However strange our customs are to others, and theirs to us, however difficult it is even to understand ourselves, we all want the same things. The flying Bolivian cocaleros do what they do for the same reasons that Robert and Samantha do what they do, for the same reasons that I do what I do, for the same reasons that Chinese do what they do. All people throughout history,

...have struggled constantly to understand the world, to protect themselves from its ravages, to organize it more effectively, and to make it a place in which their children might live without hunger or fear.--Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China.

It is a universal human desideratum: to provide our children with better lives than we had.