Everything you could want was available, but nothing you really needed.

[DemSigns]

http://soberspeak.blogspot.com/2011/05/middle-class-art.html

Middle Class (Art)
I have chewed on this idea for a long time. I had some discussions today with someone who grew up in the same type of home I did, in the same neighborhood. I grew up in a very affluent area outside of Chicago. Everything you could want was available, but nothing you really needed. It is eye opening how much leeway and excuse we will make for people with money and power. How wealth insulates, coddles, shields and protects the people who have it. The most vile and despicable actions can, and do occur, in those homes and goes completely undetected and unpunished. How living in those environments shadows and effects all perception of self and blocks any real truth from illumination. How it mangles and destroys all who live in its domain. I like the image that the family pain is like an elephant in the living room, that everyone simply steps around, adjusts to, and takes no notice of. In fact, after awhile, they really don't notice it, the denial so conditioned and deadening to their senses. The elephant is comprised of various obscene violations . Alcoholism, incest, verbal abuse, perfectionism, high expectation, drug addiction, corruption, physical violence, and sexual deviancy. There is usually a lethal combination of these injuries present. Sexual abuse and incest are by far the most noxious, egregious and deleterious, and become the most closely held and jealously guarded of them all, for they carry the most fatal shame. What ever it is, it all becomes the family secret that everyone knows but never, ever mentions openly, especially if the perpetrator of those crimes is still alive, and in the home. The secret is protected at all cost, the shame, just too painful to reveal. You can never see what you see. It becomes the sacred cow that meanders over and through, trampling and shitting on everything and everyone without regard. The family dutifully cleans up the mess and forgets anything ever happened, no matter how horrendous the damage. It all must remain underground, pushed deep, suppressed and locked away......