Trump's Second Coming: Dedication
Is America Teetering On The Edge?
Grayson Murray 'passed away" in May, 2024. He was a 30 year old male, who had struggled with mental and personal issues for most of his adult life. He was recently engaged to be married, and had just reached an apex in his professional career.
As a young and gifted golfer, starting when he was 8 years old, he won three straight junior division World titles in San Diego. Over the next decade he accomplished many levels of success: a high school state champion in Raleigh North Caroline, later playing for Wake Forrest, Arizona State and East Carolina University. In 2016, at just 22, he joined the Korn Ferry Tour on a sponsors exemption. He ended that year No. 2 on the tour's money list, giving him a chance to play with the big boys on the PGA Tour.
In 2017 he won the Barbasol Championship, then went into a tailspin. He later admitted he was struggling with depression and alcohol abuse. After undergoing counseling and going straight he won the Sony Open in Hawaii in 2023.
During his post tournament press conference, he spoke about his struggles: “My parents have been through hell and back basically for the last six years with me fighting some mental stuff. It’s not easy on me and the people around me that love me.”
He was vocal about how everything was going well, his game, his rehab, his plans to start a family. Then, after a good start on Thursday May 23rd 2024, at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas, he faltered on Friday. He told his playing partner he was ill, and suddenly withdrew on the 16th hole.
He was found dead the next morning at his home in Jupiter Florida. An apparent suicide by car exhaust.
The sheer senselessness is overwhelming. He had spoken with friends about looking forward to playing in his first Open. He was earning good money and obviously playing great golf too. On the surface, he was in complete control of his life.
But apparently that was far from the truth.
The emotion I felt upon hearing this story mirrors the sadness I have been feeling about the health of our nation. Even though I had no personal relationship with Grayson, his suicide hit me like a ton of bricks. I literally sobbed. Ultimately, I asked myself "Isn't the United States of America undergoing a similar series of challenges?"
The acknowledged greatest country on Earth is teetering on the edge of committing suicide, and no one can explain why. Our birth rate is bellow sustainability, we are engaged in a war with The Russian Bear, whether we want to admit it or not. Our schools are over priced and under performing. Our national debt is unsustainable, and the middle class has all but disappeared. Home ownership, once a fixture of the American Dream, is no longer available to most young people. A recent poll indicates that 61% of Americans would not volunteer to defend our nation were it to be attacked.
After World War II, America was the envy of the world. We established hundreds of military bases touching every continent. U.S. corporations dominated the trade markets. The middle class was booming. But that enormous power has led to a widespread and sinister sense of complacency and entitlement seeping into our cultural psyche. Many Americans are depressed over our heritage, economic struggles, relationship conflicts, gender and racial identity, drug and alcohol abuse and job insecurities.
We celebrate our progressive thinking, diversity and inclusion while simultaneously practicing regressive tribalism.
America is in denial. What sometimes appears to be healthy and vibrant is far from it. The level of self doubt among Americans is so high, our cultural underpinnings so unbalanced, that it may be more appealing to many citizens to just write off the whole concept of Americanism. To come to the same conclusion young Grayson Murray came to. It would be a lot easier to go into the garage, attach a hose to the exhaust pipe, put the other end in the window, slip a CD into the player, tilt the seat back and play Van Morrison's "Into The Mystic".