Last week during my stay at the Gideon Putnam Hotel in Saratoga, my early morning ritual was to saunter down to the lobby at about 7:30 a.m., go over to the coffee stand, pour myself some hot coffee and go out to the porch. There I would sit in a rocking chair and look out onto the gardens.
All peaceful and lovely, but I noticed one thing which disturbed my quietude. As other hotel guests walked by on their morning constitutions, nearly every one of them asked me where I got the coffee or was there a Starbucks around.
Asians have their tea ceremonies and the British have high tea in the afternoon, but most Americans were just like me, obsessed with coffee. In fact, there are 2.5 billions cups of coffee consumed daily around the globe and three out of four Americans drink coffee on a daily basis.
The love of coffee is nothing new of course. Bach wrote his “Coffee Cantata” in 1732 about a disgruntled father who was angry at his coffee-obsessed daughter for drinking it all day long.
As I thought about coffee, something I’ve loved since my teen years, I concluded that rather than the American flag as the symbol of America, the cup of coffee ought to be America’s symbol, so why not put it on our flag? As Dunkin’ says “America runs on Dunkin’”
Alexis de Tocqueville once described Americans as relentless, restless, independent, acquisitive, materialistic and active, always active.
I certainly wouldn’t go so far as to suggest we redo the American flag and make it look like the Starbucks twin-tailed siren, only because times change.
It is possible that in the future, coffee will fall out of favor and America will seek a new symbol. And I can already see what the new symbol will be.
Americans are increasingly lost in an imaginary world and fantasy. We are locked into social media and the internet. We spend an inordinate amount of time and money looking at screens which provide fake news and fake relationships. We now live in a fantasy world where “friends,” likes, followers, and influencers are what counts. Facebook, TikTok and Instagram run the show.
There was a piece today in the Sunday New York Times titled “What Happens When the Bots Compete for Your Love?” Recently, one of my patients confessed to me that for five hours each day she was interacting with her new boyfriend who happened to be an AI- generated avatar.
This brave new world of ours needs a symbol and it won’t be Soma. The new symbol of America may become the marijuana joint. The THC in any joint puts you in a dreamy state of reverie for at least an hour or so. And modern-day marijuana is about 10 times as strong as the weed of the 1960s. It does not seem to faze people that marijuana lowers IQ, produces poor decision-making and destroys motivation. The never ending competitive stress in America has prompted many people, especially in the lower and middle classes, to escape into a world of reverie, found both on the internet and with pot.
I was amazed when marijuana was legalized, but it makes sense. There is simply too much stress for people to cope with and they are willing to put up with the lethargy and sleepiness of marijuana in order to escape from all that stress and competitive anxiety.
Coffee is still king and Starbucks has nothing to worry about, but who knows what tomorrow brings.
