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What's Your Place In This World?

7/19/2013

5 Comments

 
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In one of the recent and ever-popular articles about The World's Best Cities To Live In, half of the top ten were in Australia and New Zealand. Having just spent six months in that part of the world though, I would be very hard pressed to consider living in any one of these places. Why is that? I've been quite a nomad in my life, having spent six months or more in nine different cities in four different countries since I graduated from college 20 years ago. I don't have any deep attachments to any one place. I feel like I'm still searching for the perfect place to live. But whatever metrics the Economist (in this case) used to compile their list, they sure don't fit with my sense of what makes a place great.

Looking further into the details of this list, I suppose it's unsurprising that the criteria the Economist used to judge cities around the world were aimed ultimately at measuring how good it would be for businesses to locate there. The Economist wanted to provide a list for business leaders who needed to know "whether or not companies should pay staff a hardship allowance if they make employees relocate to a different country. Its researchers look at how 'tolerable' it is to live in a particular place given its crime levels, threat of conflict, quality of medical care, levels of censorship, temperature, schools and transport links." In other words, they were measuring how productive a place is for workers to toil away their lives. So that explains it. That explains the difference between the Economist's rankings and my own experience of these places. I'm not looking for a place to "tolerate." I'm looking for a place to thrive. Places where the architecture inspires me, the history motivates me, the people want to cooperate with me, the cuisine nourishes me, and the values ennoble me. I'm looking for places where people who want to know themselves will have opportunities to do so and then be able to live lives in harmony with what they find.  Australia - a wealthy country with strict immigration and tons of natural resources - may be able to provide a stable place for its workers, but its history and people provide almost none of the thriving culture that I myself am looking for.

In taking the time on this website to express my own philosophy, I wasn't going after writing specifics that were specific to me alone. This evolutionary philosophy I'm trying to share is based on the idea that we all share a common evolutionary history so there are common truths to the philosophical questions we all ask as well. When it comes to our questions about place, my answers have led me to a quiet seaside village in North East England, a short metro ride from the downtown of a historical and vibrant city. Not everyone will come up with this same answer - thank goodness! - but everyone should be searching for their own individual answer rather than simply accepting the situation they were born in, or the rankings of a commercial magazine whose profit motives they do not share. As you search to know thyself and find your own place in this world, here are some considerations:

Concerning Places

Where You Live
Given that your personality is an expression of your genes and your environment, the place you live will have a profound effect on who you are. Be aware of the influence of your place. Be unafraid to move if you have to improve. Wherever you do live, you are a social animal in need of social relations. Sink in roots. Get to know and help your community. Invest for the long-term.

When ecosystems are stable, species remaining in the same place learn to thrive. When resource availability or threat presences change, a species must adapt. If such a change takes place faster than adaptation can occur, the species must be able to move. This is why all species evolve a spectrum of personalities that range from wanting to stay put or preferring to roam. The species needs both personalities. Respect this. Play your part. Encourage others to play their part. The need to “burrow in” builds resources. The need to “see over the next hill” extends from your neighborhood to the entire universe.

Analysis is dependent on comparison. Without dark there is no light, without hot there is no cold, etc. To properly know yourself and your environment, you need to understand other places. Living somewhere provides more information than merely traveling through does.

Where You Travel
Travel bombards your mind with opportunities for learning. Culture, customs, food, architecture, fashion, geography, zoology, weather, history, art - everything that humans touch or are touched by can be different when you travel. Stretch your mind when you travel. Gather ideas for your own environment. Gain understanding and love for all the world and its history. If you want to turn your mind off, stay at home and learn stillness. If you want hedonistic short-term pleasure, keep it short.


5 Comments
Andrej
7/22/2013 08:08:58 pm

More metaphysically, someone whom I could look up on google, but won't, said, "wherever you go, there you are." Since college I have lived in several countries, lots of cities, and throw in an 11 month bicycle trip, been a real nomad as well. Gotta say that I was miserable in supposedly great places and extremely happy in terrible places. Rarely was it the place that made a "place" a good one to live in. Turkmenistan is a horrible place, but there were times that I was extremely happy. Quantifying an experience and having it true across all circumstances, people and time frames is impossible and kind of foolish. I understand that magazines need to be written and advertising sold and that without Yahoo! recycling top ten lists over and over internet content would drop by 50%, but all these best places to live, work, etc are too general to be useful.

