{"id":4722,"date":"2026-09-12T14:40:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T09:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/food4thoughtfoundation.org\/journal\/?p=4722"},"modified":"2026-10-01T16:39:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T11:09:05","slug":"what-if-a-perfect-world-cost-too-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food4thoughtfoundation.org\/journal\/what-if-a-perfect-world-cost-too-much\/","title":{"rendered":"WHAT IF A PERFECT WORLD COST TOO MUCH?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine a world with no war.<\/p>\n<p>No hunger.<\/p>\n<p>No difficult choices.<\/p>\n<p>No heartbreak.<\/p>\n<p>It sounds almost perfect.<\/p>\n<p>That is the world twelve-year-old Jonas lives in at the beginning of Lois Lowry&#8217;s <em>The Giver<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Everything in his community has been carefully organised. Families are assigned. Careers are chosen for citizens. Rules control behaviour. Painful memories of the past have disappeared.<\/p>\n<p>Nobody has to face chaos because almost everything has already been decided for them.<\/p>\n<p>Then Jonas receives an unusual assignment.<\/p>\n<p>He is selected to become the Receiver of Memory.<\/p>\n<p>Through an older man known as the Giver, Jonas begins experiencing memories that the rest of his community no longer carries.<\/p>\n<p>He discovers snow, music, colour, celebration and love.<\/p>\n<p>But he also discovers suffering, loneliness, violence and grief.<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly the world that once looked safe begins to look frightening for a different reason.<\/p>\n<p>The most interesting question in <em>The Giver<\/em> is not whether pain is bad.<\/p>\n<p>Of course it is.<\/p>\n<p>The harder question is whether we can remove pain without also removing something important from being human.<\/p>\n<p>Jonas&#8217;s community has eliminated many sources of suffering, but people have also lost genuine freedom.<\/p>\n<p>They do not choose whom they love.<\/p>\n<p>They do not choose their work.<\/p>\n<p>They do not understand history.<\/p>\n<p>They cannot compare the world they have with any other possibility because memories of different ways of living have been taken away.<\/p>\n<p>That made me think about choice differently.<\/p>\n<p>Choice can create mistakes.<\/p>\n<p>People make terrible decisions.<\/p>\n<p>But if someone else makes every important decision for us, are we truly living our own lives?<\/p>\n<p>Another reason <em>The Giver<\/em> is memorable is that it does not divide the world neatly into heroes and villains.<\/p>\n<p>The community was designed because people wanted safety and stability.<\/p>\n<p>That is what makes it unsettling.<\/p>\n<p>Bad systems do not always begin with obviously bad intentions.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes they begin when people try to solve a real problem but sacrifice too much in return.<\/p>\n<p>Jonas gradually understands that protecting people from every painful experience has also prevented them from experiencing life completely.<\/p>\n<p>The book therefore makes freedom feel less comfortable than we often imagine.<\/p>\n<p>Freedom includes uncertainty.<\/p>\n<p>Responsibility.<\/p>\n<p>Wrong choices.<\/p>\n<p>Consequences.<\/p>\n<p>Yet it also makes love, discovery and individuality possible.<\/p>\n<p>So, is <em>The Giver<\/em> worth the hype?<\/p>\n<p>Definitely.<\/p>\n<p>It is a short novel with an enormous question at its centre:<\/p>\n<p><strong>If someone promised you a life without pain, how much freedom would you be willing to give away to receive it?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That question alone makes the book difficult to forget.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine a world with no war. No hunger. No difficult choices. No heartbreak. It sounds almost perfect. That is the world twelve-year-old Jonas lives in at the beginning of Lois Lowry&#8217;s The Giver. Everything in his community has been carefully organised. Families are assigned. Careers are chosen for citizens. Rules control behaviour. Painful memories of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[589],"tags":[616,619,617,618,620],"class_list":["post-4722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-worth-the-hype","tag-book-reviews","tag-learning","tag-literature","tag-opinions","tag-personal","enable-dropcap","disable-2-columns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>WHAT IF A PERFECT WORLD COST TOO MUCH? - Food4Thought Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/food4thoughtfoundation.org\/journal\/what-if-a-perfect-world-cost-too-much\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WHAT IF A PERFECT WORLD COST TOO MUCH? - Food4Thought Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Imagine a world with no war. 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