I moved to Somerville, MA a few months ago. It's right next to Cambridge, MA but the message I read is "Learn Brazilian Portuguese" and "Learn to play Capoeira."
I will say that the larger Boston area mumbles the message of Cambridge, 'be smart' and 'have good ideas'.
Cities and Ambition
281–290 of 313 posts
Re: Cities and Ambition
#282the "voice " of Rome is saying : "you have to survive:
I'm here since millenium, you will not".
and you start learning how to live as best as you can, knowing that the perfection is not of this world...
Re: Cities and Ambition
#283Philadelphia- No matter what field you are in, or what you do you will never get the same respect as you would if you had done the exact same thing somewhere else.
Re: Cities and Ambition
#284For much of my life, I lived in my mind, kind of autistically. I spent a lot of time figuring how to get away from people, because they wanted me to do things, and I wanted to go back to the castle in my mind. Only recently I figured out that people actually take materialism, life achievements, jobs, dress code, peer esteem, education, and so forth seriously. I had mostly figured that people were putting on a show, kind of having fun pretending to be serious about their lives. Oh the horror! -- like a bad novel -- everyone actually cares about clothes and money.
I know what you mean though about cities sending a message. I used to ignore what groups of people think, for reasons of principle, because human nature doesn't scale. But then I got the naivete cauterized out of me, and so now I pay attention to these messages, even though I don't entirely like being tuned into them. I'm not sure if I go along with the messages, maybe I'm neutral or slightly against (for reasons of principle).
In any case, I think ambition is good, because the human condition can be improved. (If it couldn't then ambition would be harmful, because it would be a zero sum game.) It's too bad the word has a connotation of money, because it would otherwise be a decent word, and I don't believe in money.
Re: Cities and Ambition
#285"As of this writing, Cambridge seems to be the intellectual capital of the world."
That can be said for at least two Cambridges.
Re: Cities and Ambition
#286It is interesting to read that the article and comments are all true, but wonder how these truths affect behavior. Yes, the environment is conducive to development. This truth describes the most significant music scenes of all time, including Memphis, San Fransciso, London, Detroit, among others.
Also, reading the comments below about going outside in LA and flip flops in Tampa Bay, these are spot-on assessments of the culture of many average Joes. Knowing this, one wonders how do extraordinary things happen in average places.
New question: How big is the environment we are analyzing? Paul decided to analyze the city, but we all have many environments of many sizes.
Example: My Digital Design professor asked, "Is the world digital or analog?" His answer, "It depends how close you are to it." An alarm clock is digital from across the room, but get close, open it up, measure the voltage across the timer, and you realize it is actually analog. The environments? The circuit board, the whole clock, the room.
So the city is one measure of an environment. The corporation another. The home yet another. Personally, I am an extremely creative individual who formed an web corporation with two friends who are excellent programmers. We're developing the business in an extremely progressive fashion, in some ways very different from Silicon Valley even. What is our environment? Our day jobs are with a big, old, rust belt corporation that does many things wrong all day long. This is in Cleveland, a city which is literally dying. So where did we get our drive? From being in the environment that continually tries to teach us bad lessons. Thus, when the environmental analysis is over, we realize one can fall in line with their environment, or they can learn from it, and go in a different direction using the lessons at hand.
John
President of some garage group three-man web corp in MBA run Rust Belt Cleveland (Feel stuck? Nope, you’ve got the best lessons available.)
Re: Cities and Ambition
#287"Hipness is another thing you wouldn't have seen on the list 100 years ago. Or wouldn't you?" Being picky about the grammar here, but shouldn't it be 'Or would you?' ?
Explain how the grammar is sound? And I mean that seriously because I want to be well written.
It seems like it should be:
"Or would you?" - so that what follows 'or' is the converse of what was said.
Or
"Wouldn't you?" - without the 'or' to denote skepticism.
And while we're on it, nix the first 'a' in "wearing a jeans and a t-shirt..."
Please understand that this isn't said out of pedantry, but out of love for this essay. We should all be taught to understand the implications of what a place says to us, on us. It should be part of any formal education.
Quibbling over grammar in our casual posts is lame, but this essay deserves to be in a book one day, printed and in wide circulation, so please understand my intention.
Re: Cities and Ambition
#288Madrid (Spain): work is for other people, not you.
Alicante (Spain): only the "S": sex, sun and sand cares!
Bilbao (Spain): not spaniards allowed
Re: Cities and Ambition
#289I'd agree that Cambridge is the intellectual capital of the world, but I think you may have the wrong Cambridge.
I'm biased, of course. I was lucky enough to be a student at the other Cambridge. My old college (Trinity) boasts more Nobel Prize winners than the whole of France.
Cambridge, England, like Cambridge Mass, is blessed with a climate bad enough that no-one would go there for the weather.
The English Cambridge is a delightfully compact city, with the University at its heart. You can go almost anywhere on foot or bicycle. It's also cool to wander through a courtyard unchanged since Isaac Newton knew it.
What message does the city send? Perhaps that you are mortal, but that learning is eternal.
Re: Cities and Ambition
#290It is important to be staying in the right place and so is staying in a lot of places. If you put up at a lot of places you know more about yourself, you know what turns you On and what turns you Off. This might be a good thing if you are still trying to identify what you value most. I would suggest you to settle down as soon as you find the right place, that is the place where you will find like minded people and the energy that will exploit your life to the maximum.
Online world on the other hand can never be a substitute, it really doesnt matter at all, simply because the crowd there is too much for you to be able to identify yourself with anyone, and it is difficult to identify the true identity of the people there. I have spent a lot of my time on an Algorith community on Orkut and made a few friends there. A lot of the people seem to be genuinely interested in Algorithms and a lot of the people pretent they are, it is not surprising to see that these imposters vanish away when they find a job with a Google or Microsoft..
So wish you luck.. Keep searching till you find the one :-)