Our minds, like the needle in that compass, can focus on a variety of subjects throughout the day. But in the end, when they're left alone to settle, they'll focus on the objects of our greatest affection.
The trouble is that America's become a utopia accessible only to some people. Others get trampled on. Perhaps it's a problem of size. Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist, once gave the ideal number of a given community as 148. That seems about right to me. There's something idealistic about that - in a group of 148 people you can get to know everybody.