Mars

Mar 23, 2026

#36.3

When Mars was a baby, he moved from America to Italy, where he spent his childhood as a military kid. At 8 years old, Mars returned to the motherland carrying a global perspective that many other Americans lack. How does Mars’ childhood abroad shape his views of this country?

“In Italy, we got to travel a lot more. I feel like that made our lives even better. Being able to travel, I believe, is a commonly overlooked aspect of learning about others. It’s hard to do, especially in America because of costs, but it does really help both socially and inwardly as you get to experience different cultures, different viewpoints, different people, different ideas. Because Europe is so culturally vast, you get to see a lot more and it’s easier to have a better understanding of the world. Whereas in America, it’s so big and so whitewashed, that you’re only really seeing those people and hearing those opinions. I don’t think it’s enough to really understand the whole world.”

“When you live in America, and you’ve been living in America your whole life, you’re like, ‘This is the whole world and America is number one.’ But there’s so many people outside of the world; it’s so hard to see that when your country is so big and you haven’t been outside of it.”

“Production wise, I feel like people my age are just so used to having everything prepared so cheaply and quickly that they never experience handmade or thoughtfully-created things. Everywhere you look now, it’s like, that was made super quickly with no thought. This fucking wall was probably made in like two minutes. Then you go to places in Europe where they’ve kept up a lot of traditional makings, and you get houses that are really well made. Old too, I guess, but they last. They’re made from sustainable material, like stone and wood–and this is made from fucking paper.”

“One thing that people will say when they go to Europe is that things taste better. It’s because the quality is better, because more time went into it instead of just spraying it with pesticides and putting hormones into the genes to make it grow faster and stay fresh longer. And obviously it’s better for your health too — there’s a huge problem with obesity in America, and it’s not just because people don’t exercise, it’s because of the stuff that we’re eating and the fact that healthy food costs more than what we’re paid. So it’s hard for people to be able to eat it. And even the healthy stuff is just like a trend where people are profiting off of it and scamming while they’re pretending that it’s healthy, when it’s just not.”

“America was never great. We’ve had so many issues, I don’t think there was a point where everything was perfect. Because, I mean, we started out by killing a bunch of Native Americans and claiming their land–I wouldn’t count that era as great. We had the whole civil war — wouldn’t count that as great.  The Great Depression —wouldn’t count that as great. So I haven’t seen where it’s been great. At all. I don’t think any country really has been great.”