I hate hearing these blanket statements about Western culture. Speaking as a Westerner who has lived in the Persian Gulf countries and in Central America, I can tell you that life in these places can be just as isolated, sterile, and boring as life anywhere in Europe or the US. And I can assure you that millions of Central Americans have gone to the US to escape the isolation, sterility, and boredom of their lives in Central America.

It’s a matter of perspective, not the failure of a culture.

Traveling abroad is fabulous because you get to see how other people LIVE each day. We’ve gotten so far off course in the USA that it’s difficult to see the road in front.

I lived in a small community in Papua New Guinea for four of my teenage years and when I returned to the States it wasn’t easy. Among other things, I remember thinking that one day, when I was old, I might want to return to PNG to die. Why? Because life was not demarcated by the clock and the calendar (most people didn’t know how old they were, so there was no birthday angst), and there was real community. That’s not to romanticize a country and culture that has real problems, nor is it to devalue the health care opportunities in my home country. It’s just to say that I suspect, if I am one day dying in a nursing home or with tubes jutting out of my body, my mind may fall back to a village on the far side of the world, where people often died in simple huts, and didn’t even know how old they were.