What's on your Won't Do list?

[Recidiva]

An old friend of mine, Mac, did this. Usually not even remotely sensitive or observant, sometimes his brain would just turn on and other people could hear him think. One evening, Mac, myself, and my friend AP were sitting in the basement of Mac's house painting, and AP looks up at Mac and answers a question. Mac hadn't asked it, just thought it, but AP "heard" it and responded. AP called him a liar when Mac told him that he hadn't said anything. They actually started to argue until I stepped in and confirmed that nothing had been asked.

I won't even get into Mac's telepathic cat calling people from beyond the grave to open the patio door. CREEPY. It's one thing to get up for no discernable reason to open the patio door and find Dunkin sitting out there looking at you like "What took you so long, monkey?" It's another thing entirely to do the same thing and realise she's been dead for nearly a year. That happened SO many times for the first year after she died. They moved after that, and I still wonder if the house's new owners ever find themselves at the patio door wondering why they opened it.

*shudder*

A certain small percentage of people cannot think visually. They tend to have a rather different set of competences from those who do think visually. Dennett talked about it "Consciousness Explained" (a fantastically interesting book on the mechanics of thought).

I read some novel once that had a bit about intuitive thinking. The explanation went something like normal thinking processes A then B then C then D to get to E. Intuitive thinking goes A then E. But the author's theory was that the intuitive thinker goes through the same steps, they just process so quickly as to not be noticed.

I don't know that this is a valid premise, but it is the one I keep to. I've spent far too much time in my knowing things about other people that I should not know. I prefer to think that I am picking up on multiple cues that I am not consciously noting and constructing a pattern from which these conclusions are drawn. It's easier on my brain than thinking I'm empathic or somesuch.

Coolest sentence in the thread.

MUST read that book. I did pick up later on in life that my brain worked differently. From joining meditation or acting workshops and classes and being told to "imagine" or "visualize" something and thinking WTF? The whole affirmation and "see yourself doing..." idea is foreign and no matter how often I attempt this, I cannot do it. I tried for years and years, but I'm inside blind.

It's possible I do the processing so fast I can't process the processing, but since I can't tell, it's one more bit of interesting conjecture.

There's calculation and then there's perception. I suck at calculation. I'm good at relative. I can't even tell you in visual distance how far something is away from me, or recognize different types of cars. I don't ever remember how to get somewhere, I need a GPS to find my own dentist I've been going to for years. I am NOT observant to save my own life. I will only remember my own phone number probably one out of every two times I try. I have to turn it into a song to get it to have any traction in my head. I have it written down along with all other pertinent facts in a cheat sheet in my purse.

So I've watched enough crime shows of detectives who can recall scenes or details or have conscious memory of what they've seen or where they've been. In that sense I'm a total moronic dumbass. I have not been able to develop or sharpen this skill at all. Visual memory is a bust. Might as well not have eyes.

ETA: As to being able to figure out what song someone's singing, start it ON PITCH and on time and exactly when someone BEHIND me does it, that's not something I can explain. Nor can I explain how when I'm driving in a car, if I think about a song and change the station, it's there. Four times in a row.

There's no logic to it. Cues are one thing, but there's no way to pick up some things from visual cues. My brain doesn't buy that explanation and I'm left with a big "I have no idea."

 

[graceanne]

MUST read that book. I did pick up later on in life that my brain worked differently. From joining meditation or acting workshops and classes and being told to "imagine" or "visualize" something and thinking WTF? The whole affirmation and "see yourself doing..." idea is foreign and no matter how often I attempt this, I cannot do it. I tried for years and years, but I'm inside blind.

It's possible I do the processing so fast I can't process the processing, but since I can't tell, it's one more bit of interesting conjecture.

There's calculation and then there's perception. I suck at calculation. I'm good at relative. I can't even tell you in visual distance how far something is away from me, or recognize different types of cars. I don't ever remember how to get somewhere, I need a GPS to find my own dentist I've been going to for years. I am NOT observant to save my own life. I will only remember my own phone number probably one out of every two times I try. I have to turn it into a song to get it to have any traction in my head. I have it written down along with all other pertinent facts in a cheat sheet in my purse.

