Robert Williams

Pohl links gratitude to the Fall story. Whether literal or fictional the classic Fall story is about two people who were given everything. There was no want, sickness, disease, and they could live happily for eternity together. The story is overtly sexual in nature. Despite all of these gifts they focus on the one thing they are denied, the fruit of one tree. Instead of focusing with gratitude towards what they have, they focus on the one thing they are denied. It is powerful because this is the state of most people. Especially in the North-Atlantic region we have more comfort than at any other point in human history. Many of the poorest in this region die of diseases related to obesity, not starvation. Despite all we have, we are riddled with greed and envy, desiring those thing we do not have. Could it be we are expelling ourselves from this relative paradise through economic models that redistribute and take from others for our own selfish gain? I contend that it is entirely possible. One only has to look at Venezuela or Argentina to see the results for socialist policies aimed at wealth redistribution created by people who were focused, not on what they have, but what they do not have.