking garage. Six years later, they’re still going. If you’re ever in the city on the Saturday before the full moon, you should try to catch one.

For “The Golden Shore,” We are the West brought their eclectic mix into a formal studio setting. They recorded the album live in just four days with the help of their longtime drummer Elizabeth Goodfellow (Iron & Wine) and Grammy-winning engineer Husky Höskulds. Then they spent a year layering to create an experience that blends studio slickness with the sounds they built their fan base on. If “gritty lush” is a thing, they have it.

We are the West’s track “For Me, For You,” is reminiscent of American folk music during its transition into the 1960s. The popular folk classics of the time, from Bob Dylan’s “House of the Rising Sun” to Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” embraced a more contemporary sound while staying true to singer-songwriter roots and storytelling traditions. They were rock and roll, and they weren’t. They weren’t folk, but they were.

Janis Joplin is often left out of the folk singers club, but it was the world of American folk that first inspired her and it’s where she got her start. After listening to “More Machine Than Man,” turn on Joplin’s rendition of “Me and Bobby McGee.” Written by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster for Roger Miller, Joplin’s take on the tune blended folkstyle storytelling and rock and roll energy into an infectious track that hit No. 1 in the U.S. in 1971, shortly after her death.

“We set out to make music with a beating heart,” Hool shared while cruising through the petrified forest. From that intention has come an album that is deeply human and intensely creative, while also eerily familiar. It is interwoven with a musical tradition and a melodic history. There is folk in its soul.

ISSUE FOUR

B y A n d re a P o ti sc hm

INGRED

IENTS:

rk, y, wo nolog ed, at h c e t es— surpris e were r liv w s , in ou us. I wa hnology, Whole30 s g n e i c m k h e g r i t t n a l i h r or the cing unities derstand ow h any o balan n lp us mm ike m s—can he ke about food co It took u sily see some l , d a g e n Foo ionship s I spo amazing Dish. i w r o n ha le relat , that a d to the tainable aviors to will be shing peop first compare , and Sus and beh month we lks teac ies. ess Xx J often om Paleo nsumption So each mazing fo heir bod N t o a . c m p n m m No put i about s fro he ju more e made t te recipe hat they l w i p r o f o o pe r fav dful of ou o be min t w ho

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+ S a u ce

DIRECTIO NS: FOR THE D O NUTS: Preheat

Recipes

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

a n o f S im mer

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Vegan Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

SALMON BURGERS With Rainbow Zoodle s

By Shani Timms of Keep It Simple Sha ni

By Kennedy Haffner of The Healthy Haff

Burgers: s 1 can of tinned salmon 1 spring onion 1 knob of ginger 1 handful of cor iander 2 tablespoons tam ari 1 teaspoon garlic powder Himalayan sea sal t & pepper 1/2 carrot, grated 2 tablespoons coc onut flour 1 teaspoon chili flakes 1 egg

INGREDIENTS WET ½ cup melted coconut oil 1.2 cup coconut sugar 2 tsp vanilla extract ½ cup almond milk ¼ cup applesauce

DRY 1 ¼ cup Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free 1-to-1 baking flour 1 tsp baking soda ½ tsp salt chocolate chips

INSTRUCTIONS

•Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. In a mixing bowl, combine all wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine all dry ingredients—except chocolate chips. Combine wet and dry ingredients with a wooden spoon.

•Add in as many chocolate chips as your heart desires! Scoop and place individual cookies onto cookie sheet. Place in refrigerator for 30 minutes (optional).

•Bake for 30 minutes, and allow to cool.

1. Place all ing redients in a foo d processor and combined. If the pulse until mixture is a lit tle wet, add one of coconut flour. more tablespoon 2. Heat coconut oil in a large fry ing pan on medium heat. mixture into pan Spoon out and cook first sid e until brown. Put on helps it cook ting the lid through.

3. Flip over and cook until brown on the other sid e, too.

Rainbow Zoodles: 1/2 carrot 1/2 zucchini sesame seeds coconut oil for frying 1 teaspoon garlic powder salt pepper

ROSÉ YES WAY,

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1. In another pan , heat some coconu t oil and add you Sprinkle with ses r zoodles. ame seeds and gar lic powder.

