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..
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..!
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.
Perfection, by definition, cannot be improved upon.
There will, and must ALWAYS be room for improvement.
Thus, Utopia must always be “a work in progress”.
One could even say that if Utopia existed, it could not possibly be Utopia..!
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