I'm in a very serene mood right now. Much of this is due to the fact that I just came back from a local coffeeshop, where I saw a friend of mine from back home play an acoustic set (not to mention I drank the best mocha I've ever had). I then walked home in the crisp October evening air (my favorite) through fog under a starry sky obscured only by the many oak trees which tower over the streets in this area. It was an unexpectedly-nice end to a day which started out with torrential rain. It was on this walk that I started thinking...

Life is so beautiful. It's overwhelming, so long as you're willing to look for it. There's so much beauty everywhere you look, wherever you go - whether in the city, the country, the suburbs, or the middle of nowhere. Even in the midst of turmoil, one can always find beauty so long as they're not too distraught to look for it.

Beauty can be found in the smallest of things, like blades of grass or insects; it can be found in the largest of things, like mountains, oceans, or space. It can be found in the most organic of things, like birds or trees; it can be found in the most synthetic of things, like city lights or the magical fact that we can talk to people across the globe nearly instantaneously. It can be found in the most concrete of things, like works of art; it can be found in the most abstract of ideas, like string theory or the concept of infinity.

It's amazing what happens when you look with eyes of wonder. So for anyone reading this, I challenge you: try to open your eyes; look for the beauty all around you.

*sigh* this is why I should wait a week before committing a post (which I did with this one). Re-reading my post on smiling, I realized I sort of hijacked my own original topic. Most of the post ended up being about what smiling has done for me personally. What I feel didn't really come across is that there's something magical about smiling. When you smile, your face lights up. Your eyes open wider. You see things differently. It restores a tiny bit of that childish sense of wonder that one loses with age. I'd love to further expand on this in more poetic language, but alas that's not where I'm going with this and, in a cruel twist of irony, that would merely hijack this post as well (yes, I know I could do this as two discrete posts, but I've decided to leave it as one).

Anyways…

The other night I was in Vancouver for a concert. I love Vancouver. Part of this is just because I like big cities (relatively - keep in mind I'm in Canada, where 1-2 million people is a big city. I'm pretty sure I'd like bigger cities too, as indicated by the fact that New York City is at the top of my list of places I want to see. But I digress.) It's also partially due to the fact that I grew up in a small city (120,000 people) in its shadow, where there was nothing to do, and thus, Vancouver was often equated with fun (it was also equated with an hour or more of traffic to get there, but that's beside the point). Regardless of my personal reasons for liking Vancouver, there's something special about the city. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's the same thing that has led to it being considered by many studies the one of the (if not the absolute) best places in the world to live.

Anyways, I was an hour early for the show, so I decided to roam around for a bit. I decided to try smiling at people and seeing their reactions. Many people had that detached look which informed me they wouldn't even notice if I did smile at them; I didn't even bother much of the time. For the few that I did make eye contact with, it seemed they were disinterested. It was as if they wanted to say, "Screw off, I'm busy listening to my favourite band you haven't heard of, which makes me better than you." Dang postmodern hipster apathy. If it weren't for the pretentiousness, apathy, and insistence on wearing really stupid-looking clothes half the time, then I'd probably like hipsters. However, due to these details, I snicker every time I see someone under 40 drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Don't get me wrong here - despite having the negative qualities inherent to a city covered in postmodernism, I do still like Vancouver quite a bit (despite, like everything else, having negative qualities, there's some good to postmodernism as well). However, this made me realize there's something special about Victoria, where I'm now living and attending university. Everyone's so much friendlier here. People greet the bus driver, and thank them as they leave (yes, I know this happens a bit elsewhere, but I've never seen anything close to this scale). The other day, I came up to a crosswalk right as my bus was at the stop across the street. The driver actually waited for me to cross the street. In some ways, Victoria, has a small-town feel to it. Yet, it still feels like a decently-sized city.

I guess a big part of this is that it's the biggest city on Vancouver Island, by a long shot. It's an hour and a half ferry ride (plus half an hour or more of driving at each end of the ferry terminal) to Vancouver, so it gets a lot of the services of a larger city (for you geographers out there, it has a high order in central place theory - although if you're a geographer then I shouldn't need to tell you this). It's also the provincial capital, which also attracts more businesses than a typical 330,000-person city (counting total metro area) would have. Even just the fact that it's located on the island helps quite a bit. Everything is more laid-back here. You know that sense that you need to be in a hurry, even though you have no reason to be? Nowhere to be found here. There's also a strong sense of community. And, as I mentioned before, there's almost none of the pretentiousness of Vancouver. People hardly seem to judge here (the one glaring exception to this rule is recycling - there are recycling bins everywhere, and you don't even want to think about throwing away a container lest you be looked down upon by everyone).

I hate to say it, but I suspect a big part of this is that the cost of living is relatively high. Low cost of living attracts two types of people: riffraff, and even-more-pretentious-than-city-folk suburbanites. I think this is also part of the reason why the old people (and believe me, there are a lot here) are a lot cooler than those in Abbotsford (there are a lot there, too) - penny-pinching ones, who tend to be more uptight, will live where it's the cheapest (Abbotsford), while those who care more about living in a great community and being happy come here. Anyways, the point of this post is not to discuss the social implications of cost of living, so I will move on.

Now, keep in mind the only other cities I really have much experience with are Vancouver (big enough that everyone is emotionally detached) and Abbotsford (a suburb… need I say more?). I also realize that I'm a university student, and thus much of my Victoria experience is actually a UVic experience, and many of these things are true, to varying extents, for all universities. But there's certainly something to the city itself, too - I was reminded of this yesterday on one of my (surprisingly uncommon) trips downtown.

I fit in here a lot better than I expected. I always thought I would fit in best in Vancouver. At the same time, though, I hated how rushed, apathetic, and pretentious city living tends to be. Somehow it never clicked that Victoria's a great fit for me until after living here. I'm not saying I won't end up living in Vancouver in the long run, but for now I'm very happy with where I am.

I'm glad I chose Victoria. It seems things like this happen a lot. Whether you want to say it's an act of God; or your subconscious leading you towards decisions that would be best for you without consciously knowing why; or maybe I would have been equally happy with UBC but, due to the fact that I haven't experienced it, the fact that I enjoy it here leads me to thinking this is the best for me and I make up reasons to justify it -- regardless of how you want to consider it, it's great how life works out that way.

(On a tangential side note, I very strongly lean toward both the first two options presented in the previous paragraph. What's more, I would argue they are one and the same. But that's a different topic entirely, and not only have I already gone on quite long, I once again don't want to hijack this post.)

It's funny, true, and totally relevant to my previous post!

   

It also gave me the perfect example I've been searching for, for in an upcoming post I have partially written - but that's a different matter entirely.