Where (how) did we go wrong?

I will say this about the train: It leaves Vienna’s Hauphbahnhof on the dot and arrives, many pleasurable hours later, at Zurich HB on the dot. The ride is so smooth I could give myself a manicure (if I did such things). The seat is so comfortable (and leans back, and has a foot rest) that I could fall asleep (but I don’t…the scenery is too beautiful). A uniformed man walks the aisle asking what you would like to drink (cappuccino und wasser mit gas for me). It is delivered on a tray. The coffee is in a ceramic cup. The water comes in a glass bottle and is accompanied by a drinking glass.

Okay, so I had to pay .60 euro to pee in the train station. And for reasons that escape me, Europeans do not believe in washcloths. But, really, those are the sum of my American complaints.

What I see are bookstores everywhere. In Vienna, on my four-block walk from my flat to work, I pass three. In one, which I visit every day because it is a visual and visceral pleasure to be in this place, up a wooden spiral staircase, there is a small, lovingly curated section of English-language books. I find Ursula LeGuinn, Maya Angelou.

In the café I frequent before work, there is a long table upon which is displayed six newspapers and several magazines. People read these. Many of these people were born in the 21st century.

In the corner Apotheken, the pharmacist listens carefully as I describe my sore throat, asks several questions, feels the glands under my jaw, and then recommends a syrup. She has earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees in the field. Her education, all higher education, is free.

In Seville, where I stayed a week before coming to Vienna, life is lived in the open, on the streets, in the plazas: Very old people walking their very old dogs; multi-generational families taking two hours to enjoy almeurzo; women strolling together holding hands; men arm-in-arm.

What happened to us, my friends? I don’t mean Trump. I mean how did we manage, during the past 250 years, to create a culture with so little alegría de la vida, devoid, for so many, of everyday joie de vivre? How did we manage to create a culture that disparages (and isolates) our elderly, that makes the most harmful food the cheapest and most available, that talks “family values” and does not practice them, that values education and makes it unaffordable, that has created a health care system that is about neither health nor care?

Riddle me that.