City life: a casual unity of strangers

Its getting colder and the mountains are full with snow now. From my apartment I can see them in the distance, surrounding the city like enormous giants. It must be beautiful up there. Time to explore them, grab my snowboard out of the storage room and slide off the slippery slopes.

Vancouver city lights now give me a homey feeling. Alone in a city doesn't feel like alone. Even when the little light bulbs are far away, in houses hundred of meters away. Thousands of people in the same city, reading a book, having sex, fighting or laughing. All in their own unit on top of each other. Literally. All these beds on top of each other. All these emotions in one apartment building. It's fascinating. If we could see the energy, there would be colourful radiances dancing above the building, lighting up the sky.

Source

A city is a vibrant place where a lot of storylines come together. How did all these people arrive at the same place? Their lifestories all somehow ended up taking place in Vancouver. Momentarily of course, because people move in and out and are in constant change. Through break-ups, emotional euphoria, tiredness, pride, it is interesting that people can live together while having so many emotions, interesting that outbreaks of immense hate to each are not a daily occurence (at least not these days in Vancouver). It works out, because people are conditioned by the basic rules of society, created through time to channel these emotions.

Unconsciously we never scream to loud in the bus, we don't fart while talking to strangers and we all pay our bus fare every morning on our way to work. We have a 'goody-goody' attitude for a reason; it is a basic survival instict. As long as we avoid conflict, we learned that we will be safe. Also, in our society, it is seen as honorouble when you keep your cool. It gives you a high status. This idea is internal to every human being; if we wouldn't have learned these basics, we would all scream out loud and trash the city as if we were a bunch of undomesticated pigs.

This is why Vancouver can be a place where 610. 000 people can live together, without all too much confrontation. People are like sheep, and we all like to go the same direction. Some like to stick their head out, and either fail or succeed.

All these people, in their little cubicles, big palaces or houses, all trying to make something of it. Within our commonality, we are our own unique combination of genes. It makes us original as persons. But what makes us unique as well, is that we are unique in our unity.

To be continued...

Photo gallery