What an incredible journey you've had. Thanks for sharing.

I think it is a Marcus Aurelius saying that you can't change what other people do, you can only change how you react to what other people do. That was a life changer for me.

I agree with you about American culture. I think it is one of our principle blind spots, because we project our culture onto everyone else. It is behind the fear-mongering about China. "Do you want the Chinese to rule the world? How would you feel if you had to do everything the Chinese way?" This is Americans projecting our behavior and culture onto the Chinese.

The last 500 years of American and European world dominance are an anomaly. Prior to that China was one of the world's dominate powers going back many thousands of years. Yet there is no history of Chinese ever going to Europe to set up temples or convert Europeans to their main religions. They have a different culture, not one based on cultural and military dominance.

Rather than call the Chinese (or the Russians, Venezuelans, Cubans, Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians, North Koreans - you get the idea) "evil" we should follow your advice (shared by me and many others) to talk to these other people and listen to what they want and see how we can come to a mutually agreeable compromise. Punishing (i.e. sanctioning, bombing, invading) everyone we don't agree with only makes more people want to have nothing to do with us. It is unsustainable.

In the immortal words of Princess Leia, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems slip through your fingers."