Growing up in America in unincorporated Piece County, I'd say that there were very few cultural “messages” that helped to shape my identity. The “messages” I did receive were about ownership and consumerism, things I am just beginning to understand as an adult.

Watching TV (“the mostly still broadcast but also early cable years”), and attending public school, and living in a rural housing development, was all a subtle indoctrination course that Life orchestrated for me so that I could get a glimpse of the “American Dream”: the idea that in America, every American has the God given right to get up and drive to work each day in a car.

The “keeping up with the Jones” mindset permeating everything from designer blue jeans to big fishing boats in the various neighborhoods of my youth (and much hasn't changed in Summit, South Hill, and Puyallup: big trucks rule).

Identity should be about more than where you work, what you drive, and where you shop.

It should be, but is it?

What truly delineates each of us as an individual, or even as neighbors, let alone as citizens of the federal republic we call the United States of America?

Why are "we" we? Just random chance of birth?

What are the odds of being born in the US? Any thoughts?