The Secret

From the observations of someone visiting the Philippines for the second time:

“…the lives that people live there seem more real to me than the lives that people live here in the USA.”

Exactly my impression of the Philippines or Korea versus Canada.

Worth pondering why this is so. But I think Yeats hit it in speaking of the difference between England and Ireland: in Ireland, or the Philippines, each individual is unique and irreplaceable to those who know them. In England, or Canada or the US, if you dropped dead on a streetcorner, there’s be another in your place in half an hour. In Third World countries generally, people are still people, and have complete lives. In Canada, the US, England, now most of Europe, people are machines. Most of the rest of life has been sacrificed for the pursuit of material wealth and status.

It's not a life at all.