So I've watched enough crime shows of detectives who can recall scenes or details or have conscious memory of what they've seen or where they've been. In that sense I'm a total moronic dumbass. I have not been able to develop or sharpen this skill at all. Visual memory is a bust. Might as well not have eyes.

LOL I drive K CRAZY. I could get lost in a bucket. I routinely get lost going to my doctors office, and I go there once a month.

 

[Netzach]

You've said this before and I know it's how you feel, but I do disagree. All doctors are not morons. It's like any other profession; there are bad doctors and there are good doctors.

What medical school does to you is another thing.

By the time the system is done with you you are a glorified pusher able to keep people alive.

Doing anything about health is unlikely. Keeping people from dying - Western medicine rocks when it comes to that. I certainly use it, but take a grain of salt.

 

[Netzach]

My grandpa was a doctor and he was no idiot. He was great at what he did and saw patients for years after he retired.

The people who care and want to be good doctors would literally kill to be able to see people and treat the way your grandpa did.

Enter the insurance industry, circa 1980.

Now they do not bother to make 'em like they did.

I definitely don't think MD's are stupid, but I do think they are dreadfully limited and the people who do NOT get discouraged and wind up doing some other thing are the less impassioned ones when it comes to patient quality of life.

Your grandpa could have actually answered the question if I had asked "so Doc, what SHOULD I eat?" instead of babbling vaguely at me to eat whatever I could tolerate while handing me immunosuppressants and hoping I'd be on them for life so he could win a trip to Jamaica to golf.

 

[Recidiva]

LOL I drive K CRAZY. I could get lost in a bucket. I routinely get lost going to my doctors office, and I go there once a month.

LOL! Yes, he bought me a GPS and I never go anywhere without it. He says one day he's afraid he'll come home and I'm circling the tree in the front yard, crying and muttering that I can't find my house.

He has maps in his head and always knows where he is and is never lost. Magic. When I first moved here he'd draw me these incredibly detailed maps with railroad crossings, stop lights (he'd color them in red, orange and green) and street names, from memory. Proportions were always perfect and I had about 100 of them in the glove compartment.

 

[Homburg]

Hell, there are "super tasters" that can tell what kinda flower honey was made from. To me, that's magic.

Eldest daughter looks like she might be a super taster. It is... interesting.

--

MUST read that book. I did pick up later on in life that my brain worked differently. From joining meditation or acting workshops and classes and being told to "imagine" or "visualize" something and thinking WTF? The whole affirmation and "see yourself doing..." idea is foreign and no matter how often I attempt this, I cannot do it. I tried for years and years, but I'm inside blind.

It's a cool book. The "purple cow" example was particularly interesting, and memory rewriting done as either Stalinist Theatre or Orwellian dynamics was awesome. I can't do justice in explaining either so I'll just leave it to you to find the book. (If you were local, I'd just lend it to you, as I don't know that it is in print any more. The author's full name is Daniel Dennett, by the way.)

There's no logic to it. Cues are one thing, but there's no way to pick up some things from visual cues. My brain doesn't buy that explanation and I'm left with a big "I have no idea."

Yeah, I know. I do the "read" over computers sometimes. I'll just figure things out about people from text. No visual cues or body language or other subtext. Still, I like my rationalisation. It makes me feel less weird.

--

He has maps in his head and always knows where he is and is never lost. Magic. When I first moved here he'd draw me these incredibly detailed maps with railroad crossings, stop lights (he'd color them in red, orange and green) and street names, from memory. Proportions were always perfect and I had about 100 of them in the glove compartment.

I don't get lost either.

 

[Recidiva]

What medical school does to you is another thing.

By the time the system is done with you you are a glorified pusher able to keep people alive.

