After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made

by Ben Rhodes

I was an American in a world that America had made in its own image, a world that now felt oddly foreign in its familiarity. I was an individual who felt unmoored amid the forces shaping the world, my own identity as incidental as a flicker of light in the panorama that reflected off the water. I was a political exile of sorts, cast among the figures of the past who objected to the general direction of events, clinging to pride in the fact that I’d soon meet with a Tibetan Buddhist who was almost sure to die in a foreign land. I turned to walk the few paces back to the hotel, taking momentary solace in the “likes” that began to register on the screen of my phone, like an addict being given tiny doses of an opioid by some giant unseen beast.