In the first century A.D., Saint Paul the Apostle was tied to a stone pillar in Pafos, Cyprus and given 39 lashes as punishment for preaching Christianity to the locals. In 1989 A.D., as a disorderly 13-year-old, I sat atop that very same pillar and casually smoked a cigarette while two like-minded friends sprawled out on the surrounding Roman mosaics and blew smoke rings into the air.

The ruins are fenced off now. There’s a plaque to commemorate the ancient ordeal and the site has even been added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites. But straddling that piece of ancient archaeology remains a fond memory for me—not because of the youthful sense of entitlement —but because of the nostalgia and experience of living in a time and culture where there were few rules.

As kids in Cyprus, we drove motorbikes and cars without licenses and if the police stopped us we said we left our documents at home. They’d wave us on and sometimes even chuckle at our flimsy lies. There were no parking meters to worry about, or even parking spaces for that matter, and speed limits were merely suggestions. We drank at the local bar before we had hair on our faces and people—adults—bought us rounds. We spent many nights sleeping outdoors on beaches and rooftops and no one ever came to chase us away. Swimming was simply a matter of pulling the car over onto the sand and jumping into the sea whenever the fancy grabbed us. And, of course, hitchhiking was a perfectly acceptable means of transportation. Then there were the ruins—the Roman temples, Hellenic tombs, and Byzantine castles that we turned into our personal playgrounds.

An acquaintance once described life in developed western societies as having “no grace.” I’m not sure what he meant by that, but I’ve always interpreted it as meaning that life is less impulsive, more restricted, and less charming than the one I knew as a kid. My youth was defined by freedom—freedom from tightly enforced laws, from western ideas of accountability, and from the predictability of living in a society where ‘reason’ is king. It left me ill-prepared for later life in America where I discovered pay-for-access beaches, traffic tickets, background checks, liability, service standards, and a cultural obsession with “making sense.”

There’s a danger in romanticizing developing nations: they’re often rife with traffic-related deaths, corruption, professional-level incompetence, and an ineffectual, laizze-fare attitude that can stifle much-needed development. But the charms outweigh the drawbacks for many people. Retirees from North America regularly flock to developing nations, not just because of the lower cost of living, but because of the lifestyle. Younger people, with foreign roots and language skills, often seek out niches for themselves in foreign countries, looking for a more interesting life.

There are many aspects of the developed world which most people would hate to go without. Unfortunately, you can’t have both—the charms of loosely governed societies rarely coexist with western principles. Cyprus has changed since 1989, as have many other nations that were then in a transitional period between traditional and modern life. At some point, the government, and then the culture, of emergent nations make a conscious decision to upgrade their ways. Once the process begins, it’s impossible to go back.

You can still bribe security guards in Egypt to let you climb the pyramids at night, you can sunbathe nude in southern Europe undisturbed, you can jump a train in India, and you can drive in many parts of the world with little more than horn-blowing skills. Most North Mediterranean countries haven’t yet reached the stage at which they rigorously enforce their laws, either.

One thing is certain though, it’s been a long time since an undisciplined thirteen-year-old could climb on top of an ancient ruin of religious significance, light a cigarette and say something like, “Hey, you guys wanna rent motorbikes and go get drunk out by the sea caves?”

No grace, indeed.