Revelations in Crowded Places

Here are a few short ideas spilling from my head as I try to come to grips with fast-paced experiences and new ideas:

• The frenetic energy of the city fees on itself, creating intrigue and interest and power. But a fast pace can be wearing and it can drain the very energy it seems to generate. Cities are wonderful places, but they can shred souls if people are not careful. I’ve seen it. It’s not pretty.  But the art, the creativity, the spontaneity of big cities is spectacular.
• It’s too damn easy to become jaded to pain and poverty and heartache and sickness when they are so prevalent. I wonder what we can do to shield ourselves against becoming hard? What can we do to protect ourselves, and the world around us, from becoming victims of the burial of our own empathy?
• The large scale of cities tends to overwhelm the glorious smallness of the rural world. Neither is better than the other, yet they snicker at one another as if they hold the key to happiness. They don’t.
• The anonymity of cities allows for experiences that are more difficult in small towns. Passions are more freely shared in big cities, yet more hidden from prying eyes, than in small places. Promiscuity and pride are easier to accept, and to enjoy, in big cities than in smaller towns and rural communities. Morality in big cities is different from morality in little places. I prefer most of the big city morality, though I think it should be tempered with small-town naiveté.
• The frenzy of big cities tends to reveal that neither love nor passion have limited targets; there are too many people and too many experiences to love and about which to feel passionate to allow one to believe otherwise.
• Big cities tend to encourage people to be more open-minded, I think. Small communities tend to close minds. I may be contradicting myself, but if so there’s a very good reason that I should have explained, if I’ve written this the way I wanted to write this.