2. Cook until sof t, then remove fro m heat. Season to taste.

Extras: sesame seeds to serve Cos lettuce cups 1/2 avocado, sma shed with

ter S: 5 oz of wa INGREDIENT tea, boiled in se ro i Tuls mon juice es 1 tbsp le juice strawberri 1 tsp lime iced or blended ju p p syru 1/2 cu sil simple 1 tbsp ba nilla vodka va sp tb 3 sé wine off 1/2 cup ro water, to top it sparkling

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1. To assemble the burgers, place a lettuce leaf on arrange your zoo your plate, dles, and place your burger on top avocado and sprink . Spoon on your le with sesame see ds.

2. Enjoy!

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K I D S PAGE PAGE KIDS THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

YOUR INNER

BY LEXI WEBER

F E AT U R E D R E B E L

ROUND UP:

If you’re interested in learning more about tiny homes and how to define your own version of success by turning your big ideas into an awesome reality, then check these out:

PODCAST

ACTIVITY

Google PBS’s “Meet The Greens” to learn more about sustainability and green living, then check out ways you can go green around the house. Maybe you could try a little spring cleaning to scale down or make a checklist of ways you can reduce your energy use.

Every little bit helps!

QUOTE:

SPEECH: PART OF

Thought leader, acclaimed architect, and rad visionary Sarah Susanka is credited with starting the small house movement and her belief in quality over quantity is one of our favorite rebel philosophies. Her "Not So Big" attitude challenges our notions of need and beliefs around material wealth equating with success. This awesome message should be applied to not only how we live in our homes, but also on our planet and in our everyday lives.

DI G D E E P E R

VISIT: Susanka’s website notsobig.com to learn more about her mission.

WATCH: Her 2013 TEDx Talk called “Possibilities—Life's Invisible Feast”.

EXPLORE: NASA’s Climate Kids website climatekids. nasa.gov for a list of ways you can reduce your own carbon footprint.

When British-born Susanka first moved to the United States as a teen, she was pretty blown away by how many American homes had spaces—like fancy formal living rooms and special-occasion-only dining rooms—that people rarely used. These observations led Susanka to form new ideas about how to build homes so they could accommodate the way people live with an awareness of environmental responsibility. You know, less stuff for stuff’s sake.

(CIRCLE

E ADJECTIV

NOUN

The Big Adventures of Tiny House by Susan Schaefer Bernardo

ATE:

ILLUSTR

VERB

N:

DEFINITIO

CE:

SENTEN USE IN A

COLORING ACTIVITY DESIGN YOUR OWN TINY HOUSE

A floor plan is a scaled diagram of a room or building viewed from above. Floor plans are essential when designing and building a home.

DI D Y O U K N O W ?

These cities provided the homeless community with a village of tiny homes: SEATTLE, WA PORTLAND, OR EUGENE, OR AUSTIN, TX RENO, NV

While the average American home generates around 28,000 pounds of CO2 each year, the average Tiny House generates just 2,000 pounds.

The square footage of the average American home now averages 2,600 square feet, which is almost 1,000 square feet more than the average in 1973.

LUNCH NOTE JOKES Q: Why did the teddy bear say no to dessert?

A: Because he was stuffed.

Q: Two pickles fell out of a jar onto the floor.

What did one say to the other?

A: Dill with it.

Q: Why was 6 afraid of 7?

A: Because 7,8,9.

TO CUT OUT AND GIVE TO FRIENDS

ONE)

BOOKS

What Do You Do With An Idea? by Kobi Yamada

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

h: The Mont Word Of

“Dream Big” – Episode DB 059: Inventor Ray Kurzweil Gazes Into The Future

67

ISSUE FOUR

SIMPLE PARENTING The Twisted American Dream

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

by Lillie Duncan For generations, we have been fed lies by marketers and advertisers about what it means to be free and prosperous. Tragically, we have been passing those same lies down to our children. Lies that say that to be successful and free you must own a house with a picket fence, own a car, dress a certain way, pay to attend a certain college, wear your hair teased approximately 2.5 inches above your head, successfully produce one male and one female spawn (in that order), and probably own a happy golden retriever that fetches your mail for you, too. What we have learned to believe about this “American Dream” is that what we own determines our worth.

The founding dream for America was based on a very limited, but forward-thinking for the time, concept of peace and opportunity.