Doing anything about health is unlikely. Keeping people from dying - Western medicine rocks when it comes to that. I certainly use it, but take a grain of salt.

I have met some good doctors, but I'd have to say that's about 5% of the doctors I have had to deal with in a lifetime.

Most of them are suspicious, rushed, considering me a waste of time, make me wait an hour and a half to get to them, think I'm lying and write me off as drug seeking or weak willed in about seven minutes.

When I read the definition of PTSD a few years ago, there's a symptom that says:

"The belief that nobody can help you."

I recognized that in myself then and chose to try to get treatment. I'm six general practitioners later in just a few years because I just kept getting new ones when the ones I saw took no responsibility for my case and simply dismissed me as being neurotic or their impatience and disbelief made them an impossible person to see again.

I'm in monstrous amounts of pain. I just underwent surgery and they told me that it was going to hurt like hell. It's about a 1 on a scale of 10 that i'm used to. But I got SO MUCH attention from the surgery, I was frankly angry as hell at all the support I got. Because what I go through nearly every day is orders of magnitude worse.

But the difference is that surgery is understandable, people can relate to it. I have an illness that even if I ask for help, nobody can provide it, because nobody's discovered the answer. Nobody I've met yet anyway.

Medicine is helpful with what it can see. But so many conditions look like other conditions and in particular, nobody really knows what's wrong with me. SO FAR. I'm going to continue to try.

In the meantime I watch "Mystery Diagnosis" and it's cathartic. HAH! See? People ALL OVER THE WORLD get told it's in their head, it's a cold, it's stress, you need to relax, you need to eat better, you need to exercise...when it's a fucking deadly genetic condition affecting 0.0002% of the population or some such.

There are good doctors. But as to "What I won't Do" in a life medically to anybody - it's what doctors do to me constantly. Evaluate me, disbelieve me, treat me like cattle, and take the complicated circumstances of my life and write a prescription for the lowest common denominator.

 

[myinnerslut]

He has maps in his head and always knows where he is and is never lost. Magic. When I first moved here he'd draw me these incredibly detailed maps with railroad crossings, stop lights (he'd color them in red, orange and green) and street names, from memory. Proportions were always perfect and I had about 100 of them in the glove compartment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAfaM_CBvP8

some people just can

 

[Recidiva]

Eldest daughter looks like she might be a super taster. It is... interesting.

--



It's a cool book. The "purple cow" example was particularly interesting, and memory rewriting done as either Stalinist Theatre or Orwellian dynamics was awesome. I can't do justice in explaining either so I'll just leave it to you to find the book. (If you were local, I'd just lend it to you, as I don't know that it is in print any more. The author's full name is Daniel Dennett, by the way.)



Yeah, I know. I do the "read" over computers sometimes. I'll just figure things out about people from text. No visual cues or body language or other subtext. Still, I like my rationalisation. It makes me feel less weird.

--



I don't get lost either.

Thank you, I've scribbled down author and title, I'll Amazon it.

I've got so much damned weird that's just one more bit of weird. If normal ever was an option in any way, I missed the transfer.

Comfortingly I'm so "out there" weird that many people confide their particular brands of weird to me, and so I do know that weird isn't all that weird when the numbers are crunched and people's facades are discounted.

 

[Recidiva]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAfaM_CBvP8

some people just can

Oh yeah, I've seen him too. Magic.

 

[intothewoods]

The people who care and want to be good doctors would literally kill to be able to see people and treat the way your grandpa did.

Enter the insurance industry, circa 1980.

Now they do not bother to make 'em like they did.

I definitely don't think MD's are stupid, but I do think they are dreadfully limited and the people who do NOT get discouraged and wind up doing some other thing are the less impassioned ones when it comes to patient quality of life.

Your grandpa could have actually answered the question if I had asked "so Doc, what SHOULD I eat?" instead of babbling vaguely at me to eat whatever I could tolerate while handing me immunosuppressants and hoping I'd be on them for life so he could win a trip to Jamaica to golf.

