Boots on the Ground in Bad Infrastructure Is a Pain in the Arse
I ran into another barista — Iranian, two years in. I said, “That’s the oldest country in the world,” and she goes, “I know.” Later, I looked at the list of the oldest countries on earth, and it hit me: it’s the same energy as anyone who tells you they’re “seasoned.” It sounds impressive until you realize how inconsequential it is if you’ve spent all that time drifting instead of being resolute.
When you look at the oldest countries, you can’t help but measure what they’ve actually contributed to the world — if anything — and then ask yourself why some never produced the outcomes they were supposed to.
The more “seasoned” something is, the more data you actually have to see whether those years were spent resolving good ideas or compounding bad ones.
It’s a perfect analogy: age doesn’t guarantee quality — it exposes it.
The longer something exists, the harder it is to hide whether it’s been building or decaying.
This is why it’s such a risk to play around in places that are old but insist they’re “new again.” You see it all the time: countries branding themselves as the next “hot” destination, the next breakout story — when the underlying structure hasn’t actually changed in decades.
The more ancient the place, the more historical data you have on whether it resolves upward or just loops the same mistakes - yes its cultural.