I just got back from a trip to Finland, which was fantastic. While a lot of the stuff there was wonderful, I think the thing that blew my mind the most was the Helsinki Library, the Oodi. https://lnkd.in/gduyS_XG

It’s not just a library that’s full of books, though it is. It is a physical embodiment of a set of ideals. At Oodi, you can borrow books. You can book individual workspaces. Conference rooms. Music studios, completely with instruments, including a complete DJ setup and fully mic’ed drum set, and a collection of top-shelf guitars & basses. Rooms with the latest videogame consoles and games. A boardgame collection bigger than my own (and if you know me, that’s … significant). 3D printers. An eSports team room with high-end gaming PCs. Laser cutters. Sewing machines. Sports balls. PCs with ultra-high-end graphics tablets. Lots of them.

And there are people there to help you learn how to use the gear, to solve problems, to help you if you can’t operate certain things. I saw a severely physically disabled person working with a staff member to sew something.

Everything was in use by people of all ages. Students studying together. Middle-aged folks making crafts together. Kids playing Switch Sports Resort and Minecraft. Someone practicing singing in the music studio. We joked that they should have a kitchen. They do.

All of this, paid for by taxes. Available to you for nothing. Which means you don’t have to be rich to have access to a music studio, or a maker space, or even a game console. Think of what this enables. You have a situation where anyone can make something, and the barriers to it aren’t about money.

It’s incredible. But why am I writing about it here?

The thing that blew my mind about this was that it was inconceivable to me until I saw it. I have to be clearer – the thing that blew my mind wasn’t that it was inconceivable. The thing that blew my mind was that it was inconceivable *to me*.

I live in one of the richest, most prosperous nations on the planet, steeped in among the most *possible* privilege any individual could have. Our country – this bastion of progress – not only can we not provide opportunities like this and build monuments to ideals of this scale… for many of us in the US, something like this is so far removed from *how* we’re conditioned to think that it’s literally impossible to imagine. It seems like a fever dream.

And this is high up on the hierarchy of needs, right? We can’t even house our citizens or care for their health in any kind of equitable way. We should be tackling that before getting people this kind of utopian access to possibility… right? But Finland’s *already done those things*.

Crime rate is low. Education is world-leading. Their prison & criminal justice system actually resembles something like *justice* instead of just beating down the already-marginalized. And I sat there wondering, “How?”

And it reminded me of Teamlab: Planets.

Teamlab: Planets was an art exhibition I saw in Tokyo. It was one of the most mind-breakingly beautiful things I’ve ever seen. One thing, in particular, was a room full of orchids, all on articulated lines that could be raised and lowered – a line every foot, maybe, in every direction – in a room with mirrored walls and floor and ceiling. You were instructed to crawl in, and the flowers would raise up to give you space, then lie back down and then just … hang out for a while. The flowers would undulate, and it was like you were immersed in an infinite void of flowers.

One kid, a foreign tourist, reached up and pulled off one of the flowers.

And it was instantly clear that this is why an exhibit like this *couldn’t* work in the US. In less than a day, the exhibit would be destroyed. Because too many folks think, “*I* can take one of these,” and not enough people thing, “If *I* take one of these, the exhibit will no longer work for *us*.”

There are some good things about this American idea of individualism. It leads to a kind of freedom of expression that is difficult to find in other places, for instance. But things like Teamlab, and the Oodi, are reminders that there is a power in *us* that is not present in *I*.

When I think of the things I wanted out of work culture, out of the teams I worked to build, it was always a sense of “us” – that when we worked together, when we appreciated our differences in perspective and our unique strengths, we could go farther and build greater things than any of us could on our own. It was why I rejected the auteur theory, even though I love movies like Blade Runner that are deeply auteur-driven projects.

But I could not conceive of how to do this on a national scale, and to have a society that values this kind of togetherness, a willingness to sacrifice and pay to give that opportunity to everyone. And it bothers me, a lot, that I couldn’t even imagine it until I saw it and walked around in its embodiment.

I don’t believe billionaires should be possible. I don’t even believe 100 millionaires should be possible, because by the time you amass more money than you can reasonably spend in a lifetime, you owe it to the *team* that helped you get to where you are to pay it back. Through taxes. Not optional. And that’s not the government “stealing your money”, it’s the way *we* work together as a team to create a better society, and work together toward a brighter future.

Finland, I am impressed.