Heh heh, yeahhh sort of. I remember talking to him about the typical advice for treatment of an ulcer when he had just started practicing: drink a little cream. I'd had some success with eating nothing but small amounts of ice cream at the time and we wondered if that old advice had been worth something after all. Most current doctors do not agree. Who knows.

I do take it all with a grain of salt as well. I've also seen my share of doctors and despite all of the issues facing the medical profession these days, some were fantastic. Mister Man's current doctor is old school, holistic, sits down with you and has a conversation. He had to go through about five doctors before he found her.

I know a lot of people who are really distrustful of doctors and want to craft their own medical treatment based on their own resarch. While I completely understand (and have experienced) the frustration with the medical industry and how powerless you can feel, I also think that people do not always make fully informed decisions when they do their own research. Not everything is available on the internet and it can be tough to apply what you've gleaned from a study to your own situation.

 

[Recidiva]

Heh heh, yeahhh sort of. I remember talking to him about the typical advice for treatment of an ulcer when he had just started practicing: drink a little cream. I'd had some success with eating nothing but small amounts of ice cream at the time and we wondered if that old advice had been worth something after all. Most current doctors do not agree. Who knows.

I do take it all with a grain of salt as well. I've also seen my share of doctors and despite all of the issues facing the medical profession these days, some were fantastic. Mister Man's current doctor is old school, holistic, sits down with you and has a conversation. He had to go through about five doctors before he found her.

I know a lot of people who are really distrustful of doctors and want to craft their own medical treatment based on their own resarch. While I completely understand (and have experienced) the frustration with the medical industry and how powerless you can feel, I also think that people do not always make fully informed decisions when they do their own research. Not everything is available on the internet and it can be tough to apply what you've gleaned from a study to your own situation.

I do agree. But people have to be given some time to own their frustration and helplessness as well. You can't go back to medicine unless you're ready. Otherwise more doctors will be strangled to death with their own stethoscopes.

"Another opinion" if it's the same, useless opinion you got from the last brainless yahoo is not always a good thing. Especially if you're paying for it.

I accept that medicine has not advanced to the point where it can cure what I have. Lots of people are in the same position.

 

[the captians wench]

I can't visualize either. My mom and I jokingly call it a "phonographic memory" because I recall things aurally. I never had to study in school, as long as the lesson was spoken out loud. If I hear something once, I can recall the sound in my head with in 1/4 of a note accuracy. When the lesson wasn't spoken in class I had to go home and read everything out loud, or I wouldn't remember. When I was in American history, the only chapter I got above a C on was the chapter my mother read to me. (I have a bit of dislexia as well so reading was more work than I thought worth better than a C)

When I recall things from my childhood, I don't see them, I hear the details of what went on, down to what colors the clothing was. Everything is sort of like hearing a radio program go on in my head.

The whole visualize and fantasize thing really illudes me. *shrug*

 

[Recidiva]

I can't visualize either. My mom and I jokingly call it a "phonographic memory" because I recall things aurally. I never had to study in school, as long as the lesson was spoken out loud. If I hear something once, I can recall the sound in my head with in 1/4 of a note accuracy. When the lesson wasn't spoken in class I had to go home and read everything out loud, or I wouldn't remember. When I was in American history, the only chapter I got above a C on was the chapter my mother read to me. (I have a bit of dislexia as well so reading was more work than I thought worth better than a C)

When I recall things from my childhood, I don't see them, I hear the details of what went on, down to what colors the clothing was. Everything is sort of like hearing a radio program go on in my head.

The whole visualize and fantasize thing really illudes me. *shrug*

I dream in vivid pictures. But I can't call up an image by will. Never found the switch in my brain. I suppose it's there, but no occult method, acting method, meditation method or otherwise has led me to any breakthrough.

I'm a lot like that. I can recall the lyrics to all the songs I sang in fourth grade, when I was in the theater I would just chant my lines and never forget them. I recall conversations and dialogue from movies and I can do voices and accents easily.

