this is maybe a dumb question but are there places in the world where you go out to vibe with, like, strangers at the mall and they seem generally happy rather than unhappy? idk if i’ve ever lived in one
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austin and boulder are my best candidates but my experiences there are pretty colored by only visiting those towns for very specific kinds of authentic relating workshops
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yesterday at the mall i tried noticing what (i imagined) the people around me were feeling and watching their faces etc, and mostly everyone seemed in a big hurry and stressed out, and i’m wondering if there are places i would’ve seen more laughter and just like public joy?
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oh lowell, vermont (where MAPLE is) is my third candidate, vermont is unbelievably gorgeous and the people there seemed pretty happy too
one thing about all three of austin, boulder, and lowell is that the population is pretty white and this actually seems important?
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there are a lot of immigrants around here eg and frankly none of them ever seem happy to me in public. idk what to make of that. there’s something about not really feeling like you belong where you currently live that seems important. although i don’t get this vibe from NYC
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the bay area always struck me as extremely unhappy in public but there i think a lot of it can be chalked up to poverty one way or the other. people come here to work at microsoft or boeing so we’re talking reasonably upper middle class and they still don’t seem very happy
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this is maybe related to something i noticed back when i was growing up here which is that almost all of my friends had a pretty bad relationship to their parents (except maybe ?) and together with TV depictions of the same i just assumed this was universal
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here it really might have a lot to do with the lack of sunlight idk idk 🧐
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Dec 23 may also be a bad time for not being stressed out at the mall though
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lol yeah no kiddin
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yesterday was 2 days before christmas, during a pandemic, and subsequent global supply chain issues. people not stressed out at the mall are the anomaly lol :)
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my guess is that this is a rural/urban divide and also regional: everyone seemed happy in Prescott, AZ! but folks seemed less happy outside of Asheville, SC. i don't think it's racial per se but more about lifestyle homogeneity and also a sense of interdependence
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