During the 1920s, that dream changed from being about freedom to being about consumerism. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates how the American Dream transformed— suddenly, it was all about money.

When I was 21 years old, I was living in Portland, Oregon and finishing up two degrees in Education. These were not degrees that I wanted, but they were the ones I thought I needed to be successful. I was also working in an office right in the middle of downtown. Every morning, I would begrudgingly get my ass out of bed, drag myself over to the mirror, and give myself a morning pep talk. “This is what life is all about, right? You are good, right?

You are happy, right?”

Then I put on a corporate costume to play a game that I didn’t

even want to play. Fake it until you make it.

The internal dialogue came with me on my commute. “I have everything I need to be happy. I am 21! I have an apartment, a car, a closet full of clothes and shoes. I can buy whatever I want or need. I have the freedom to do whatever I want or to go wherever I want to go...or do I?” The questions poked out from the shadows of my mind until I heard the ding of the elevator doors opening on my floor. Day after day.

Until one day when I arrived at work early, but my boss said I wasn’t early enough. To that, I thought: “Fuck this!”

Fuck this so-called dream. If this is it, it is not for me.

I quit and took a part-time job as a barista. I cut my hours in half, and my pay by more than half. In return, I gained freedom, sanity, and more than anything, time to live. I traded money, materialism, and possessions for living.

Ten years later, this is still how I live and how I parent. My children Rosalie and Elias are only four and two years old, but I remind them that we don’t need much to be happy. They have a few small toys in their room, a basket downstairs, and that it is it. Rosalie is starting to understand that the less we buy, the more adventures we can go on, and she likes the adventures best.

The original American Dream was for freedom and peace. Whether it has ever been achievable is up for debate, but the concept, at least, has gone far off the original track. As parents, we get to reteach the dream to our children. We can teach them to accumulate, or we

The concept of the American Dream has gone far off the original track. can teach them to value. We can live fast, or we can show slow.

We can pass down our values by explaining why we buy less so we can prioritize time together. We get to teach them that peace and freedom are found in simplicity and that we’ll never reach an internal dream if we measure ourselves against someone else.

Kids Come, Too: Visit The Happiest Countries in the World.

by Fiona Tapp

T

he ability to travel has always been part of the American Dream. Financial security provides one of life’s most important commodities: time. With free time, travel becomes a possibility. But does travel actually make us happy?

In 2014, psychology researchers from Cornell University found that experiences, rather than material possessions, tend to make people feel happier. Travel certainly exposes us to beautiful sights, delicious food, and the novelty of getting away from our familiar routines. A change can be invigorating, but some countries are actually happier than others.

The 2018 World Happiness Report ranked 156 countries by their level of happiness. The following destinations topped the charts as the most content: 1. Finland 2. Norway 3. Denmark 4. Iceland 5. Switzerland 6. Netherlands 7. Canada 8. New Zealand 9. Sweden 10. Australia

frigid temperatures could be their embrace of the concept of hygge. The closest English translation of hygge is “cozy.” It’s about finding ritual and comfort in the simple things in life, like enjoying a hot cocoa under the covers or playing board games with your family. It can also include getting out and about, and enjoying the outdoors all year long. Warm weather picnics can be hygge, but so can long snowshoe walks through crisp snow.

You don’t need to travel all the way to Northern Europe to experience hygge, though. Grab some friends, cook up your comfort food favorites, and spend some tech-free time reconnecting. One of the most important parts of hygge is human connection.

However, if you really want to experience one of the happiest places on earth, head to Copenhagen.

D EN M AR K , TH E H O M E O F H Y G G E The Kingdom of Denmark (yep, they have a royal family!) includes the main peninsula, called Jutland, and more than 400 islands. Its neighbors are Germany, and—thanks to the Öresund Bridge—Sweden. Make sure to visit the iconic Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen which kids will enjoy comparing to the Disney version.

The United States comes in at number 18.

Where to Stay Kids will love staying at the Tivoli Hotel, especially if you select one of the colorful, themed rooms.

Many of the top ranking countries are Scandinavian, and so experience cold winter weather. One of the reasons these countries manage to maintain their happy outlook despite the

What to Eat Absalon is a community venue for eating and socializing in a former church. You’ll find budget-friendly meals and activities,

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and the chance to share a table with locals!