But ask me to close my eyes and remember what color shirt I'm wearing and I'll be stumped but good.

 

[the captians wench]

I dream in vivid pictures. But I can't call up an image by will. Never found the switch in my brain. I suppose it's there, but no occult method, acting method, meditation method or otherwise has led me to any breakthrough.

I'm a lot like that. I can recall the lyrics to all the songs I sang in fourth grade, when I was in the theater I would just chant my lines and never forget them. I recall conversations and dialogue from movies and I can do voices and accents easily.

But ask me to close my eyes and remember what color shirt I'm wearing and I'll be stumped but good.

Accents are very embarrassing for me. I have a tendancy to pick up on them so quickly that with in a sentence or two I'm speaking with the other person's accent. With Jounar's accent, it's so embeded into my memory that even thinking about him will cause me to speak with his accent.

I dream very vividly aswell. Odd that eh?

 

[myinnerslut]

I accept that medicine has not advanced to the point where it can cure what I have.

me too. usually.

 

[Recidiva]

Accents are very embarrassing for me. I have a tendancy to pick up on them so quickly that with in a sentence or two I'm speaking with the other person's accent. With Jounar's accent, it's so embeded into my memory that even thinking about him will cause me to speak with his accent.

I dream very vividly aswell. Odd that eh?

Hah! My mom called me "the human sponge" because when I went out to play, she could tell who I was playing with when I got home because I'd sound just like them.

The dream thing is cool. I'm sure it says something about the mechanics of dreaming and the brain assigning symbols...but I'll be damned if I know what that something is. Above my comprehension level.

Unfortunately my dreams are SO vivid and in them I have a tendency to die in awful ways in them. I drug myself to sleep with Benadryl every night and I'm grateful when I don't remember. Otherwise I end up insomniac and terrified.

 

[Recidiva]

me too. usually.

I have an ethic and a persistence about my medical treatment. I still look for new ways and new ideas. But faith in a "cure" is not a component of that. Just the idea that if I stop looking, that might be the day of the breakthrough. That I might miss something that would make it even incrementally easier.

I've accepted that doctors are humans and fallible and suchlike. I think there are stages of medical grief and I've worked my way through most of them to acceptance. Doesn't mean I'll give up trying, I'm just not attached to the hope or the results. The action of seeking for new ways to look at it is the only thing I'm after. I'm looking for puzzle pieces, not to fit in the final piece. Different perspective than I used to have.

I still want to punch people to death if they ask me if I have tried aspirin or something equally insightful. But I take a deep breath and relax my fists.

 

[Keroin]

I can't imagine living somewhere without several million people, at least, within reasonably close proximity. I love the energy, and the diversity, and the range of cultural options available in a sizable city.

I know the cashiers where I buy my food, and the ladies at the dry cleaners. The guy who delivers my mail, and the kids in my neighborhood, as well as their parents. Friends, family, colleagues, fellow volunteers. Lots of people.

I feel small at the beach, or in an airplane. In a place like the Grand Canyon or Glacier National Park, I feel absolutely tiny. Not small in a bad way, but small in the sense of keeping things in perspective.

I should clarify, cities make me feel small in a bad way whereas nature makes me feel small in a good way. More accurately, cities disconnect me and wild places plug me into the universe.

As I walked through the streets of Vancouver, (arguably one of the most beautiful cities in the world), two things hit me like a sledgehammer to the brain.

#1. Hardly anyone smiles in a city. In a small town, smiling is par for the course. I have a 3km scooter ride to town here and in that short distance I will usually smile and wave at over six people. In the city, smiling is almost treated like an act of aggression. I'm a natural smiler, I can't help it, I'm a happy person. For this reason, the city alienates me.

#2. Hardly any natural light. Because of all the tall buildings, you have to work to find sunlight. I went downtown on a gorgeous, sunny, fall day and found myself in shadow at least 70% of the time. It doesn't help that everyone seems to have adopted the colour black as a uniform. The overall effect is depressing. How I missed seeing people with flower ei's on their head.

