I remember my first visit to the United States over a decade ago. Landing from my small, bustling hometown of Meerut, India, I was instantly awestruck. The silence, the systematic flow of traffic, the lack of honking—it was a world engineered for flawless human convenience. Everything was neat, clean, and in order . For nearly a year, I was hypnotized. I praised this country for its efficiency, its cleanliness, and, notably, its lack of stray animals . Where were the dogs, the cows, the insects that are a normal part of life back home? The US, I thought, was truly a superior model of civilization. My clothes never even collected dust; it seemed the entire landscape was sterilized. But as the years passed, the hypnosis began to fade. I started asking a darker question: What is the price of this perfect order? The Cost of the Empty Road My initial praise for the US was based on what I didn't see: no stray animals, no swarming insects, no dust. I realized this absence wasn't a s...