When building a small but beautiful sandcastle in your garden, and then leave it alone like it is.. The wind, rain, heat & cold, animals, even plants can touch the sandcastle. Pretty soon the castle will be gone leaving a pile of sand behind.

The sand is still there, but the castle is gone, the castle is therefore a matter of shape -not sand.

To keep the castle's shape alife, someone has to care for it, giving it the necessary attention so it will stay and maybe even grow.

Sandcastles don't care for themselves, nor do machines -unless they are build for that task. Being alive to a certain extent implies the ability care for: oneself, others and things. Or actually; the ability to direct the path of energy, to move mass in other positions, with can result in: care/creation, destruction, or just fooling around.

No species -as far as I know- has the ability to constantly regenerate and improve itself, and possible live forever. The human body does automatically renews most of its selve every two years or so, but will eventually die because of malfunction. To reproduce seems like a good/easy option to stay alive in a way, were every new generation has to start all over again. When spending so much energy/time in to the basics like surviving and reproduction, little is left for other things.
Image if regeneration could be done at will, and one could even make a body-backup in case of disaster, life for ever, grow for ever (not in size), how would that be like?

But I actually wanted to write about something else here, less SF, about how the right attention can improve the quality of life, here and now.
It always hurts me to see places where things aren't going well. People then often cry for money, but although money can get things going, it alone will most likely not solve the problems.

Imagine there was no such thing as money, then what would you do?

With the right attention; a desert can become green and alive.
With the "right" attention; a forest can become a desert.
But destruction is easier that creation, not something to be proud of.

I don't want to understand how a country that has: room, people, nature, .. how such a country can be extremely poor, not as in financial-poor, but really bad; suffering & death. What is blocking these places from flourishing? And the "rich" countries, well; they have their own problems that can be as bad as the "poor" countries have.
It's all very complex.

I like to think about solutions, not saying I know them but I do believe there are solutions to many problems ánd that people most often can't seem to find and/or apply them, for whatever reasons.

We could together build a problem-solution data base, where to note numerous cases of ways that did or did not help solving a problem. Naturally are all problems unique, but there also are loads of similarities, so it should be used as notation & inspiration -not as truth or law.

First thing is to be able to give attention to problem solving activities.
And that in many cases is a problem already...
- Communication (talk the same language, read, write, telephone, internet)
- Information (libraries, share knowledge, find the right people)
- Working together (respect, trade, intercultural)
- A positive self-image; you can possibly make that positive change!
But.. what if you never went to school, live in a place without infrastructure, are suppressed, got your first kid as a teen already, got sick family members are just got struck by another natural disaster? No progress, no change, all depending on "the will of God".. (Which God? Pick one you like) But remember what any God does with a sandcastle.

I would love to get a great piece of desert and build a healthy new society there, not trying to improve a troublesome old one, but to start from scratch.