In my future home, in the Kootenays, I can still get lots of culture, diversity, and energy but in a town of only 10,000, spread out and surrounded by mountains, lakes and rivers. City life is fun for short spurts but would kill me, slowly, if I had to live there.

 

[JMohegan]

I should clarify, cities make me feel small in a bad way whereas nature makes me feel small in a good way. More accurately, cities disconnect me and wild places plug me into the universe.

As I walked through the streets of Vancouver, (arguably one of the most beautiful cities in the world), two things hit me like a sledgehammer to the brain.

#1. Hardly anyone smiles in a city. In a small town, smiling is par for the course. I have a 3km scooter ride to town here and in that short distance I will usually smile and wave at over six people. In the city, smiling is almost treated like an act of aggression. I'm a natural smiler, I can't help it, I'm a happy person. For this reason, the city alienates me.

#2. Hardly any natural light. Because of all the tall buildings, you have to work to find sunlight. I went downtown on a gorgeous, sunny, fall day and found myself in shadow at least 70% of the time. It doesn't help that everyone seems to have adopted the colour black as a uniform. The overall effect is depressing. How I missed seeing people with flower ei's on their head.

In my future home, in the Kootenays, I can still get lots of culture, diversity, and energy but in a town of only 10,000, spread out and surrounded by mountains, lakes and rivers. City life is fun for short spurts but would kill me, slowly, if I had to live there.

People in rural America tend to be very conservative, politically and socially as well. Friendly and smiling, sure - as long as you blend in.

People in American cities may seem unfriendly to strangers as they rush along the street, but there are plenty of happy, smiling city dwellers interacting with people they know on a regular basis.

I can't speak to Vancouver, but every time I've been to Montreal I've found the citizens warm and welcoming. Friendly, talkative, smiling - and bilingual! Really, quite charming.

I'm not familiar with the Kootenays. What is your future town like? Whence the diversity, and what cultural venues are there?

 

[Netzach]

Heh heh, yeahhh sort of. I remember talking to him about the typical advice for treatment of an ulcer when he had just started practicing: drink a little cream. I'd had some success with eating nothing but small amounts of ice cream at the time and we wondered if that old advice had been worth something after all. Most current doctors do not agree. Who knows.

I do take it all with a grain of salt as well. I've also seen my share of doctors and despite all of the issues facing the medical profession these days, some were fantastic. Mister Man's current doctor is old school, holistic, sits down with you and has a conversation. He had to go through about five doctors before he found her.

I know a lot of people who are really distrustful of doctors and want to craft their own medical treatment based on their own resarch. While I completely understand (and have experienced) the frustration with the medical industry and how powerless you can feel, I also think that people do not always make fully informed decisions when they do their own research. Not everything is available on the internet and it can be tough to apply what you've gleaned from a study to your own situation.

They treated symptoms. Go figure. They could actually touch you to examine you without lawsuits.

Drinking a little cream, if it works for you, can't possibly kill you in addition to treating the bacterial source of ulcers that they just finally figured out. I mean, if a lot of people feel better from something they can't ALL BE INSANE. That's something that contemporary medicine refuses to acknowledge - only authority and scientific method (influenced by pharma) count.

Diagnostics, surgery, and lab analysis have gotten a lot better. Drugs have gotten more powerful, but common sense has been abandoned for them.

I personally pray to all my Gods I'm not a poison-avoider. I don't think I'd have remissed without pred or 6mp. I don't think I'd still be doing well had I not gone insane with diet for a year and a half.

Treating digestive disorders with no dietary approach is OK, but who would ever take diet out of the picture for a diabetic? I do think some people go all out with DIY witch doctors and things, in avoidance of any meds, and it's just too much. Rational research on your own in old medical journals is useful. I was my own science project, which was a good enough distraction.

