Man, the older I get the more I realize that life is always a balancing act. I immigrated from a 3rd world country (probably a 2nd world now) 20 years ago with my parents. Both of my parents were engineers and both were paid about once a year by their employer because nobody had any money. So we were broke and poor my entire childhood. And yet we always had friends visiting us. There were always celebrations. Seemed like we managed to get by and stay happy despite the circumstances. Rewind a couple decades later and I barely see my parents living. Both come home exhausted from work. I spent most days stuck in the office and then toil away working on my own projects and ideas. And that's it. We have everything we ever wanted and absolutely no happiness. I recently came back from a trip to my home country and I see neighbors talking to each other and inviting each other for dinners and celebrations. People are eager to help each other out. You can strike up a conversation with a total stranger at a bus station and it doesn't feel weird and awkward. I was looking at all of this and thinking if i'd give up everything i have now to simply enjoy humanity for a change. You can't have everything in this world.
> i'd give up everything i have now to simply enjoy humanity for a change.
Everything but security which, unfortunately, is worth giving up a lot of other things to have.
I'd move to my wife's home country tomorrow if we could live without fear of our child being kidnapped. My wife's uncle was kidnapped and murdered, another aunt and cousins bound in their home by robbers, and another cousin held for a day by a group of illegally armed militiamen from a neighboring country.
> I'd move to my wife's home country tomorrow if we could live without fear of our child being kidnapped
Not comparing it with your wife's country (especially since you said people got murdered), but in the bay area, you won't find kids walking alone anywhere. Despite being one of the safest places in the US, parents and society overall is paranoid. They have traded group safety for individual safety.
Somewhat less of a concern as long as you maintain coverage in your own country (in my case, US) and have the wherewithal to go home if you decide you need to. But yes, a serious accident or onset of a critical and fast-acting illness would have you questioning your choices.
“You'll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You'll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life's a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.”
Grew up alongside a large family with an almost annual high school graduation party. That book was a cornerstone of the event, read aloud and a copy given to each graduate.
Never really "got it" until just now. Makes me wish I'd read his books a kid.
Everyone does, not just Americans. People aren't born knowing what they want out of life. So the first instinct or the default setting, is to do what everyone else is doing. If everyone around you is chasing X you are likely to chase it too. The more connected the world gets the more that tendency is amplified. Everyone wants an iPhone and everyone wants to line up for Avengers 29 or whatever. If it was just the Americans Apple and Disney wouldn't be raking in the cash that they do. They are just taking advantage of that default setting.
People who have twiddled about with their own default settings, whether they are in China, America or Congo find different routes to happiness that have nothing to do with what the rest of herd is upto.
Michigan isn't a terribly dense state but has a large Muslim population.
My rural hometown had a population of around 2000 people, and supposedly around 10% or so are hmong. They weren't treated any differently as far as I knew; several were part of what passed for the preppy / popular clique in school.
I am a white male, and get plenty of stares, because I am unusually tall and have an unusual hair style. Wherever you go, if you stand out, people will notice. That isn't a bad thing, and it doesn't mean people don't like you.
Looks like the oldest mosques in the united states are in places like Maine, North Dakota, and Iowa (in addition to obvious places like NYC). Like I said before, this is a big, diverse country.
Wear a mossy oak hijab into the rotation if you want to go out of your way to fit in (or just don't any you'll probably be fine).
IMO you tend to get less racism in rural areas than you do in suburbs but when you get it it's not as obscured. It's a million times more about class and culture than it is about race.
As an openly transgender person, I had the same thought. Specifically, in the Bay Area I can be a walking pride flag, and in fact strike up conversations with all kinds of people in all kinds of places and feel very connected. There's all kinds of community here that I haven't found other places I've lived.
In a lot of parts of the country I have to be very careful about what I say and how I present.
In a lot of other countries, my very existence is criminalized.
If your wife wears a hijab, then you are right, you will need to stick to a few very specific parts of the US. The good news is that in those parts, you'll probably find a thriving Muslim community to interact with.
I find it so incredibly ironic that it was immigrants, fleeing countries utterly lacking in comfort, wealth, or happiness, in search of a better life for themselves and their children, that helped build the comfortable industrialized nation of the United States.
It seems life - human existence - is cyclical and has amnesia. We forget too quickly what real discomfort is. Or at least, fail to strike a proper balance.
