When I'm visiting a city, I'm not just looking at buildings and surroundings, I'd also like to see and measure the evolution in time as well, as that's how you know if the city is working on growing, stagnating or worse. You would think that the only way is up in this regard because as time passes, people are getting wiser, technology is evolving, but is that enough to evolve?
Recently I spent a week in another city and even though I'm very familiar with it, somehow it always amazes me how much it is changing. Change is the only constant in life and I love change as that's the only way of evolving, but here the change is unfortunately not in the right direction.
The reason I'm going there is not the environment, not the beauty of the city, or some special events (ok, sometimes it is). It is to visit some relatives, relax and recharge my batteries, if I can. The city doesn't offer me much, which is why I only take some short walks occasionally and use the rest of my free time to study and read. Anyway, one day I thought let's visit the historical city center as that's a place I love due to the childhood memories and the architecture.
Once I arrived at the city center, where there's a lovely park which is especially beautiful during autumn, I thought I'd sit on a bench and enjoy the sunshine accompanied by a summer-like temperature, while recalling a few childhood memories.
Nice thought but the next second I had to realize all the benches were taken. This would have not been a problem, but the people sitting on the benches were shouting to those at the other end of the park as they considered this the best way of communication. To me, such behavior is shocking to say the least but as I gathered, this is happening on the daily bases here due to lack of education and it's kind of normal to locals?
Moving on as my plan to sit on a bench was ruined, I went to buy a pretzel at the bakery. Once arriving there I met a very angry woman shouting at two teenage boys. I was kind of late to the party (not that I wanted to participate anyway), but as I passed them, the lady thought I'd be the perfect candidate to complain to, about the boys. Turns out the two teenagers were speaking dirty and the lady decided to step in and scold them, to which the pretzel seller reacted in an unexpected way, she took the boys' side.
Yes, you're right, this story starting to look like a cheap South American soap opera and it would be funny, if it wouldn't be sad. Honestly, I'm not interested in anyone's drama, so I moved on.
On my way home, I decided to take the bus and that's when I got the cherry on the top of the cake. It was mid-day, kids were going home from school, so the bus was full of them, which is normal as they don't have dedicated school buses. What shocked me though was that they were sitting comfortably, some even had their school bag on a chair reserved for elderly people, while the elderly were standing as they had no place to sit.
The first two incidents are shocking, but you can choose to walk away and save your mental sanity, but the third one is what makes you angry as that is outraging. All take together shows gross lack of respect for others and it is damaging as well to some extent.
To see those teenagers who's been siting for five or six hours previously in school, sit comfortably and watch old people with shopping bags stand is just unacceptable. Insensibility, lack of respect and education, selfishness, and arrogance can lead to such behavior and shows where that society is going. Even worse when you say something about it and get attacked for it, as why the hell not, right?
You can say these are individual cases, you can ignore them and walk away, but on a larger scale, if you do this every day, turn a blind eye to these things that are not right and don't let them bother you, you become immune to the problem and changes you as well.
Most likely you'll never going to find a place that checks all the boxes for you, so compromises have to be made to be able to life and cope with life, but there's a limit to everything and you have to be careful about what you're giving up and what you're gaining.
We live in a digital era, people are living a different life, we keep in touch through the internet and most likely socializing less, but when you're face to face with other humans, respect has to be there, which include helping the elderly and respecting other people's privacy and personal space. No compromising can be made in this regard, that's what I think.
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