The Kite Runner

10 Beautiful Things

5. America

A friend asked me to help her choose a topic for a college essay. "I either write about academic accomplishments, a piece of music that inspired me, or how my culture affects me."

"Well," I said, "What is your culture?"

"It's America. My cultural background is full of fast food, fat people, bad politics, too much focus on Hollywood stars, and kids who have no education because they not only hate the standardized testing but they don't have the money to pay for college."

And I said, "But what about the good things? Hamburgers at 2 a.m. Yuppies who drink Starbucks while complaining about corporate takeover. Where else can you pass a guy through the primaries who thinks economic recovery means selling himself as a bobble head doll? I think that's our culture. It's being able to tell the president where to shove it on national television. It's being able to choose to go to college despite the wishes of your parents, your money problems, because if you work hard enough it will happen. It's the ability to choose who you marry and what you worship, if anything at all."

And it is beautiful to me because some people get screwed over but in the end, where a person ends up is a product of their starting point and their actions. I know of no other place where a girl may grow up saying, "Someday I will be the president."

The USA began as a bunch of misfits and pissed off religious followers. Is it any wonder the lady who said "I'm a witch" may become a governor? Is it such a leap to imagine a New York where a mosque of the religion followed by the terrorists who blew up the World Trade Centers, may someday stand not a block from that site?

All questions of morality and ethics aside, I find I can't disbelieve that such things can happen here. I believe anything can happen here. I grew up being told that those numbers and letters I memorized in school could some day lead me to the White House. Given effort, determination, and a bit of talent (if I was lucky), I could be a rock star, a housewife, a general, a president. And given that I believe in choice above anything else, it makes sense that America is beautiful to me.

"If America taught me anything, it's that quitting is right up there with pissing in the Girl Scouts' lemonade jar" (Hosseini).