What to See Copenhagen is incredibly family-friendly. You can easily rent baby equipment all over the city, and you’ll find kids are wellcatered to in restaurants, hotels, and at attractions. Visit the Experimentarium, an impressive science center where kids can try a range of experiments, and be sure to check out the Tivoli Gardens amusement park for live music, theater, ballet, and even rides.

The closest English translation of hygge is “cozy.” It’s about finding ritual and comfort in the simple things in life.

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

SIMPLE PARENTING Maybe None, Maybe One FOUR WOMEN’S THOUGHTS ON HAPPINESS OR HAVING KIDS

The first time I asked the question, I stumbled through it. “You have no children,” I began and then stopped. I looked at the woman in front of me. Her gray hair was styled for a life filled with hiking, biking, and skiing. Recently retired, she was reveling in her newfound free time. Time that wasn’t occupied by kids or grandkids, because she had none.

I started again. “Do you regret not having kids?” I asked.

My husband Evan and I met in our teens. Almost immediately we decided we wouldn’t have children. But then came a moment in my 30s when my thoughts about babies began to waver. The reasons for none were easy: I was happy, my relationship was fulfilling, the world had too many people already, and what kind of future was there for yet another kid, anyway. The reason for a baby was less compelling; it was a vague desire to have a little buddy to face the future with, and a nagging feeling that eventually Evan and I might regret being childless.

So I set out on a mission to interview as many women as I could who were childless. Of each, I asked that tender question, “Do you regret it?”

“I did, and then I didn’t,” the woman in front of me said. For her, a baby dropped out of her life’s plan the moment she understood she couldn’t have it all. “I realized we live in a culture that doesn’t support mothers,” she told me. “I could be good at my job, or have a rich life, or have a good relationship, or be a great mother.” She explained she knew women who tried to have it all and, well, the world was often hard on them.

Studies seem to have caught up with what my friend worked out in the 90s. Recent research points out that mothers of young children who work full-time are less happy than their counterparts with more time off, and that in the U.S., couples without kids are happier than couples with kids. Many of the reasons boil down to how well families are supported by their workplaces. Parental leave, paid sick days, generous holidays and high-quality, affordable childcare

programs all tip the balance back in favor of happy families. If we valued families more, parents would be happier.

The next friend I asked is an environmental activist. Over a walk through a park she’d spent years working to protect, she told me she and her partner had gone around in circles on the topic of children. On the one hand, there is simply no denying the environmental cost of a child. Having a child has been called one of the most destructive things you can do to the planet—with each costing 58.6 tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions per year.

Skipping a kid is more beneficial than going car-free, giving up air travel, or eating a plant-based diet.

“On the other hand,” my friend said, “what if my thoughtfully and compassionately raised offspring was part of the answer? What if she could help make the world better?” My friend told me when she realized how selfish and arrogant that idea sounded, that her child would somehow be extra special just because she was the parent, she let go of the idea of a baby forever.

The last friend I asked was the hardest. She’d had a spectacular career as an esteemed librarian and was now rocking an enviable retirement. She had had a baby when she was 16, she told me; a child who was put up for adoption, who later died. Then there was university and a short, unhappy marriage, and then her career took off. After she married again, she and her husband thought they had time for children.

“Time just ran out,” she told me. “We were even too old to adopt.

If I were doing it now I would have frozen my eggs. Maybe I still wouldn’t have had kids—but I would have made the choice rather than letting the choice be made for me.”

That’s what she regrets, she said. That she never decided whether or not to try to have children. “It doesn’t matter which I would have chosen; I would have been happy either way. The regret happens when you don’t make the decision.”

After two decades of decline, women in the U.S. are starting to have more children again. The most recent figures show that 86% of U.S. women will have had kids by the end of their childbearing years, a 7.5% rise since 2006. Also, women are more willing to have kids later in their lives and as planned single mothers.

Perhaps, like me, after weighing all the options and acknowledging just how difficult and expensive kids could be, they decided that while kids aren’t imperative to their happiness—and may well diminish it for a while—they’d still like to give motherhood a go. Having a child is an illogical and defiant act of hope.

One I chose to make.

• In the U.K., women over 40 now have a higher fertility rate than women under 20. (Office for National Statistics) • It’s a fact: kids are bad for the environment.

