You never become so aware of Suburbia until you're taken out of your own and placed in somebody else's. Your own suburban hometown feels natural and normal, you become conditioned and desensitized to the world around you, because you figure it's your world and that's just how things work. Nonetheless, when given the ability to withdraw and ascertain what suburban living is like from a neutral standpoint, you have an amazing vantage to learn things.
Lately, there is a movement called the New Urbanism movement, which takes a major stab at suburbs, insisting they are space inefficient, socioeconomically stunting, socially conservative, and for that matter, just plain inconvenient. In an urban setting, you can walk to get to almost anything you might need. Children are less likely to grow up into naive man-children, being forced to fend for themselves and go out on their own -- after all, where you're going is just down the street and around the block. New Urbanism complains that suburbs are isolating and alienating, anonymizing. You can spend so much time keeping in your own security bubble, suburbs are designed to minimize the necessity of human interaction. You can walk from your house, to your car, drive the commute without talking to anybody else, get to work, do what needs to get done like an automaton, and return without being reminded of Humanity living out there. You can go years without realizing anyone is significantly poorer than you, or black, or richer than you, or lives their life any differently, because
there is no opportunity to see it. You don't have to look at it. Stay in your house, in your car, in your suburbs. It's all the same. And it is safe.
In an urban environment, people are part of the landscape. You can hear them in your apartments (you should live in apartments) -- up above you moving, to the side of you, a gay couple fucking, coming in from a night of drinking a student walks down the hallway or up the stairs. You don't need to drive to get groceries, and you pass them by on the sidewalks (because you must do a lot of walking). Maybe you see them on the train when you commute, have to stand next to them when it's too full and bump shoulders. On the train, you see a school kid, an old wino sleeping on a three seat bench, a hipster with his iPod. These are people you might even see every day, if you keep the same train schedule to get to work. (I know I wouldn't, I'm a weirdo who runs late and doesn't want to go the same way twice in a row).
The suburbs, contrary to the urban jungle, are designed to keep the Have-Nots out by their very design. You cannot really get in or out of the suburbs without a car. Children do not learn to explore their city until they turn sixteen and get the privilege of driving. But most essentially
you must own a car. You must be able to afford a car to live in Suburbia. How many of those people on the train, do you think, have enough money to buy a car? Think of the present employment situation -- how many of them can even get jobs that pay well enough to earn money for that car, and insurance?
But, I'm not quite sold on New Urbanism. And I don't harbor that wrath for Suburbia. I have to admit that as a product of that lifestyle, I don't like bumping shoulders just to get to school. Furthermore,
I don't mind that the suburbs keep the less-desirables out. Living in the suburbs feels safe and comfortable. You don't feel like you're going to get mugged or raped in an alley; fuck, you hardly pass alleys that would be hidden enough for that. And these things do happen, and then "the community is shaken", the news crews roll in and out, and treat it like a freak incident, especially if the victim is a white woman. Out in the city.... shit happens, it makes the news, you watch your back and hope for the best, and it's the best you can do. The Suburbs, I admit, do create a Boogey Man. He is that poor wino on the train, or the uneducated black male dressed in thug regalia. He is someone we cannot trust, because he is not privileged like us, and is liable to be violent or dangerous, and We Don't Know Them Or Their Kind.
And I'll admit to being a perfect side effect, a victim of suburban life. I am that spoiled adult child squandering resources out of ennui. I spend my allowances on my vices. And because of that, I can't see out sometimes. I feign helplessness. I have a friend,
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endymi0n7 , much richer and whiter than myself, with a ridiculous predisposition towards entitlement complex and mild xenophobia, and yet he is the biggest proponent of New Urbanism that I know, because he, via travel to a place such as Paris, France, has observed how stunting being trapped in Suburbia can be -- we in the Suburbs have no youth culture. There are schools, and then we're interpersonally left to fend for ourselves as youth; cultureless and whitewashed.
That just makes me want to travel even more. I've always observed life from a meta-standpoint, and have always wanted to accumulate as much interesting experience as I possibly could. That's what makes this trip a little more special than all the others, because all at once and very distinctly, I get to experience the suburbs, the Ultimate Urban Life (NYC, communal living), and the countryside.
So what it comes down to, at this leg of the trip, I still think that the suburbs are fine as a setting, but the chill of social conservativism is haunting. What is this arbitrary status quo, and who's placing its burden on my shoulders, or yours? Why is that just the way things are? Neighborhoods are always pretty, and the relative affluence is always nice, and frankly I do just dandy living suburbanly, but that may be because I'm so used to it. And isn't that the chill factor right there; you just get used to it. I can't complain really; I like the privilege and I wear it well. I like the faux-cleanliness. It's the psychological environment that suburbia has been twisted into, that I see as the greatest flaw in suburban life, and the reason I must skitter deep into the heart of The City. I would have to say though, from what I have heard from others, having no first hand experience myself, Rural Suburbia is absolutely horrifying. Imagine being a homosexual in Rural Suburbia, everything so ridiculously spread out and isolated, the land populated by bumfuck hicks with a bit of money to squander on land. Imagine being
pyro .
(Wet dream over?) That can beat the hell out of you, literally and figuratively.
In other news, I don't really understand human social rituals such as greeting somebody when you pass them by just by chance. Unless I have something that I deem worthwhile offering them, or have reason to believe they have something to offer me, I'd rather not occupy their mindspace and waste their time by forcing acknowledgement and small talk. Small talk is akin to cult murders. Likewise, I'm not very good at receiving sympathy. I don't see what making somebody else feel bad for your problems brings to you, or even begins to solve them. I give sympathy, but in addition to that, I'll mull over in my brain forever solutions... just having someone to listen is enough for some people.
Also, I made myself in Soul Calibur finally, and I look awesome, very steampunk in burgandy and black, and my weapon is a mace shaped like a golden iron fist gripping a nail. I call it the Iron Fist of Socialism.
blackmagesteve calls it fisting. Also, I am very insecure that I have grown up in disappointing ways and that he misses me being more childly. I live in constant fear of being a parody of myself and thus try to detach myself from things which seem like they'd be forcedly up my alley, like Amy in Soul Calibur. Seriously, she's not my type of vampire lolita. My actual favorite is Setsuka. But every time I bring up this game, everyone says "OMFG DO YOU LIKE AMY?" and I feel painfully typecast.
But come on, what kind of gay karaoke night doesn't have Pet Shop Boys. My heart was so broken.
thoughtful
crushed
rushed
amused
tumultuous
awake
eager
nervous
pessimistic
giddy
determined