A State of Mind is an excellent documentary that shows the life of two teenage girls in the most prosperous town in North Korea. Because it is North Korea, it is a real treat to see what daily life is like. I was tempted to highlight all the horrifying, but subtle ways that it is different: value of arduous hours spent dedicated to group gymnastics over substantive, objective education, required incessant entertainment (radio must always be on) or celebration of their leaders, periodic blackouts, praise of surviving hardship & submerging the individual into the collective, pride in their country & leaders (& why do the leaders get to be individuals, but not them). However I submerged that desire & thought of how we parallel these characteristics: pride in our athletes accomplishments & discipline to get some measure of fame, our voluntary subjection to incessant, subjective political & entertainment tv, pulling ourselves up by their bootstraps instead of expecting economic justice & increase in opportunities and pride in our country while hushing any criticism with accusations of being un-American. Instead of looking at North Korea as the other, we should look at them as a cautionary tale and act accordingly to distance ourselves from their negative traits and admire their positive ones.