(Collective Evolution) • Social policies have a huge influence on parental happiness. (UT Austin Population Research Center)

• Read: Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids by Meghan Daum • Read: Regretting Motherhood: A Study by Orna Donath • Listen: the “Only Children...and Their Parents” episode of the Radio Health Journal podcast (June 11, 2018)

Did You Know?

69

Dig Deeper

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

“I could be good at my job, or have a rich life, or have a good relationship, or be a great mother.”

by Diane Selkirk

ISSUE FOUR

Hey Fam. Our next big off the grid adventure is to the island of Amorgos in Greece, this October. You should come.

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Below is a passage from my diary while living on a Greek Island.

One morning I was introduced to a Greek man on his morning stroll. After we did the name exchange and pleasantries I said "So, Niko, what do you do?" He responded with "Well, each day I wake up and go for a walk to see the sunrise, in the afternoons I see my mother for lunch and enjoy a glass of wine, and in the evening I play tennis with my best friend and we laugh til our bellies hurt. What do you do?"

Jaw. On. Floor.

I'd never heard an answer like that. Nor was I prepared to share anything other than my "I'm a marketing executive" go-to identifier which now seemed so stupid and trivial. I stuttered. He laughed and said, "So you're American."

I'd never been embarrassed to be American. But that was my first reaction.

What did he know? Why was he laughing? Flustered and angry I wanted to get away from him. When I left he said "Don't worry. You're young and there's still time. Greece will show you."

This summer I learned to walk and pick spices to use in dishes for family style dinners....every night. I learned that a tomato can get so ripe you can bite it like an apple. I learned to pause each day for the sunset as if I was watching live art.

I learned to not ask questions which would allow me to instantly size somebody up: What do you do?

Where did you go to school?

How old are you?

Instead I learned to ask: How are you feeling?

What was your high/low of the day?

If a stranger, I'd ask: How do you like to spend your time?

Who is most important to you?

I became more connected to myself, the breeze, the smells, the food I was cooking, my desires and goals, and my new community.

This conversation changed who I am to my core. I’m headed back to America, not embarrassed to be one, but with a new somewhat European outlook on how I was going to live my life.

Everything is nothing and nothing is everything, Jess

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THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

50 States of Vanity Plates: BUMPER POETRY FOR OUR SOUL

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

71

Meg Quinn @artbymoga

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Karan JIN @bananagirldoodles

ISSUE FOUR

FUNNIES

72

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Karan Gupta @krossdraws

Gudim Anton @gudim_public

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

73

FUNNIES

Less text, more sex

IRL connection A better healthcare system Guacamole

Some fresh air

Courage Pre-tech clarity

To fold my laundry A sign

Equality A fucking second Peace and quiet Good conversation

A clone Puppy snuggles

A nap

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

Horses I Wish Were Racing In the Kentucky Derby

By Rachel Roderman

ADVICE NOT FOUND ON GOOGLE

Swipe Right

Always Sunday

Advice from Dispatch founder Jess Davis.

Dished to whoever asks for it. Follow advice at your own risk.

I hear ya. There’s a lot of noise out there.

Did you know that every day 40 million new photos are posted to Instagram alone? It’s overwhelming and our little analog brains are becoming exhausted underneath this waterfall of content.

People are starting to opt out or be more selective about who they follow.

With that said, there’s always an opportunity. I spent my career building brands and did so organically. This means that we took our time. I would rather have one crazy fan than 1,000 that just scroll by. The connection is deeper—and that translates to increased revenue down the line.

Cheap Red Whinny

The only way I survived the “my friends don’t like me anymore because _______” (insert any reason here: my priorities are different than theirs, I dance on bars less, I quit Facebook, I had a kid, I won’t stop talking about politics, etc) is to look at them like planets orbiting the sun. We’re all gonna get there, but on our own time.

Mercury takes 87 days to orbit, yet Jupiter takes 4,332.82 days—that’s 11.9 years! I’ve got some friends who haven’t made one lap yet. :)

Yay or Neigh

Bred ‘N Butter

But in time, you eventually cross paths again. Try not to look down your nose at those who aren’t as quick on the uptake as you. Try to show instead of tell, and see if you can get them interested in some of your new hobbies. And if not, no hard feelings, they may circle through your life again in 5 or 10 years when you are both at different phases that you couldn’t have predicted even if you tried.

