[FRIAM] More distraction

Wed May 27 19:06:07 EDT 2020

Mary and I (previous to this cooling down of busy-ness) used to have the
tongue-in-cheek observation "why is it OTHER people are traffic?",
making reference to how we all resent the *other* people going about
*their* business impeding/detracting-from OUR business?

My Euro colleagues (Matt and Janire) are at mutual odds on the topic...
he grew up in the suburbs of London and finds our rural lifestyle
appealing while she grew up in a small village in Spain, entering the
hustle and bustle by "sneaking off to college" against her parent's
preference (facilitated by an aunt in Seville who boarded her for her
undergraduate) and now MUCH preferring "cafe culture" if/when she can
find it.   They travel the world and enjoy hyperactive urban culture all
over Europe, some North America and some Middle and far East.  They live
in Cardiff Wales which barely provides the city's best for them
sometimes.   But they've sequestered in their industrial workspace for
the duration, getting huge amounts of overdue projects done while
commissions lag entirely...    They both indicate they wish they'd been
here visiting us (where they often inhabit our primitive guest-quarters,
a 16' yurt) when things locked down.

I truly enjoy time in various big cities, but only as a "good place to
visit".   The year I lived in Berkeley for a year, my dog made it clear
to me what bothered me about "city life" the most.   Every time there'd
be a sound, we would both alert.  In the country, everything you see or
hear is your business, in the city virtually NONE of it is.   Whether 
it is the homeless going through my recycle at the curb for returnables,
or a siren or someone yelling (anger or revelry) one block over, it
really was NONE of my business.  That is a hard habit to shift.

- Steve

On 5/27/20 3:18 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
> I want to have the city with no people.   And it was like that for a
> wonderful moment!    The underlying principle being Familiarity Breeds
> Contempt.   In the country, the contempt is still there, but it is
> worse because one is bored by the same cast of characters.
>
>  
>
> *From: *Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Gary Schiltz
> <gary at naturesvisualarts.com>
> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> *Date: *Wednesday, May 27, 2020 at 1:55 PM
> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] More distraction
>
>  
>
> Steve, with tongue only partially in cheek, I have to say I often
> sympathize with those views. The fact is, despite being somewhat of an
> intellectual (I hope) and technically savvy guy, I have little use for
> large cities and would be fine seeing them go away. I grew up on a
> farm, went away to college (Manhattan, Kansas, population 40K
> including students), lived for a time in the suburbs of Detroit (low
> population density, large space between houses), moved to Pecos, New
> Mexico to work in Santa Fe, and now live in the boonies in the cloud
> forest of Ecuador. Social distancing has been a way of life for me :-)
>
>  
>
> On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 3:46 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com
> <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com>> wrote:
>
>     Merle -
>
>     Is this of your coinage?  As a word monger (munger?) I do
>     appreciate it's aptness for the moment.
>
>          Cassandrafreude. 
>
>         One definition offered is "the bitter pleasure of things going
>         wrong in exactly the way you predicted but no one believed you
>         when it could have made a difference." 
>
>     However...
>
>     I think like many sharp things, it cuts both ways.   I'm sure
>     there are any number of Red Staters (with or with Red MAGA hats)
>     saying emphatically "I TOLE YA!" about the complement of things
>     that Blue Staters (with or without Bernie or Biden 2020 hats) are
>     saying.
>
>     Remember, my sympathies are mostly with the Blue Caps, but...
>
>     People living in small, remote, rural towns where the social
>     distancing is built in somewhat and where R0 is naturally lower
>     (and subsequent rates of infection)  than in say downtown NYC or
>     Rome or Tehran or Delhi or Tokyo, may be saying "see I TOLE YA
>     that citified living is dangerous"  or the same people who might
>     only take one airline flight in a year or decade or lifetime might
>     say "see I TOLE YA that flitting all around the world is crazy
>     business and would lead to no good!" or even more judgementally
>     "see I TOLE YA excluding Furriners would keep us safe!" or "see I
>     TOLE YA that office/retail/service work ain't righteous, you gotta
>     get yer hands dirty!"
>
>     In any case, I enjoyed Cassandrafreude and will probably find it
>     springing to mind for the duration...
>
>     - Steve
>
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