The "wherever you go" thing... depends on you being happy, be it sea-side England, a central Asian authoritarian theo-kleptocracy, or a small town on the Chesapeake, you have to be happy with yourself first....

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@EdGibney link
7/23/2013 05:34:07 am

Seems it was the Buddha that first said that, and like much of the rest of his wisdom, I agree that it survives. A lot of what magazines (and the top 10 Yahoo! top 10's) list as the important ingredients of a general place don't actually affect each individual in their specific nook within that place. Whether you have quiet neighbors, a peaceful commute, appealing exercise options, convenient and comprehensive shopping, schools that can teach your children, fulfilling work, and sociable friends have much more to do with your happiness with your place than which politician is in charge or what the average wage around you is. Being happy with yourself and your choices in life can be independent of much of this (up to a point) and so you are therefore able to be happy just about anywhere. Still, some places do increase or decrease the probability that you can shape a thriving life there. I would think at some point the cognitive dissonance of being personally happy under a repressive regime would eventually push you to vote with your feet and leave the place no matter how much inner peace you have cultivated for yourself. I'm including a discussion on places because your environment does matter. It shapes you, and you shape it. You are right that it is just a piece of the broader discussion of knowing thyself though.

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Andrej
7/23/2013 06:24:40 pm

In places where you are "free" to move, I would agree. One of the issues with the recent housing bubble bursting is that people's intellectual capital is stuck in a house that has depreciated. The ability of people to move is severely limited if it requires you to write a check to cover your depreciation or alternatively go bankrupt. It is a real game changer.

As for repressive regimes and people being able to vote with their feet, well that is a bit utopian. In my experience people that move in third world countries almost always are leaving rural poverty for urban poverty. These people are "free" to move because they have nothing left to lose (...me and my Bobby McGee...)... My feeling about this one is that it is usually a bad trade for most, but for some it works out and that is why it keeps occurring.

In "second world" countries, say Ukraine, people have learned to be very conservative because risk is not rewarded, or at least the return is not great enough to say moving from Kharkiv to Sevastopol and the differences in possibilities is outweighed by a variety of factors (moving from home, different cultures, ethnicity, etc). I met a few people in my travels in Eastern Europe who said they were from Bratislava or Kyiv who were from little villages far away and when pressed that is where they called home. Not sure I met anyone who took the reverse course.

According to The Economist there are:
25 true democracies (11.3% or population) you can guess
54 flawed democracies (37.2%) - India, Mongolia, Brazil, Mexico
37 hybrid regimes (14.4%) Algeria, Pakistan, Mozambique, Nepal
51 authoritarian (37.1%) Russia, China, -stans, Saudi

I would say it is truly unlikely that people in 51.5% of the world can really vote with their feet very well. The best strategy is probably to try and skip from one level to the next, or hop from authoritarian to free through the green card lottery or swimming a border or something hoping for a better life for their kids mostly.

I would postulate that immigrants tend to be wealthier, more risk taking, higher educated, and more forward thinking than average. All attributes that spell success anywhere, but even more so if you are rolling the dice on a big move. The problem is that until the world is flatter, voting with your feet involves climbing a lot of mountains that are too perilous for many (see how I did that?).

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@EdGIbney link
7/24/2013 04:35:14 am

I was definitely just talking about you when I said you would vote with your feet. I know most Turkmen don't have that option - nor do 51.5% according to your excellent research. For them, like for all of us really, you can only do the best you can with what's available to you and be satisfied with yourself that you have tried. The freedom we lucky ones have gives us more responsibility to use the freedom wisely for ourselves and the rest of the planet. Peace Corps, State Dept., USG efficiency, community charities, etc....I'd say you and I are trying.

I don't know if that's true of immigrants. It seems to me they are just people who believe their current situation is intolerable compared to what they dream. Their dreams may lead them to risk taking, education, progressive thinking, and wealth, but they don't have to. The obvious (to me) counterexample is the one time wave of Amish immigrants who I don't think would fit any of your characterizations. Unfortunately, hollywood and religion shapes most of the world's dreams. We have to learn to outcompete one or both of those influencers if we want better dreams and better outcomes for people. I'm still working on that one...

Reply
Andrej
7/24/2013 07:23:22 pm

Gary Hustwit's Urbanized, a great look at urban planning and city design strategies for life and living well and what we can do in the future to make things more sustainable and livable. Narrated by designers, architects, city planners, etc very well done. Netflix

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