You’ve probably heard people say we live today better than kings of old could have dreamed of. They point out even poor people have color TVs, internet access, cell phones, and food available from all over the world any time. We can live in air conditioned comfort any time we want. Stephen Pinker’s Better Angels of Our Nature points out we live less violently than ever, so it’s not just material difference.

Still, I can’t remove the plastic and carcinogens from my blood. I can’t change that leaded gasoline lowered my IQ (yours too).

I don’t want a TV, but I do want peace and quiet in the morning, which I rarely experience.

I’d like to hear birdsong but rarely hear any.

I’d like a day without hearing sirens. Kings of old never had that noise bothering them.

I’d like a morning not having to cough up phlegm, which doesn’t build up when I don’t sleep in polluted air.

I’d like neighbors not overwhelmingly overfat and dying of heart disease, diabetes, strokes, and diseases of excess.

I’d like more trees than building.

I’d like not to hear cars without their mufflers, or honking, or motorcycles with smaller engines making more noise.

Is it too much to ask for a beach without plastic on it? Past kings had that.

I’d like solitude withinf walking distance.

I wish that the loud truck outside weren’t so loud or spewing so much pollution. Now it’s beeping, annoyingly, so it must be backing up, as if the idling weren’t enough.

I wish others alive today didn’t have incomparably more pollution and waste that we do.

I hope I conveyed the idea: if you only look at the parts of something you like, it looks great.

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