In a thousand years an archaeologist will dig up my body-maybe yours too- and say to his graduate assistant: “This is a good one Charlie. Lots of markings that demonstrate that he followed the rationalities of his society to the most minute of details. Well, up to a point.”

The archaeologist’s undergraduate assistant-with tone that assumes his cleverness-will say , “what a stupid man he must have been for falling for the trappings of a society that by all measures was quite brutish and obvious in the ways it imposed suffering upon its populace.”

“Well, Charlie. What’s interesting is that he was found with a well-preserved plastic pen next to his remains, as well as the metal rings of a notebook-obviously with no paper attached to it as it had degraded. He fancied himself a writer it seems. But he was also found with 357 Magnum, special edition issued by the San Francisco Police department. Signs show that it had only been fired one time. The cause of death-we’ll wait until later to discuss so as not to skew our biases at this moment-but his skeletal remains show all the tell-tale signs of a medium intelligence male born and raised in the 1990’s. Broken bones from football and other contact sports, signs of brain trauma likely from fist fights, and he has signs of plaque on his artery walls from the consumption of high calorie, high fat foods with low nutritional value. At that time he would have likely been consuming burritos and hamburgers and large amounts of beer. His bones and body are well formed though so he likely lived a relatively healthy early life, was well fed, and was taking part in activities that developed muscle in away that maintain fairly good posture. But by the end of this life his body was incredibly broken, with signs of trauma on nearly all his extremities and atherosclerosis of the heart. This is common of men of his age, socioeconomic status, and physical stature around the time in history when he died.”

“Professor, do you think this type of American perceived their lives in America to be well spent or well-wasted.”

“Thats the right question Charlie. There is not enough evidence in the archaeological or ethnographic record to know for sure what this class of individuals felt about their own reality. It is indeed a question worth asking.”