Find what you and your brand believe in, pick one platfrom you want to focus on, and be different….be you. Slow and steady wins the race.

And when in doubt, as my mom says, you’re never too old to make new friends.

Jess, you share about your priorities changing pretty suddenly: you know, going from the 24/7 hustle culture to a more analog lifestyle. I’m going through some major life shifts and feel like I’m outgrowing certain relationships.

Did you go through that at all? Any words of wisdom you could pass my way?

– Brianna Collins

I feel a shit-ton of pressure every time I scroll through pictures of people “following their dreams” and living their #bestlife while I’m struggling to pay both rent and student loans. Tips?

– Hank Ellis

Analog As Folk

bullshit. Or partly bullshit. There are even some people who’ve admitted to going into credit card debt for trips, clothes, and “it” restaurants just to maintain their online image. What you often see on social media is only half the story.

In regards to “following your dreams,” there seems to be this myth or perception that you should have it all together and figured out and financially secure

by XX age. Go live your dreams. I did.

But it looked a lot like rolling out of bed and rushing out the door to ride a subway (using couch change I found) to head to my first job of the day as a shitty intern in a shitty office, then followed by bartending to pay the rent until the wee hours of the morning, plus sneak-

TAh, the rose colored window into other people’s #bestlife. First and foremost, please believe me when I say this: it’s

75

ing in 30 mins of writing between the two for my “dream.”

It took a long time to get here with lots of shit that wouldn’t be glamorous on the internet. Cut out the noise. FOMO is real. Analaysis paralysis is real.

Makes you feel bad? Unfollow. It’ll feel good.

Ask Jess!

DM on Instagram @FolkRebellion or email dispatch@folkrebellion.com

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Any tips on how to build a brand while balancing a disconnected life? Is it possible in today’s world of Instagram influencers and social media marketing?

– TJ Hill

ISSUE FOUR

X-WORD

ANTISOCIAL NETWORK

By Brendan Emmett Quigley

Across

42 Rachel from Skid Row

30 Snap you're not prepared for

2 Urge

32 Baroness genre

1 "Lay All Your Love on Me" group

6 "Hey, Haole!"

46 "I'm guilty!"

3 Fancy hotel name

14 Money for something

48 Post sauna getup

sugar

11 Gear tooth

15 Lacking originality 16 $5, slangily

17 Eventually got around to

unleashing annoying tweets

from one's fake account?

19 Ideal number 20 Shop tool

wars?

4 Dwells on

50 What a freelancer writes on

6 His brother killed him

5 Movie hero who can dodge bullets

wisdom is organized life"

57 Night screecher

10 It has a bit of a bite and hops

44 Coloring stuff

23 Kamasi Washington's

63 Tapped letters

18 Extra-long skirt

65 Snopes debunkings

24 Dumb brute

instrument

28 Truly awful thing shared on the Internet?

62 Original: Prefix

51 Maze solution

52 TV actress Mireille 54 Blade name

55 Home in a 56-Down 56 Spot for a 55-Down

26 Additional to

66 Ease back

58 When some "happy hours" begin

27 Bad attitude

59 Weep

28 The South

60 Interior designer Stewart

29 "Passage of Arms" author

36 Anime unit

37 Line of calculus

39 Pie chart material

41 "Killing Eve" actress Comer

76

Tic-Tac-Toe is a game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3x3 grid. The player who succeeds in placing three of their marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row wins. We aren’t usually fans of a straight line, but we’ll make an exception for this game.

Enjoy, rebels.

HOW TO PLAY

TIC TAC TOE

49 Had some obligations

22 Oscar winner Rockwell

64 Dime guy

35 "Cease!," at sea

40 [] comment

48 Deep massage

collectively

34 One new to the company

38 Years old

45 Wearables, e.g.

13 Kids on "Stranger Things,"

61 Character actor R. ___ Ermey

25 Kathmandu's nation

42 Push up, say

12 "Do as I say"

content on a lolcat-filled forum?

law

41 Fugue composer initials

11 Open audition

58 Guy who scours for negative

38 First state to allow women to practice

8 Bialy's cousin

9 Easter serving

philosopher

34 Breakfast jumble

39 Closing agent?

7 Map lines: Abbr.

53 "Science is organized knowledge;

31 Be of use to

33 Certain style

47 Over-___ headphones

21 "And one more thing" 22 Charon's river

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

Down

43 Those in charge gonna start flame

1 It might be covered in powdered

THE AMERICAN DREAM ISSUE

CLASSIFIEDS MISSING PERSON

SERVICES

Impossibly long-legged man with a neat white beard clad in a red, white, and blue suit. Sometimes walks with a cane, he is known to wax political about individual potential. Was last seen handing out tax cuts to the rich.

