Antonio Galdo introduces this book as a meditation on love and our need for connection with others. He begins with Aristotle's insight: "one cannot be happy alone."
Altruism is wired into us—and into animals—from childhood. For decades, though, we placed the self at the center of everything, ignoring the energy that flows through a community that truly interacts. Yet the economic crisis has shown us what should have been obvious: selfishness does not work as a path to progress or social well-being.
Galdo offers stories and examples from many fields where altruism and human connection matter most: in how we design cities, run transit systems, inhabit and share space, tend urban gardens. But also in how we work and exchange ideas.
Wherever the method of sharing and altruism has been applied, results have been strikingly positive—not only in solving operational and economic crises, but above all in improving the quality of people's lives. Is it utopia? Galdo asks. Perhaps. But it is surely the hope of a new civilization.
An ancient method, we might answer—one Jesus Christ proposed two thousand years ago.
Rita Massi, 2013