Looking from the Other Side

On the Nature of Perspective

“I’m tired of America.”

My cousin was out in the backyard of the family home in Jamaica looking out into a valley of lush green forests with rolling mountains behind it, smoking a cigarette. He described his work day of an hour drive, hauling, unloading, operating equipment, dismantling, delivering, and the resultant exhaustion before another hour drive home.

Those words stuck with me as I contemplated my own commute to New York years ago. It was two hours one way. Jamaica seemed a…