UTOPIA..? Show me yours and I'll show you mine..! | Deltapolis

UTOPIA..? Show me yours and I’ll show you mine..!

HAPPINESS MEANS DIFFERENT THINGS TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE..!

For many years, long since passed, I made quite a good living as a globe-trotting blackjack player – certainly not the “proper job” my mother wanted for me, but a “career” which gave me the opportunity to travel widely whilst winning (and occasionally losing) some money along the way. For various reasons, I wasn’t as successful in this “career” as some of my associates, partly because the money was never that important to me. In the back of my mind, I was always searching for that “perfect place” to live – an island ideally. The Maldives – where I “broke the bank” (admittedly a very modest bank) at the only casino there – is what many people think of as “a paradise”, but did not qualify for me. And that is the PARADOX OF PARADISE because, as the song goes, “Happiness is – different things to different people”..!

Instead of searching the world for that elusive island paradise, perhaps it would be easier to create our own custom-built island utopias..?

“You may say I am a dreamer, but I am not the only one…” John Lennon

The idea of Utopia is routinely sneered at, being regarded as a foolish and unattainable dream of day-dreamers..

Utopia by Thomas More (Paperback, 2018) - Paperback NEW Thomas more 2018 - Picture 1 of 2

Thomas More’s “Utopia” (1516), or “perfect place”, was the first known book to describe in detail an ideal society. But his was a caste-obsessed vision where every man must know his place, his clothing must inform of his position in society, and with mandatory death penalties for a whole range of what today would be trivial offences. More’s idea of Utopia is viewed with horror today, but my own ideas of what would constitute a PERFECT PLACE might also be viewed with horror by most people. For example, my advocation that mandatory “community service” be written into the charter, and be made a condition of citizenship. This, and other ideas of mine, might only be shared by a minority, but a small % of a large number is still a large number.

Current Utopian ideals might seem as strange to people 500 years in the future as Thomas More’s ideals are to us. But, in at least one respect, I think Thomas More was right because…

Thomas More imagined Utopia as an island, a MAN-MADE island..!

AN ISLAND DOES NOT HAVE TO BE SURROUNDED BY WATER

It is not necessary for an “island” to be surrounded by water. OA-Cities would be virtual islands, but islands surrounded by land rather than sea. And, just as sea islands have limited access points (ports or harbours), so would OA-Cities – thus being much safer and securer than borderless OB-Cities which permit automatic free entry for anyone and anything. And that, as we are seeing increasingly, is not a good idea when some of those being allowed in have evil intentions.

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