I don’t get to pleasure read as much as I used to or want to. Recently I reread a classic: “Utopia” by Sir Thomas Moore. Utopia is often thought of synonymously with Heaven if you believe in that sort of thing. A perfect place. The name means in greek “no place” or “nowhere”. The popular show “Mad Men” summed it up with a great quote: “ ‘utopia’. The Greeks had two meaning for it: 'eu-topos’, meaning the good place, and 'u-topos’ meaning the place that cannot be.”. Sir Thomas Moore intentionally used this name to present us with this paradox. While the show’s quote is technically correct I wonder if they got it a little wrong. Utopia is “the good place”. Utopia is “nowhere”. “Nowhere” isn’t the place that cannot exist. It’s the place that does not exist. The one word makes all the difference.
After good old Thomas Moore almost successfully put me to sleep for the 4th time I put the book aside and reflected on the concept. Something that does not exist does not necessarily mean it cannot exist. The reason that a Utopian society cannot exist is because the word perfect is subjective. What I may consider perfect is likely vastly different than everyone else in the world. Even those I have a great deal in common with will have variations from my definition. As individuals, our tastes and preferences change almost daily. It would be impossible to come close to a consensus. I began to think maybe we are looking at the concept on too broad a scale. A more introspective view might give a different answer.
What we are talking about here is a personal Utopia. At first glance, it seems just as impossible. I want to say this before we go any further. A personal Utopia is not some idealistic BS I’m going to try to feed you. I make it a practice regularly to lick my fingers and smudge as many rose colored glasses as I can. A personal Utopia is an attitude however it’s definitely not living in la la land. Anyone who’s read my writing or knows me will tell you that I always advocate a very progressive approach to life. By progressive, I don’t mean in the political sense. I mean always moving forward towards goals. The Utopia is the byproduct of living such a life.
Have you ever heard someone use the euphemism “I’m in a good place right now” when describing the general state of their life? Does this mean that nothing wrong ever happens in their life? Of course not. It means they are happy with their ratio of good vs. bullshit. Everyone’s goals are not the same as yours. There will be things that affect us that are out of our control because of the actions of others being proactive on their goals. At this point, most will think that even the personal Utopia is shot because something has come and wrecked perfection. We can’t control everything that happens around us but we can control how we react to it. My favorite quote from JFK is when he said “The Chinese word for crisis is made up of two characters. One is danger. The other is opportunity” If you look for the opportunity in everything (and I mean everything) that happens to you after not long you’ll realize that even the shittiest of the shitty won’t take you out of your “good place”.
It’s not a far stretch to say that a person who has mastered this attitude is living in a personal Utopia. Now how can we expand this and make it more of a societal thing? There isn’t much honestly. Or to be more honest not much I could think of. If we cultivate a culture that does everything possible to aid individuals in achieving their goals we have the right idea. That’s a whole different conversation in itself and I’d love to hear y'all’s (that spelling looks so wrong but it’s not!)opinion. If a majority of our society buys into this what I like to call a “positively opportunistic” attitude then the changes will come about without the need for legislation for equal opportunity laws and the like because people will already see opportunities equally in their own lives and act on them without prodding. Interactions between people become more and more about mutual benefit. Now the by-product is more and more people achieving their goals. A truly progressive society. Is this what Sir Thomas Moore could have meant way back in 1516? I’d like to think so. The attitude of the populace (aka the mob mentality) is one of being in a “good place”. A place that is “nowhere” yet everywhere. It “does not exist” only because you can’t assign it a zip code.
