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The world is becoming increasingly smaller and smaller. The world’s
population is now at six billion. The world’s cities are getting larger
and larger. At least two cities, Mexico City and Sao Paulo have almost 30
million inhabitants. In this context, one could say that a gift of land is
the greatest gift of all. Land is perhaps the most permanent thing in the
world. Unlike diamonds, which really have little value in and of
themselves, land actually has great value. Unlike televisions and cars,
land cannot be destroyed—if you remove land, there is still more land
under it. In this context, I will discuss what I would do were I given some
land as a gift. It will be necessary, however, to discuss four things
first: First, it is necessary to establish the size of the land. Second,
we need to know where the land is. Third, the topography of the land is
important. Finally, the weather in the location is fundamental.
For the purposes of this essay, I will assume that I have received a
rather large parcel of land (it is a gift, right?!) in a temperate climate
with four seasons. I will assume that the land is fairly flat. Most
importantly, I will assume that this land is mine and that I have control
over the land, i.e., that no other government controls the land.
Having grown up in a rather poor family, I think I would be quite excited
about receiving some land. I have never owned anything of any great value
and to own some land would be a wonderful thing for me. For a long time,
it has been a dream of mine to be able to build a beautiful house for my
mother. My mother is still living in poverty and it saddens me to think of
her living in that situation. She often does not have enough money to use
the heat in the wintertime and cannot afford to buy new clothes. I would
love to be able to give her the gift of a house and a happy place to live
for the rest of her life. Since we lived in a country with very cold
winters, my family often felt very cold. I would love to bring my mother
to a warm place to spend the rest of her days.
However, I would not devote all of the land to houses for my family. I
would use most of the land to develop a business. In my case, doing this
would be very important since I grew up poor. I would need to ensure that
I would have a source of income and a way to sustain the activities on the
land. An efficient way to do this would be to develop the land in some way
suitable to the land. In this case, I would use the land to develop a
language and confidence training camp. It has long been my dream to build
a perfect language learning center—a place where people could go to
learn a language, to immerse themselves in the language, to meet other
people and to have fun while doing so. In conclusion, I would like to make
one more point. I must admit that I feel somewhat guilty about the idea of
accepting such a gift of land. There is a part of me that is somewhat
idealistic and would like to think that the world is a beautiful place and
that all humans should live together peacefully. From this viewpoint, I
would say that no one can own land. As an American Indian once said, “Own
the land? You might as well own the air or the sky!” However, this idea
is inconsistent with the world today. Being more realistic, I would do
what I detailed above.
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