I do not know its origins and I do not understand in depth its full dimension, however, I am also a victim of the consequences of living in a country so pure life.
In the most positive aspect of its content, to fill our existence with pure life is the aspiration of every balanced, noble, sensitive and intelligent person. To achieve that everything around you is injected with pure life, is to achieve energy, balance, oxygen, priorities, time and abundance. Life is the opposite of death, and purity is the opposite of evil, and therefore, a pure life country should be a wonder.
However, in the context of our Costa Rica, pura vida is a reflection of “todo tranquilo”, “todo en orden” and “no precisa”. It is a collective way of taking it easy, taking life in stride and indulging in complacency and conformity, especially marked in our youth.
In the pura vida country in which we live, we are a sub-version of the Swiss in Central America, without an army and very educated since we know how to read and write, where we are all equal, with gallo pinto and tamales, with enough laws so that nothing happens and convinced of a paradise that the only thing it lacks is good roads.
In the pure life country in which we live, the “I” reigns and not the “we”, the living wins and not the capable, the scorer is admired and not the businessman, the common like is preferred and the floor is sawed to the one who stands out. The most common politician is the politico (i.e., a polo tico) and the more we know about the world, the more we cling to what we have, just as it is.
Meanwhile, we are concentrating on selling everything, by handing over our beaches and forests, our businesses, our patrimonies, and even more, our national dignity at the hands of prostitution of all kinds, casinos, gambling and easy money, in the context of a government that continually runs up against the limitations of our paralyzing, inoperative and obsolete system, regardless of who presides or which party takes it over.
Pure life? Well no, pure life nothing, pure life is not pure life but a kind of collective self-deception in the face of the failure of our massive mediocrity. And for this reason, I think we are victims of our cultural DNA, concentrated in values that favor stagnation, complacency, poverty and underdevelopment.
Therefore, if we want to turn the country around in the direction of prosperity and sustained development, we will soon have to recognize that it is a matter of turning our culture around and redefining national values. We must also understand that it will not be the politicians who will build the country, but the businessmen, the entrepreneurs, the visionaries and the responsible private enterprise.
There is no time to lose. Costa Rica deserves to be Pura Prosperidad. Let’s do it together. Let’s do it together.