From a Land

Another day, gone to work, outside by a cafe, wanting not to forget the unusual and fleeting experiences I had in SE Asia. I am from a land where the dollar influences most people’s decisions. The aspiration towards life here usually involves a cost, a wanting, constantly, for more.
In other parts of the world, many people have invented ways and means of sustenance that involves what they presently have. We are lucky enough to live in a country where the idea of “more” material is to be had. Do we remember a time when we were bound by our geography, our local food sources, our family, our responsibilities to community? Bound, hung up, restrained, that’s how most of us view these things. But in most other places, these are life, and they come to have sacred meanings and are appreciated. There is no doubt, given the chance, most everyone in these places would love to escape, see the world, a privilege that a few of us, us few, enjoy. As they don’t, their reality must serve them. But our reality, it is never good enough, we always yearn for more. This dogged determination rarely leads to happiness, and when it does, it’s on the backs of others.
So what of a life that is cut off from this possibility, these chances at a better life; the comfort and security we’re supposed to attain and enjoy. Is it possible that most people of the world find it satisfying to not feel the itch of material want, to not hear the nagging reminder of predictable and expected consumerism? Granted, there are in many parts of the world a latent force of consumerism and a shifting of values towards material identity. This whole paradigm puts self worth in accordance with material gain. Mostly responsible for this is the spreading of western capitalistic and cultural ideals: The idea that the economy should have the first and last say, and that to fit into this system one should aspire to be a willing contributor and benefactor of that global economy.
It becomes an extraordinarily complex question to answer whether people are benefited by this system. So many different views exist as to what amount of financial gain constitutes happiness. When you combine that with the spiritual, traditional, habitual, and all other countless forms of existence; financial necessities and wants become hard to pin down. However, I don’t think it would be very hard to argue that when this global economy is encountered by cultures whose parameters and precepts don’t recognize it, many other things are lost, replaced and substituted for. These things are often traditional and simple. And it's my society, the way of life I contribute to everyday, that snags the life force- and sometimes extinguishes it- in so many people and in so many places around the world.