My electric co-op holds member meetings every once in a while. The most recent one included a video on the volunteer work that American power companies were doing in Bolivia. They were running power to a village that had not had electricity for over 25 years as part of a long-term effort in that country.
This was old-school work. There were no hole-diggers or bucket trucks. Utility poles were erected manually using methods borrowed from Egyptian pyramid-building. Power cable was carried for miles over shoulders while workers climbed the poles as lumberjacks, pulling the cable up with them.
Three of the workers our co-op sponsored were at the meeting to talk about their experience. One of them was saying that he had never seen such happy people. And it was not because they were getting electricity back for the first time in a generation...they were just happy, while they seemingly had nothing. You could see the sorrow on his face as he spoke of trying to explain this to his children back here in "modern society." Heck, try explaining this to most adults in "modern society." You'll likely receive a condescending smirk for your efforts.
The more we have, the less we appreciate. We are raised from the earliest age to be in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction, remediated only by acquiring the next "thing," yet it never works; in fact, it often makes things worse. The goal is to ensure that each successive generation "has it better" than the preceding one, but no one discusses exactly what "better" means...for many, it's generally assumed to be "more stuff at a better price." That utility worker saw first-hand the insantiy of such measurements.
It's good to have threads on this subject to remind us to step back and take account of what matters.
Taking a minute or two out of each day for such an accounting helps keep things in their proper.place.
It's a habit I should be more consistent with.
