I’mlooking forward to depression. By this I mean not so much that I can’t wait tilAlkaline Trio and Hawthorne Heights are in town and RiteAid restocks myfavorite brand of razor, but that I can’t wait until we’re all poor and destitute.“Wait, Dave,” I can hear the voicein my head say. “You aren’t thinking straight!” Though I will admit that Brad Pittis an attractive man, I give you my deepest assurances that I’m thinkingstraight. This country needs a good bout of depression. We’ve becometoo soft. When I look around America, I see a bunch of people who have lost thewill to live. I don’t mean that we’re all listless saps, whining about ourstate of affairs (though I anticipate a bunch of that soon). What I see is anation of people who have lost the will to live simply because they haven’t hadto will themselves alive. I’ll explain.As a nation, a great many of ouryoung people have never faced any obstacle of earth-shattering importance.We’ve all overcome things, but the vast majority of us have never had to fightso hard to live that we’ve looked at our options and had to decide if life wasreally worth the effort. Living in America has been easy. Our poor are fat, ourrich are vapid, and our average citizen can go meandering bleakly through hispale existence without ever questioning what he’s capable of. Our “Can Do!”spirit has died. This sort of crisis is what we need as a nation to overcomeour malaise. This is precisely the sort of thing that we need to wake us up.                   We’ve been comfortable. That’s been theproblem. This country threw off the British at one point. We beat Hitler. Whatdo we do now? We put on our sweat clothes, go to Walmart and buy movies made bytwo of the six writers of “Scary Movie” for no real reason. What would yourgreat grandfather say?                  Weneed to be made uncomfortable as a nation. Don’t get me wrong; I like anarmchair, a nice pair of pants and a good beer as much as the next guy. Theproblem is that instead of becoming an occasional repose from what we do, it’sbecome what we do.                  Anormal person, if he is comfortable, will not strive for something better. Takea lesson from ants. They have become a common symbol for industriousness. Whyis this? I’ll tell you.                  Beingan ant sucks. There are few experiences one can have that can compare to thesheer crappiness of being an ant. They’re mostly sterile, and still the vastmajority of ants spend all of their times moving ten times their bodyweight ata time for a lazy overweight bossy woman. Do you know why they work so hard?Because if they begin moving things that are ten times their size, they mightforget they’re ants. We could use this.                  Theant allegory doesn’t go all the way, though. Ants don’t stage coups. Theyaren’t smart enough to realize that they’re unhappy. They don’t have thecapacity to be anything but ants. We can be something better than we are. Wecan realize that we’re ants and change our situation. That’s the difference.                  Thepoint I’m trying to make is that things have gotten bad enough, but the vastmajority of people won’t realize exactly where they are until they can nolonger afford sweat outfits and bad movies. This depression is what we need tobring us to our senses. We won’t realize that we don’t work until somethinghappens to show us that we don’t work. This depression is the greatestopportunity for change we have. When you wake up, what are you going to be?