I enjoy traveling but I think "travel"-loving culture has done a disservice to us. Romanticism turned consumptive. In elevating wandering it diminishes belonging.
Belonging, creating beauty where you are, is under-appreciated. You must make something worth wandering towards.
And counter intuitively, you will oft do the best wandering where you are most familiar. Travel is a good pastime, but it's something you should try at home, first.
I think this is part of the reason its hard, culturally, to find communitarian places. One is always looking elsewhere.
Creating beauty and places of belonging are acts beyond just the self. I think its worth it to try and create those things, even if only for your own family.
I say, "Familiarity is crucially the maintaining of weak ties, or else the maintaining of strong ties in weak ways. Some things can only be made strong by binding one thousand tiny threads. ... What creates strong friendships are repeated, tiny, and unplanned interactions."
But its true of more than just friendship, its true even of the places themselves. I recall just now a quote from White Nights by Dostoyevsky that captures it perhaps.
night moves uphill, sleep is going to capture me, I apollo for not replying.
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You can't coherently make claims like "we need universal childcare [etc] to boost the fertility rate" if the fertility rate in countries with [manic pixie dream policy] are *also* rock bottom.
Think about the problem for more than 5 seconds I am begging all of you.
I don't think I can succinctly but: IMO the reasons people decide to have children are more spiritual or aesthetic* decisions than financial ones, and that alone should be very clear when comparing birthrates over time (booms, busts) and around the world.
It should be more concerning that the most photographed street in America is illegal to build. It should keep politicians up at night. We should all walk around with a little bit of embarrassment until it is solved.
People in politics speak of "tourism" and increasing it but they do not seem to understand what the words they are saying actually mean.
They don't seem to understand what speaks to people's hearts, what people consider romance, etc. It's all profoundly odd to watch.
I actually think its the opposite. If people built beautiful housing there would be a thousand times fewer NIMBYs.
For some reason the YIMBY people cannot accept that so many people are against new development because new development is deeply ugly.