America Is the Frontier: The Future Is Here

Brilliant private investor Jeremy Giffon had a great tweet on America: 

“Europeans live better than Americans because the spirit of the American lays in the infinite frontier. Europe is enclosed and complete, the frontiers are known. So the European must turn inward. The good life for him can be found in simply asking "what is for lunch?". 

But the American exists solely in the future, in the unconquered frontier. There is no time to pause and reflect on what has been mapped as the future lays beyond him, always out on the horizon.

Toqueville observed that the American spirit relies entirely on the existence of a limitless unsettled West that he can employ his industriousness upon. Even if he himself never sets out to conquer he takes great assurance in knowing that it is there, infinite possibility awaiting him. 

Without a frontier, the American has nothing. He is not equipped to stop and look around. To cultivate an appreciation for the finer things and settle in, comfortable knowing that the soil on which he rests is soaked in his ancestors blood and will so to be one day in his childrens'. He is not equipped for that self-reflection, that contentment. His ambition lays outward. He must journey. Robbed of this, he is nothing. He has nowhere to cast his gaze. He will self-destruct.”

Source: https://twitter.com/jeremygiffon/status/1655412696773189634

American society is fractious and raucous in times of peace and prosperity. But when it’s guided or directed toward a common goal or enemy it’s a fearsome place. We saw this in 1941, we saw this in 9/11. Don’t count out this country yet as we head into the new frontiers of technology and space.