The Winter Birthday Celebration was a huge success - for many reasons. Harold came to understand that a big part of the success of this future culture lay in a couple of key areas that his time and place didn't seem capable of understanding.

First, he realized that this was a culture that valued work without a monetary amount being involved - the value of work wasn't judged by billable hours or the size of your house, it was valued by the satisfaction that it gave your life and the societal benefit that it provided to you and those around you. By taking the idea that work should provide you with health, safety, security, or even life itself out of the equation - not to mention things like luxury, comfort, economic status, or a false sense of happiness or life satisfaction - there was no longer an incentive to do things just for the sake of doing them. There was no incentive for 'bullshit work'. Things were done because they were necessary, because they brought satisfaction, and because they brought benefits to those one cared about or interacted with.

Second, the gift giving and celebration itself had shown Harold the lesson that he had not quite been able to understand in the marketplace. There is more value in giving than there is in receiving - this is true in the case of building relationships as well as in building a 'market' for the produce of one's life. The accepting of a gift implies a sort of honor and respect towards the object being gifted and the person doing the gifting. The girl who gave him the ink pen, his happiness at that gift and his appreciation for the usefulness of the object made her work valuable - and probably sent her on a mission to find more and better ink pens. Maybe she would even end up making them herself - and as a bonus, it brought her into contact and built a relationship of reciprocity with the very people she wanted to learn from - writers, artists, and other pen users.

Third - not finally, but only a third thing he noticed that day - was that this world was built on relationships of joyful dependency. The more you could give to someone, the more you could provide someone with the materials they needed to feel joyful and to fulfill their own purpose or desires - the more that person, and those around them, wanted to help you achieve your own purpose. In his time, people were largely defined by what they did and what they had - here, however, a person seemed to be much more defined by the relationships that came inbound to them.

Still, there were plenty of things which he was still confused about. Things like how were rules enforced? Yes, he understood that there were no laws, not really any 'rules' to speak of, but certainly there were policies, customs, and everyday courtesies. He doubted that everyone in the society abided by all the unspoken/unwritten rules all the time. Who were the enforcers? How was anything enforced if there were no enforcers?

On that level, he was very curious about defense and how the Mutuals defended themselves. Did they have a military class of citizens? Were citizens expected to volunteer or do a period of service? Even if that was the case, how did they prevent the men and women with the guns from turning them on the society they were supposed to protect? How did they keep them from taking the best the society offered and just keeping it?

Finally, the other area that he was still largely in the dark on was the question of technology and data. He understood that the Pulse had largely made hand held and always on devices impossible and that there had been a strong reaction against the data control systems of his time - but the fact remained - they were using some pretty high technology here and that meant that data was being collected. He had heard several people mention the 'data center' or 'data storage' but he had yet to really find out what that meant, how it was controlled, or how it was used.

Throughout the day in Waikiki, he spent most of his time with Klee and her family. If he hadn't of been told that some of the women he met were Klee's daughter or granddaughters, he would have simply thought they were her friends, classmates, or co-workers. The difference, he finally began to notice was the reciprocal relationships that the women had with other people. As he had noted the day before, Klee had used her seventy-five years to build a huge network of reciprocal relationships. Everywhere she went, she was met with joyful hellos. She had shared her skills as a surgeon, a yoga instructor, and a singer with many people but being a multi-talented person - she had also dedicated many years of her life to helping other people do what drove them. It showed very clearly.

To put it in visual terms, her web of influence was huge and this wasn't even the island that she called home! Her daughter and her other family members had webs of their own that connected with Klee, but which didn't carry the same power as her first degree connections. Those could only be built over time.

As darkness descended, there were alcoholic drinks as well as bonfires, performances, and quiet areas where people sat and talked story. Looking towards the center of the island, Harold saw what must have been a thousand fires burning in the open areas of Waikiki. Each of them open to anyone that might come by, but generally made up of groups of family and close friends.

Brian, had been absent from Harold for most of the day and when he reappeared, he looked sheepish as he explained to Harold. "Sorry to abandon you, but there's a girl I'm kind of keen on..."

Harold gave him a friendly wink. "No need to explain. I've had a great day. Just out of curiosity..will we be heading back to the hostel?"

Brian looked surprised at the question. "We can, but...do you really want to?"

Harold, in turn, was surprised but then realized he shouldn't be. "People will just stay here? Sleep in the parks and on the beach?"

Brian motioned up at the sky. There were a million-billion stars twinkling and the firelight itself wasn't bright enough to dim out even a tiny portion of them. "It's not going to rain tonight and no one is going to freeze, but if you want to head back, I can take you..." Brian started to stand up. Harold stopped him.

"No, you're right. I'm just surprised. Where I come from, you can't just decide to sleep outside." Brian looked even more surprised. "Why not?"

It was a question Harold had never bothered to ask himself. He wasn't ready to answer it but he decided to give it a try. "Well, you might get robbed or killed," that sounded fairly dramatic but was probably why most people didn't just sleep outside, "...and you know, if everyone just slept wherever they wanted..." he didn't really have a way to finish that statement with a definitive and lapsed into "...it would be hard for everyone to enjoy..." that wasn't true at all "...and besides, parks aren't campgrounds, you need to have a permit..." oh, that probably wasn't even a thing here, "...or pay for space, or at least have permission to camp..." This wasn't going well. He trailed off before finishing. "The police state has a bunch of rules about sleeping outside because otherwise the homeless would be everywhere...." Still no good.

Brian was intrigued. "What are homeless?"

It was a question Harold had dreamed of hearing. Homelessness had obviously been conquered. "People without homes. The people who sleep outside and drop out of society."

"Like rangers?" Brian was truly baffled by the concept.

"No, they sleep in bus stops and set up tents on trails and sidewalks, they go to the bathroom wherever they want..." Harold couldn't imagine what Brian would connect that with.

"Oh, you mean the mentally ill..." Harold started to say no but then realized that the majority of homeless he had met or interacted with had been mentally ill on one level or another. Brian continued..."I've heard there are lots of them in the RSA...a result of the pressure of trying to conform."

Harold considered all of this and finally decided it was as close as he would get to satisfying Brian's question without going into far greater detail than he wanted to.

"I'm really fine with staying out here tonight," Harold said. "In fact, it would be a shame to go back indoors on a night like tonight. I'm just curious, where am I going to sleep?"

Klee had wandered back to their fire and came up behind Harold just as he asked this. She put her hand on his shoulder and said "I've got just the place for you."

Truly it was one of the most wonderful days and nights of Harold's existence.