Welcome to Terra City (Part 2: The Project)

Montreal, Canada. "Try to imagine yourself a few years from now. You are in an airplane traveling towards a unique place on Earth. After a few hours of flight the attendant announces – ‘Attention please, if you look through the window you can see our destination.’

Looking through the airplane window you distinguish a sort of a city with a shape similar to... the map of the world. You can see at scale all the continents and the oceans around them, and all the countries of the globe with borders of… multicolored flowers. This is Terra City, a special place on Earth where people are building a better world - an unprecedented project and a human experience as we never lived before.

Let’s go back a few years when Terra City was created. It all started with a thought - that life on Earth should be much better for all of us, that the solution for that is already in our souls and minds, and that all we need is a proper ‘form’ to gather it all together. That is how this blessed piece of land somewhere on Earth was chosen to become Terra City. It took a diligent analysis to select this place. Each country on the planet was carefully examined for a number of considerations: its long time pacifist reputation, its consideration and compassion for other people on the globe, its economic, political, social and cultural conditions as well as its potential availability to become the host of Terra City. Once the ideal place was chosen, the project was discussed and agreed upon with the government of the host country, since Terra City had to become a piece of land with a totally unprecedented status - belonging to everyone and to no one in particular.

Then, the plan of the city was designed - a map of the globe was drawn with all seven continents, and each country was assigned a piece of land similar in shape and proportionate with the size and population of the real country. When the general plan was ready, the Terra City project was presented to the world. Each country was invited to participate and create in its little Terra Country the most representative image of its nation. All countries on the planet were told something in this line:

Dear Friends from all over the World - Welcome to Terra City!

History did not spare an occasion to show what horrors any of us can be capable of. We all know how many awful things can be done, and have been done, in the world. Now we would like to see how many wonderful things we can also do. We all know how bad the bad side of human beings can be. Now we would like to see how genuinely good our good side could also be. We know that every country on the planet can look at all the historic misunderstandings, conflicts and suffering that we inflicted on each other and try to use this occasion to express its long accumulated frustration. In time, Terra City will eventually inspire us to search together for the best ways to analyze and solve all these disagreements. But for now, we need all the understanding and compassion that each country and people can offer.

We all have countless reasons to feel distrustful and disgusted about so many dreadful aspects of our world today. However, looking back in our history to the great masters of humanity such as Gandhi, Mandela, Gorbatchev and many others, we can see that nevertheless, anything is possible in life, that compassion, consideration and faith in the good side of human beings is not an utopian idea but the most powerful liberating force there is, and the only one that can offer a true, lasting victory in life. We all know that it can literally only take one word or a gesture to start a massacre or a hatred that will poison our souls and minds for years, decades or even centuries. But let’s try to leave all that aside for now. Let’s try instead, to show to the world, and to ourselves, the finest genuine thoughts and gestures that the people of the world can generate. Let’s see the best that your people can think of and act upon, and then let’s find out how much good we are capable of doing together.

As you do for the Olympic Games when you search for the best athletes in your country to represent you, try to do the same now. Start by gathering the most creative people of your country: artists, writers, scientists, inventors and discoverers - the most beautiful minds and souls your nation has been blessed with - and challenge them to find the most inspired ways to reach the human cord of all their countrymen, and together to contemplate like never before their lives, their country and the entire world. Let them use the most daring shapes, colors and sounds, and express in your Terra Country the most of your people, your country, your culture and your history; their hopes and dreams; the greatest lessons they learned from the evolution of mankind, and shape the kind of world they wish their children and grandchildren to live in.

Try to imagine that aliens from other civilizations would look at your Terra Country trying to figure out the entire potential of your people, the highest human performance they are capable of and how they see their future in their nicest dreams. For this is what Terra City intends to be - the image of the best of the entire world and an inspiration for the human spirit to strive together for even better."

When I close my eyes I can see Terra City as an immense canvas for the artistic expression of beauty, love and human generosity. Everything that each one of us has pure and innocent in our souls, revealed by the most inspired spirits of our countries in all forms of art, music, literature and media. When walking around Terra City we would have the chance to see the most beautiful combinations of colors, shapes, sounds and movements that human beings can create. Yet, I do not see Terra City as a huge theme park or an international exhibition. It will be rather a sanctuary for the souls and minds of the countries and peoples around the world. It will be the place with the densest positive spirituality on the planet. This is where the great spirits and talents of the planet will feel honored to come and share with the entire world the findings of their quest, and where everyone will find inspiration and incitement to honor their lives and strive for the best. This is where the great men and women of our history will find a long awaited satisfaction in seeing that their inheritors finally found the precious way to which they dedicated their lives.

After visiting Terra City, each one of us will return to our country, our city, our workplace, our church and our home carrying with us its spirit, eager to share it and multiply it with others; a bit more human than when we left, a bit more loving, a bit more conscientious, a bit more humble and a bit more daring. This is the place where each one of us will return with much more to share than the last time we came; the place which the more it improves and surpasses itself, the more it will invigorate and inspire the everyday life in tens of thousands of cities, towns and villages across the globe. And in doing so, Terra City will be helping us reach that sublime point in our evolution that Abraham Maslow called ‘self-actualization’ or the best that we can be, and Rudyard Kipling beautifully described in his awesome poem ‘If’ about a hundred years ago:

‘Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!’”    

“These are my thoughts about Terra City,” say Dan Bostan, “but much more important are Your thoughts and those of every man and woman on this planet? How do you envision Terra City? What are your expectations, hopes and possibly concerns about Terra City? Which country do you think is best fitted to host Terra City?”

Dan Bostan and publisher Human Wisdom welcome everyone to express their opinion on any aspect related to Terra City project. All relevant questions, comments, suggestions and articles received will be considered for publication in a synergic edition of the book.

Excerpts from each chapter of Terra City can be read at

http://www.humanwisdom.ca/terracitybook.html  

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Dan Bostan
hw@humanwisdom.ca

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