America was indeed founded by immigrants seeking a "better life" whether that was Puritans fleeing persecution or economic opportunists. It's not like anyone immigrated to America simply to "pioneer" for pioneering's sake.
By that standard you could say that every decision made by everyone is made in pursuit of a better life. Which is true, sure, but it obfuscates certain arguably important points.
> inviting each other for dinners and celebrations
I've experienced more of this in the U.S., than in the Indian culture I grew up in. Hanging out with friends, having dinner together, inviting new people you don't know to dinner -- are all very much a part of American culture. People in the U.S. quite intentionally go out of their way to make new friends. It's one of things I love about the United States. In Indian culture, people often stick to just family, and a small circle of friends that rarely changes through life. Compared to that, American openness is wonderful.
> You can strike up a conversation with a total stranger at a bus station and it doesn't feel weird and awkward.
Ironically, the U.S. might be one of the only countries where this is common, and quite socially acceptable. Even in New York, I've broken norms, talked to strangers, and made new friends. In many countries, if you try to strike up a conversation with a stranger, you'll likely get a strange look, followed by silence or a curt unfriendly reply. I'm thankful that in general, people in the U.S. are so friendly, and happily willing to talk to and befriend total strangers.
You, too, can strike up a conversation with a total stranger at a bus station and it doesn't have to feel weird. It is, however, likely to be short because people are so unused to it in the atomized west that, if you don't carry the whole conversation, they simply won't know what to say.
In much of "flyover country", Americans routinely greet, chat with, and interact with strangers in public. Ironically, it's one of the American traits often criticized by Europeans. "How rude, how intrusive, to invade my private bubble."
But then, the UK has a similar phenomenon, with sophisticated Londoners making the same complaints about England's own flyover country, "the North" [1]
My mom lives in a small town in Canada. When she visits the Bay area and we go for walks, she always says "hi" to the people we pass. It usually makes people do a double take.
But it was the same when I lived in a mid-sized town in the mid-west US. People were much more friendly and inviting. Randomly striking up a conversation (small talk) was usually quite well received.
I moved to the bay area and it is comical how closed off people are. I say hi to people on the walking trail and maybe one in five will respond. This place is lonely central. If I didn't have my SO I'd go insane.
It the UK it's a north / south divide, nothing to do with urban vs. rural. Disclaimer: Unfriendly southerner here. Also no idea if this is still true in 2019.
>>In much of "flyover country", Americans routinely greet, chat with, and interact with strangers in public.
I’ve had the opposite experience. Strangers routinely strike up conversations with me when I’m in New York, Boston, Chicago. Last time I was waiting for a friend at a bar, and there was baseball on TV. Some old man sitting next to me turned to me and started telling me about the time he got something signed by Babe Ruth. As a foreigner I’m totally used to it of course, but I’m also cognizant of the fact that it is out of the ordinary in American standards.
Last night, I said something to my spouse about a conversation I had with a "single serving friend", and she didn't know what I was talking about. I said it was a Fight Club reference, then went farther and explained that I had a five minute conversation with a complete stranger (just walking down the street together), and I had to explain this idea to her, because she's an introvert and would never, ever engage in a conversation with a stranger.
How do you come to meet someone who seemingly doesn't have any way of meeting or interacting with others they aren't already acquainted with? How do you come to marry someone before you have this conversation to discover their lived experience of social interactions is so radically different to your own? No judgment, just a strange backstory that seems to raise more questions than it answers.
My spouse meets people entirely through her existing social networks - me, her existing friends, her dance community, and work. She doesn't just strike up conversations with complete strangers, it makes her very uncomfortable. Whereas I'm an extrovert and happily start or engage in conversations with strangers all the time.
She and I met back in the day through her boyfriend at the time (interestingly, we're still friends - he lives in town and we see him regularly). And she met him through her college roommate, freshman year.
The South is pretty friendly and outgoing in many places. I strike up conversations almost everywhere and most people are ok with it. Of course there are some people that hate small talk and I try to respect that.
I don't know, i've probably had more random conversations with strangers either on busses or waiting at bus stops than anywhere else. Especially when the bus is exceedingly late or there's something out of the ordinary happening. People that normally totally ignore eachother will suddenly start talking like they've known eachother for years. There's also been a couple people i've met transit I end up talking to a lot. There's one person, we don't know eachother's names but we know most of the details of eachother's lives.