 

[Netzach]

I've lived in a tiny city or large small town. I've lived in NYC and Chicago. I lived in Dublin for a month. I'm kind of a "wherever you are, there you are" lover of place. I really can find upside to wherever.

New Yorkers are some of the most open helpful people I've encountered worldwide. Likewise Parisiens who get no end of reputation as assholes.

And people smile here. I say hi to people I pass on my walks - which is freaking WEIRD, but normal here. And we don't have canyon effect, we have lakes. And lots and lots and lots of freaking cold, while it's so sunny you want to run outside.

 

[Keroin]

People in rural America tend to be very conservative, politically and socially as well. Friendly and smiling, sure - as long as you blend in.

People in American cities may seem unfriendly to strangers as they rush along the street, but there are plenty of happy, smiling city dwellers interacting with people they know on a regular basis.

I can't speak to Vancouver, but every time I've been to Montreal I've found the citizens warm and welcoming. Friendly, talkative, smiling - and bilingual! Really, quite charming.

I'm not familiar with the Kootenays. What is your future town like? Whence the diversity, and what cultural venues are there?

The Kootenays are located in South Eastern, BC. (The fact that I am willing to live that far from the ocean should tell anyone how amazing this area is). Nelson - my future home - was originally a mining town, then a logging town. For different reasons, both industries went belly up and the town fell into financial despair. In the late sixties, hippies and US draft dodgers flocked there because land was cheap, water plentiful and there was lots of decent farmland. They started cottage industries that eventually took off but they never lost their eco-consciousness or their love of tolerance and diversity.

Today, Nelson is a thriving community of artists and outdoor enthusiasts, (and pot growers). You can get authentic Thai food, Indian food, Italian, Greek, you name it, all within a small radius. There is huge support for the arts, including a few world class music festivals. Winter is all about skiing and summer is all about mountain biking. I think Nelson has done so well because there was no big factory or industry that drew people there strictly for money. Everyone who lives there, really chose to be there and everyone loves the town and the surrounding area.

There are a lot of Americans in Nelson, (especially after Bush got in for his second term).

 

[JMohegan]

I've lived in a tiny city or large small town. I've lived in NYC and Chicago. I lived in Dublin for a month. I'm kind of a "wherever you are, there you are" lover of place. I really can find upside to wherever.

New Yorkers are some of the most open helpful people I've encountered worldwide. Likewise Parisiens who get no end of reputation as assholes.

And people smile here. I say hi to people I pass on my walks - which is freaking WEIRD, but normal here. And we don't have canyon effect, we have lakes. And lots and lots and lots of freaking cold, while it's so sunny you want to run outside.

I've got echoes in my head now, every time this subject comes up.

"We grow goooooooood people in our small towns."

"I was raised in the South Bronx, and there's nothing wrong with my value system from the South Bronx."


Lately, I've been wanting to explore Iowa. I think I'll head there next.

 

[JMohegan]

The Kootenays are located in South Eastern, BC. (The fact that I am willing to live that far from the ocean should tell anyone how amazing this area is). Nelson - my future home - was originally a mining town, then a logging town. For different reasons, both industries went belly up and the town fell into financial despair. In the late sixties, hippies and US draft dodgers flocked there because land was cheap, water plentiful and there was lots of decent farmland. They started cottage industries that eventually took off but they never lost their eco-consciousness or their love of tolerance and diversity.

Today, Nelson is a thriving community of artists and outdoor enthusiasts, (and pot growers). You can get authentic Thai food, Indian food, Italian, Greek, you name it, all within a small radius. There is huge support for the arts, including a few world class music festivals. Winter is all about skiing and summer is all about mountain biking. I think Nelson has done so well because there was no big factory or industry that drew people there strictly for money. Everyone who lives there, really chose to be there and everyone loves the town and the surrounding area.

There are a lot of Americans in Nelson, (especially after Bush got in for his second term).

Very nice.

Your description reminds me of some places I've been in Vermont.