February 22

So here's the thing, this is what I've been thinking - In America you have to work, and for the most part you have to work hard - there's no way around it - most everyone needs to have a job, except the very rich and very poor. You have to buy land and you have to buy food and health insurance and a car to get to your job that you have to go to. And houses are expensive, like way expensive, like 30 years expensive, and there's clothes and new shoes and there's plenty that you just want to buy so you buy those things too. Which is fine and it creates this kick-ass economy that affords us things like huge hospitals and cars and power tools and full-on entertainment and social programs and such, and it works out pretty well. We have to work hard, but there's lots of rewards that come from doing so. And for the most part everyone is satisfied with the system, everyone except those that it doesn't work for, like those who can't pay for everything we have to pay for, and those that really struggle everyday meeting the our culture's working demands. And the homeless, of course.

As you can guess, it's different here. Everyone has family and a home and every single person gets enough to eat. (Very different than America, huh?) It's a place where necessities don't have to be paid for. Which means you don't have to make money, which means their economy is always going to be weak compared to societies where everyone is sort of forced to help increase the gross domestic product. The price they have to pay for this is that they don't get huge hospitals (you get mild pain-killers for any medical issues and a massage after a stroke and such shortcomings that are much more real than just the size of the hospital) and they don't get endless entertainment and a natural right to 18 years of school (like myself, Alex has 19), Expensive clothes and power tools and newspapers and flour and an endless list of luxuries we take for granted are rare here. And there are expectations that you shouldn't "want" as we "want" in America. Which is no good at all - if your the type who wants to go above and beyond and succeed and buy a new sparkling truck - you would probably get run out of this community - really. You'd get ran out of the community because there is an expectation of sharing, and you really can't save up for a truck and share well at the same time.

And being one that wants but isn't given the opportunity is no better (or worse) than being the guy that doesn't want but must live as if he does. It's seems more of a question of who loses out in the end than anything else.