What is there to do?
Such was the question my barista friend asked me when I went there yesterday after work. (I've been working a lot lately, which I won't mind because it at least reflects well on my paycheck, haha. Been feeling a bit tired the past day or two, though--I'm too well acclimated to being a night owl as well as an early bird, and it's not in my natural rhythm to nap.) This guy a few tables down is from California and is spending a year in Kansas City and had asked her that same question shortly before I came in.
So we tried to think and came up with, while there are things like museums and First Fridays (which I hope to take my sister to next week, as first weekend of the Faire is the day after and I have to fetch her anyway) and stuff, mostly there is eating and drinking--albeit we do have that in great variety, admittedly. But no wonder KC's one of the nation's fattest cities, if that's THE thing to do in this city!
Of course I view that moment of brain-wracking as just a twig of further contemplation on how most people pass their time nowadays. I've thought often on this, probably ever since taking my Philosophy of Technology class two years back, but even beforehand I've thought on this. What do people do? I used to go walk the parameter of Riley once or twice a day out of sheer boredom. I'll go walking through Midtown here some mornings or afternoons, much for the same reason (or also, because this is a fat city and that makes me paranoid, haha). But how many people do I (or you) know who can't come up with anything to do that doesn't mandate some form of electronic stimulation, hm? Oh sure, I know many many people who do things like read for pleasure, or hang out with friends (often while drinking or eating someplace, of course), but I don't know too many people who make a regular habit of just strolling along someplace looking at the trees of people-watching, for instance. I don't know.
I have been thinking especially on this the past few days, before my friend even asked me that question yesterday, because I've been reading Chiang Yee's The Silent Traveler in London and he often makes similar observations. I found a paragraph that I read at lunch today (when it hasn't been raining recently, I make a point of taking my lunchbreak at the bookstore on this tree-shaded sort of patio behind the student union), that I thought to be especially poignant as regards this matter. It's from a chapter (or essay, I guess you'd call it) entitled "London in Snow":
"It seems to me that London's weather has somehow changed in the last years. The continuous noisy traffic of cars running day and night prevents any 'stillness of the solemn air,' and the drowsy eyes of Londoners who are bewildered in their hearts with their heavy daily toil could hardly bother to marvel at the dazzling whiteness, even if such a sight were still to be found in London streets. Besides, indoors there are radios, the sound of the flame in the fireplace, people talking, laughing; and who would care about the snow 'lazily and incessantly floating down and down'?"
Of course some of his references are a little outdated, replace radios with televisions and fireplaces with electric lights maybe, but the observations are much the same. The thought strikes me periodically that it's been x-guesstimated amount of time since I had real, intimate contact with, say, dirt, or leaves, and that thought is in a way heartbreaking. Chiang Yee spends another chapter/essay talking about the moon in London and remembering moon-viewing festivals back in China, and I recall that the last time I did something in communion with the moon was watching a lunar eclipse with some people behind the student union my freshman year; the moon looked like someone has put a cinnamon-colored slip over it. But I wish I did something more frequently, particularly during those days of the full moon where it looks especially funky-brilliant, haha.
At the risk of running repetitive, I don't know. I think it's too bad there's not more commonplace practices that don't rely on power and aren't centered around consumption. *shrug* Thoughts?
So we tried to think and came up with, while there are things like museums and First Fridays (which I hope to take my sister to next week, as first weekend of the Faire is the day after and I have to fetch her anyway) and stuff, mostly there is eating and drinking--albeit we do have that in great variety, admittedly. But no wonder KC's one of the nation's fattest cities, if that's THE thing to do in this city!
Of course I view that moment of brain-wracking as just a twig of further contemplation on how most people pass their time nowadays. I've thought often on this, probably ever since taking my Philosophy of Technology class two years back, but even beforehand I've thought on this. What do people do? I used to go walk the parameter of Riley once or twice a day out of sheer boredom. I'll go walking through Midtown here some mornings or afternoons, much for the same reason (or also, because this is a fat city and that makes me paranoid, haha). But how many people do I (or you) know who can't come up with anything to do that doesn't mandate some form of electronic stimulation, hm? Oh sure, I know many many people who do things like read for pleasure, or hang out with friends (often while drinking or eating someplace, of course), but I don't know too many people who make a regular habit of just strolling along someplace looking at the trees of people-watching, for instance. I don't know.
I have been thinking especially on this the past few days, before my friend even asked me that question yesterday, because I've been reading Chiang Yee's The Silent Traveler in London and he often makes similar observations. I found a paragraph that I read at lunch today (when it hasn't been raining recently, I make a point of taking my lunchbreak at the bookstore on this tree-shaded sort of patio behind the student union), that I thought to be especially poignant as regards this matter. It's from a chapter (or essay, I guess you'd call it) entitled "London in Snow":
"It seems to me that London's weather has somehow changed in the last years. The continuous noisy traffic of cars running day and night prevents any 'stillness of the solemn air,' and the drowsy eyes of Londoners who are bewildered in their hearts with their heavy daily toil could hardly bother to marvel at the dazzling whiteness, even if such a sight were still to be found in London streets. Besides, indoors there are radios, the sound of the flame in the fireplace, people talking, laughing; and who would care about the snow 'lazily and incessantly floating down and down'?"
Of course some of his references are a little outdated, replace radios with televisions and fireplaces with electric lights maybe, but the observations are much the same. The thought strikes me periodically that it's been x-guesstimated amount of time since I had real, intimate contact with, say, dirt, or leaves, and that thought is in a way heartbreaking. Chiang Yee spends another chapter/essay talking about the moon in London and remembering moon-viewing festivals back in China, and I recall that the last time I did something in communion with the moon was watching a lunar eclipse with some people behind the student union my freshman year; the moon looked like someone has put a cinnamon-colored slip over it. But I wish I did something more frequently, particularly during those days of the full moon where it looks especially funky-brilliant, haha.
At the risk of running repetitive, I don't know. I think it's too bad there's not more commonplace practices that don't rely on power and aren't centered around consumption. *shrug* Thoughts?