Why do we make our life worse than necessary?
Why do we make our life worse than necessary?
From same angles, Stockholm seems a Sci-Fi setting, with glooming trams in the surface, bold building, bridges between roofs, people getting out from a subway that pass under the sea as that’s something obvious. Lights in the dark.
You expect to see Farrell or Schwarzenegger running away like in Total Recall.
then you stroll in the city center and get the feeling to be in a Grimm’s tale, with impeccable medieval buildings, coloured, the cobbled pavement under your shoes.
You go to the city suburbs and it seems the advertising for a farmhouse: houses well spaced, lawns… you miss the purple cow of milka advertising that rings you the bell. Nont a ruined plaster, a stripped window, a paper strolling in the meadowland. Everything seems brand new.
That’s annoying, I need to be sincere. However, it is amazing too: you get out of Mediterranean area, you leave his mediocrity and doing so you realize that it is created by the people attitude.
In Malta i constantly see people throwing away the empty pockets ot the cigarettes, can and papers out of the windows of the car – and can’t play the card “are tourists!” because the bumpkin music and the courses are almost ever full-maltese.
In Spain the people don’t care about singing in the street at 5am, with the adolescent selfishness for which the only important thing is that this moment is mine and fu*k the others, the as*holes can sleep during the day. And in the morning you find the same singing one sleeping on threshold of your door.
In Italy… let’s jump this as you likely already know the level. If you are italian don’t play the card “The gypsies!!” please, it would be humiliating.
In Greece two riders without helmet stops on the stop sign to smoke a cigarette with the policeman. Without helmet as well. France let’s not speak, and I don’t even include them in the the “Mediterranean Sphere” – even if all the colonized areas would not say the same.
Yes, it depends on personal perception, but Stockholm can disturb a bit if you give yourself the time to think. Why their streets are clean and our dirty? Why in the train the fire extinguishers and the red hammers are showing shining and easily reachable, and no one stole them?
At Hellasgarden there is a rough open gym, loads of people around and not only the closets in the public toilets are still there, but even the doors are intact and the walls are not smudgy.
Yes they are insanely rich, have top services, clean water and hair, but even forgetting that these things they have built and maintained – nothing arrived from heaven and our climate offers more resources than their one, since ever! – the things I have listed are anyway not given from nature and climate. Sad but true, these things are given by singles behaviour, by their social education.
So the parallel distorsions on our cities comes from the same reasons: our streets and life qualities reflect a lot of our behavior.
Quite a lot.
Sweden is not the paradise. Sweden doesn’t’ miss a good dose of problems and swedish are not more saints than other europeans – even if they love to hear so. The fact is that the careless thoward your neighbor and whatever is public is not accepted there.
Everytime we behave as “latin” as*holes we are guilty of making the life quality around us a bit worst. Our street are dirty because we make them dirty; our houses are flooded in winter because we accepted/looked-for an escape from the lawas or a total abusivism; at 3 AM a wooden head wakes us up with singing or with the loud music because we do the same or we don’t sot our friend/son who feel like doing so. From these things we arrive to accept in our streets abominations like the mafia.
Sweden is not a paradise, but if in small things they can live better than in our cities we are the only guilty, admitting it or not.
Now please, someone start with “Yes but the Sun we have…” “Yes but our food…” “Uh, but Trevi fountain…”.
