Chicago

It has been roughly two weeks since I took a weekend trip to Chicago. Though short lived, and somewhat expensive for a trip, I enjoyed it thoroughly, and hope to go back. Chicago has left an imprint on me that I feel hard to ignore. The city was busy, but quiet. Clean, yet urban. It could be through rose colored-glasses that I see these things, especially as an outsider, but one must wonder, what is it about Chicago that captures other mid-westerner’s eyes. It is a big city, the third largest in the United States. But, unlike New York City, it maintains an aura that it carries well. Many other midwestern cities look and feel like skeletons of their former selves.

The best example I can postulate this to is Indianapolis. Despite existing in the modern age, with some modern amenities, like highways, it houses about 2.5 million people within the metropolitan area, and has some public transit. However, the downtown and urban core, feel unremarkable. Which is odd given that it is not only the largest city in the state of Indiana, it is also the Capitol of said state.

Kansas City, unlike the prior example, has been growing as a city. Whether you view this positively or negatively is up to your viewpoints on the growth of cities in the modern day. I say this with affirmative bias, as a native of this city, that much has changed in the last 5 years alone. Kansas City [KC] has gone from an affordable island in the sea of praries, slowly trending towards an unaffordable metropolis. This isn’t unique to KC, but it is significant for the city. As the urban scene modernizes to use more public transit, more urban developments, and more amenities for Kansas Citians, it will continue to grow.

Part of me wants the city to remain as it is, in the era that I remember it being. I love this city, I hate this city, I long for it to continue to provide its residents a place to work, a place to play, and a place to live.

Kansas City

It is unrealistic of me to assume that any place on Earth will remain as it was 5, 10, 20 years ago. Change is rapid and it is always coming. There is nothing that you can do to stop change. Positive and negative change will occur. All that you should do, is oppose negative change, and sow positive change. With that, all the positive changes in KC have been overwhelmingly supported by the city government and the city’s population. With the KC Street Car Expansion project, we will see increased ridership of the streetcar. The new airport terminal has led to a boom in flights in & out of the city.

What does any of this have to do with discovering life? Frankly, nothing, yet everything.

It has been a year since I’ve changed companies. In that time, I have made new friends, grown disgusted with many of the events that have happened around me, and enjoyed many things in this one year. While I have not been able to travel nearly as much as I have in years past, I have been able to spend more time visiting places in my mind. What is it that I am doing here. Why am I here? I don’t think I can answer those questions today. I don’t know if I will ever be able to answer those questions until I am probably on my deathbed.

I can however answer this: What can I do for my fellow man? I can inspire him. Inspire to take action.

Go do something, anything. Read a book, write a play. Play a game. Find a sport, build something. Don’t mindlessly spend money. Don’t confuse this for spending money, buying things, or wasting time. (okay, depending on your definition of wasting time, this may fall into that, but I digress.)

I have deleted social media of all forms off of my personal cellular device. In some time, I plan to discard my use of a smartphone, at least in the manner of which a smartphone is widely used as. If I wish to access any social media, I have a desktop and laptop computer by which I can utilize a web browser. I can use my mobile device to access it for messagine platforms on the social media applications through, you guessed it, a web browser. I have begun reading more books this year, than I have in the past five years. I have played more enjoyable games than I have in all the years of ‘video gaming’ I have played through highschool and university. I have made more friends in this past year, than I did when I was freshly graduated from university.

Manifesto

I don’t know where I will end up in a year exactly. I want to stay here, I want to leave KC, I want to wander the country. Right now, all I can do is focus on what goals I can set, and what actions I can take.

  1. Be Intentional
    1. Do not make unnecessary purchases on whims.
    2. Only keep things that actually bring you joy.
  2. Be Educated
    1. Help share knowledge acquired thru any means. Text, Video, Images.
    2. Do not confuse ’educated’ with ‘correct’. You will not always be correct. Learn from others, if you believe them to be wrong, first understand why they are wrong. Do not correct them unless they ask, or are harming others.
  3. Follow Through
    1. Commit, commit often. Even if less than satisfactory, commit. Push up changes that you may not originally be happy with. Modify and update as necessary.
    2. Keep your promises.

It is those three ideals that I plan to use to keep present in my life. I think it has taken until now that I have realized, life started for me on day 1. I spent my time waiting to become and adult, not realizing that I have already become.

Christopher.