At a bus stop, yeah, it is kinda strange, cause people are usually there because they have to be, not because they want to. At a hackerspace, at a bar, at a book club, music concert, etc. it isn’t weird all. Some of the best friends I’ve made over the past couple of years (and i mean real friends, the ones you hang out with multiple times a week, go on trips, etc), it almost always was through some kind of spontaneous contact. I guess it depends on where you live. I’ve found (anecdotal evidence incoming) that it is much easier to do so in big cities with a lot of people that are not car-centric.
Just move to you home country and enjoy all you like about it! It is that easy! You have to live there to compare, as grass is always greener on the other side, especially when you are on a vacation.
You are the master of your life! Make a block party to make neighbor friends, go to a park on a weekend, take a bus (yes, you can't start a conversation at a bus station if you only drive), travel to different US cities.
This. I used to live in Seattle after vacationing there a handful of times, but after living there I found it to be one of the most least welcoming, racist, Progressively Elitist™ places I've ever lived (and I've lived all over the US).
It's easy to say "I will commit to making more meaningful connections with people/strangers today", but if this is not received or reciprocated; well...there's not really much you can outside of devoting more time in trying to breakthrough some sort of glass wall that some places have created an environment for. Which comes down to two choices in my book:
1. Fight through and prove yourself/others wrong
2. Go somewhere else that you feel will be more accepting
I have never known Seattle to be this way. I am sorry you had this experience, but I have found Seattle to be a supremely welcoming and friendly place.
Makes you wonder what will be the next political activism replacing feminism and social justice activism? It seems there will always be opposing opinions, no matter where you go, so you are seemingly missing 3. avoid/ignore politics the best you can.
We can have that here. We need to downsize our lives. Stop paying for things we don't need or really even want. Be okay with jobs that make less, even a lot less, as long as our basic needs are met. Leave our mobile phones on the desk and walk outside not knowing what you'll expect, and be open with meeting new people. If enough people do this, our towns and suburbs can be revitalized.
>We have everything we ever wanted and absolutely no happiness.
I guess this is the difference between generations and why they struggle most of the time understanding each other. What older generation dreamed about and worked hard to get the younger generation takes for granted, and that is not necessarily something bad. I would argue that it's mostly good, because that's why people have ambitions/goals/dreams about something which previously thought was impossible. Hence pioneering in different fields of science, entrepreneurship, social interaction, etc.
This is basic evolution, yet we struggle to understand it. Old organisms in almost every aspect of life are hard to change. That's why the nature takes care of it time so naturally. Most parents don't realize that they don't have to love what their children do in order to simply love them and let them live their dream.
One workaholic to another: There’s plenty of people in the US, even in places like San Francisco, who have balanced lives and don’t spend their whole time working. Put in their 8 or 10 hours per day at a startup then go off and do fun hobbies like standup comedy, singing in church choirs, or just binging Netflix.
Hell, my girlfriend has zero sidehustle and she does just great for herself.
Working all day erryday is a choice you are making. I make that choice because I didn’t move here to coast and I’m okay, even happy, with the tradeoff.
8 hours is a full days work.
Most people only have a couple of hours to themselves after working 8 hours + commuting, buying/preparing/eating food, ablutions, taking care of various chores etc.
Is 10 the norm where you are? That is very saddening. Where are you btw? During/after the industrial revolution many workers fought hard and died just to get the the working day down to 8 hours (and not 12 or more which is what the industrialists wanted)
It's pretty common for people in SFBA to work 10 hours per day. Something about signaling that you're eager and a team player and want to advance etc. 8 or 10 hours doesn't particularly matter. My point is that even in some of the most competitive markets in the world, people do just fine with doing a full day's worth of work, then going home and having a life.
OP seems to be under the impression that this is somehow not possible.
The trend among engineers of doing a full day's worth of work then going home and working even more on side projects, open source, or whatever is a whole 'nother bag of worms. I'm not sure why we do that. You wouldn't expect a marketer to go home and do some marketing in their spare time. Or a business person to make some slide decks for fun.
Us engineers are weird.
edit: Why is this getting downvoted? Is it really that unimaginable on HackerNews that one could work full-time and still have time for hobbies, friends, and family?
The author of this talk actually specifically mentions the phenomenon of software engineers going home and working on more software, for free. People are motivated, and the reason why makes sense. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
I always appreciated those jobs postings that explicitly mention not working crazy hours. I should keep a journal of such statements. It's an interesting phenomena.