Waking Life in the City

The Boston Globe featured an article this weekend about How the City Hurts your Brain. In it, Jonah Lehrer says that the sheer number of activities you encounter in a city "dulls our thinking, sometimes dramatically so" and offers scientific studies that prove this. Its conclusion: take more walks in natural settings and/or simplify your living space. In other words, not something we don't already know.

However, it got me to thinking during one of my recent commutes - one of those ice and slush trips where you have to shuffle your feet to stay upright, people constantly hitting you with their umbrellas, trains delayed and packed shoulder to shoulder with people - tat there really is too much stimulus in a city. Personally, I know that there are times I arrive at home exhausted with no real reason for being so other then the city and the train bombard you with so many inputs that your brain can't simply handle them all.

One new thing I did get out of the article above is that ignoring things takes brainpower too:

A city is so overstuffed with stimuli that we need to constantly redirect our attention so that we aren't distracted by irrelevant things, like a flashing neon sign or the cellphone conversation of a nearby passenger on the bus. This sort of controlled perception -- we are telling the mind what to pay attention to -- takes energy and effort.

This whole problem reminded me a scene from Waking Life, a 2001 Richard Linklater movie I re-watched recently. (This is the same scene I mention here.)

In one scene, the main character runs into a red-headed woman who insists that they have a "real" interaction - one where they engage each other as more then "ants", as people that don't just follow polite, efficient social conventions. As she puts it:

I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. "Here's your change." "Paper or plastic?" "Credit or debit?" "You want ketchup with that?" I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?

The problem with this notion, as nice as it may sound, is that such a life is impossible. Trying to have "real" interactions with the thousands of people you see everyday would be exhausting, and leave room for nothing else. Like living in the city, basic interactions would take hours and drain you of all energy. Simply walking down the sidewalk would take up the whole day.

So what's the solution? No idea. I'm sure smarter minds then mine have come up with some great theories (one I've learned of recently is Martin Buber's "I and Thou" although I don't really know what it involves).

However, there's got to be a healthy balance from engaging the world on a "real" level and one where you completely ignore aspects of life that are inessential to your survival and interests. Perhaps this involves living in a green space and living in the city, as Lehrer suggests?

Either way, there's some compromise involved. Until I hear of something better, i'll just continue to read my book on the train and save my energy for home, work, and those happy moments in between where two ants do happen make a real connection.