LOOKING FOR LOVE?

THE MYTHICAL

Private home on a one acre lot in suburbia. Open floor plan with lots of natural light. Large backyard for your two doodles to run.

A gourmet kitchen and updated appliances. First floor master suite w/ walkin closet. Detached twocar garage. Three kids’ bedrooms, plus one for old college friends to crash in after you rub your perfect life in their faces. Owners are downsizing and open to offers.

THAT’S WHERE I COME IN. WITH AN EXTENSIVE BACKGROUND IN PERSONAL BRAND MANAGEMENT AND EXPERTISE IN ONLY SLIGHTLY SLEAZY ADVERTISING, I KNOW HOW TO SPIN A DATING APP BIO AND MAKE YOUR STRANGER-HATING CAT SEEM LIKE A PRICELESS ASSET FOR POTENTIAL SUITORS.

RECLAIMED WOOD-PICKET FENCE FOR A NEW PROJECT

LOST + FOUND

HELP WANTED

LOST: Any guarantee that Social Security will have my back.

(ACTUAL)

HELP WANTED

BALANCE

THE AMERICAN DREAM

Dianne Who Ordered From Seamless: Hey, I don't know if you read these. Hopefully you do. I delivered your food from California Pizza Kitchen last month. Again, sorry it took us so long. When you came to the door I thought, "Damn, you're exquisitely beautiful." Since I was working, I figured it would be inappropriate for me to say it out loud. If you would like to chat sometime, respond to this ad. Make the subject what you ordered.

LAX Baggage Claim: Got a little wink from you while we were waiting for our bags to arrive from Baltimore. I told you your howling wolf shirt was cool. I was lying, but if you’ll forgive me, want to get drinks?

Tan Hat In Portland Whole Foods, M4M: We passed each other on Tuesday as you were walking toward the hot foods bar.

Saw you leaving as I was eating and couldn't catch you before you walked out with your raw vegan salad. You: tan baseball hat, dark beard, black gym pants.

Me: navy Patagonia half-zip, scruff, longer hair.

FOUND: A newfound passion for

STICKING IT TO THE MAN.

NEW YORK CITY-BASED INTERN FOR FOLK REBELLION. LOOKING TO GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY WITH A NYC STARTUP? GET IN TOUCH WITH US. EMAIL HELLO@FOLKREBELLION.COM

To place an ad email classifieds@folkrebellion.com 77

APRIL CROSSWORD SOLUTIONS: + $ = (

2 9 $ /

: ( 0 0 ' 8 & $ 6 6 , 6

$ / 3 $ & $

1 , 1 (

. $ = $ $ , 0 0 3 ( 0 ' , ( 7 $ / 0 , ( 1 7

, 1 / $

/ $ % 2 8 5

3 + $ 5 0

6 , 5 1 , 7 3 , & .

6 6 7 $ 2 5 / / $ $ , 0 $ 1 , 2 1 6 7 % 0 $ 6

/ 2 % 7 ( , $ 1 5 ( $ 7 6 / 2 , & / & $ 8 & 5 6

2 1 $ / , 1 (

$ .

2 1

/ , 7 ( 1 , 5 $ & 6 7 ' ( $ 8 & & 3 ( 1 ' % , 5 $ 0 2 6 , 1 7 1 2 ( 7 5 5 2 $

$ / . $ / , 6 2 6 * : ( 1

T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N

SEEKING

MISSED CONNECTIONS

LOOKING TO BUY

SEEKING Someone to read my text messages to me.

Requirements include the ability to express “winking with your tongue out” emoji in at least two voices, three overly enthusiastic facial expressions, and being able to make me seem like I’m more important than I actually am.

FOR SALE

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