Too True

It's from a fictional story, but I think it applies just as well to building a nation. And the decay I see - the resentment at doing needed maintenance, the unwillingness to create the conditions that make a place worth coming to - I get why people liked the slogan to "Make America Great Again" because we sure can see the slow rot settling in. I just wish they looked for a candidate that was actually interested in doing such a thing, instead of believing the words of someone who clearly doesn't.

But I'm getting away from the quote that started this:

"The road. The water. The shelter. The welcome. These were the conditions. The people are what the conditions produced. You cannot make people come. You can make the place worth coming to. 

"And when the place is worth coming to," James said, "it makes itself." 

"Not without maintenance," the elemental said, with the precision of something that understood what happened to springs that were not tended. " The conditions require attention. The welcome requires renewal. A place that stops being made is a place that starts to be unmade."

James thought about the list on his wall. About the road and the cistern and the market day proposal under the rock on his table. About Ren walking the perimeter twice daily and Eletha tracking the game population through the winter and Herbert with his accounting of iron stock and Bogrog with his bark-mark system keeping the agricultural record. 

About Caroline keeping rooms ready. 

"The maintenance is the work," James said.

 "The maintenance is the love,"  the elemental said, with the specificity of something that meant the word precisely.  "You do not maintain what you do not love. What you love, you maintain without being asked."