The most important reasons for my unhappiness being social isolation and alienation, and that no one will cry when i die. Related, and perhaps the main reason i sometimes think of moving to a different country is that for many americans if not most, there is little sense of community. When i hear in the media some place like my little hometown being described as 'tight-knit', i think that's bs. I don't even know the names or for that matter the faces of most of the people living on my street, and i think that's not all that unusual in america. Our society is highly individualistic, with the general mentality being it's up to every individual to sink or swim on their own. By contrast, there's a documentary on PBS titled La Manplesa that's about what was a tight-knit community of latinos mostly from el salvador in a washington dc neighborhood who got along pretty well until things changed, including the police harassing and brutalizing them for hanging out in public and being noisy, which from what i understand is typical behavior in latin cultures. In this doc. the residents describe how close they were and how the spirit of community among them was very strong. Since i'm so used to american culture i don't know how well i would adjust to such a change, but the thought of trying does intrigue me.
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