I have spent the past 14 years living not in USA despite the fact that I am a USA citizen. I did this by choice years ago for a reason that wasn't terribly romantic or informed. I moved to the developing world because I enjoyed the notion of a simplistic life that I had seen was the life of expats that I met while traveling in South-East Asia.
The friends i made while traveling were all involved in the dive industry and when I moved there, this is precisely what I ended up doing. I had grand dreams of owning my own boat and living near a beach like the one pictured above and having a simple bungalow with the cool breeze blowing in etc.
of course just like everyone else I accomplished none of those things because they are impractical and insecure. Not to mention the fact that beachfront land costs just as much in Asia as it does in Florida, so yeah, it isn't gonna happen. What ends up happening is that you can live kind of close to the beach in a cement rectangle of sorts.
something like this
While not as exotic as I had hoped, I did have the simple life and while certain parts of it end up being mundane (like any life, anywhere, it depends on what you make of it, right?) for the most part I felt life was better in the developing country that in USA - or much of the western world.
I am back in the USA now and I have to say that the aspects of society that I didn't really care for have kind of gotten worse over here. I want to state that I mean no offense to anyone that is American or western for that matter, but I believe there are some terrible deficiencies in society over here that I will never be a fan of.
It seems that each time i return here there are more cameras, more rules, and more enforcers of those rules. I was stunned to find that my cozy little town of 40,000 people or so has cameras everywhere. The bar that i went to in the afternoon with an old friend had massive curtains drawn across all th windows and I asked why. The bartender told me that the police used to watch the customers inside and follow them to give tickets. Drink driving isn't cool. I know that, but police setups... are worse.
I can't believe that amount of stuff (crap) that people have. I had made an article before about how i don't like these Allegra or Google machines that people are talking to in their house. They pay hundreds of dollars for a machine that keeps them stupid. Why bother knowing anything when i can ask the machine the answer to anything I encounter?
Advertising has gotten extremely intelligent and I think it is only a matter of time before the advertising that appears in Blade Runner becomes part of our lives.
I know advertising is everywhere but here is an example of how much more of it we are subjected to in the west.... Youtube. Since arriving in the USA I use Youtube just like anyone else, but in USA i am subjected to I would say at least 3 times the amount of advertising that I would be forced to watch in South-East Asia. I know I can block this stuff and I do, but i let it through for comparison.
It is working too, because it seems that western people are far more likely to "need" the latest stuff and boy do they ever get it. It is very difficult for me to find a car not owned by a member of my family that is more than 5 years old. People are convinced of their need to remain in debt to always have the latest and greatest while having virtually no savings. I had lunch with a friend who has 10 acres of land, 4 cars (despite only having 2 drivers in the family,) 60 inch smart TV, the latest Apple computer, and no money to go to lunch with me.
This is terrible
Just having a nice shirt isn't enough in USA. Just being clean and having some fashion sense is not enough. We need to have labels. This is particularly evident in big cities where I guess the level of advertising hysteria has reached an apex. I was recently given a shirt from a wealthy NYC friend. The shirt was over $300 and it was just a regular shirt. It wasn't made of diamonds nor did it come with an 8-ball of coke. It was just a cotton shirt with a designer name on the label. Basically it looked like something you could get a 3-pack of at Wal-Mart for about 15 bucks.
If you cant' look at this and see the insanity in it, I don't think we would have much in common.
It would have been nice if the shirt had this sense of irony, but alas, it did not
Again, I am not trying to say anything bad about USA or the west but I will say this. I do not want this life and therefore don't feel as though I can ever move back to America. More than half of my immediate family lives at least most of the time, outside of the US and I think it will remain that way.
I could type a lot more, but this is already too long.
