It's official, can't stand even being in a city anymore

It takes the right approach and you can be comfortable in the sticks or on the bricks.
I love living in the country and commuting into the city every day. Both add to the tapestry of life.

a reply to: onequestion

I think if you had a strong community of friends, life in a small town might be great. Going it alone, it could be hard, unless you truly thrive being a loner.

I hope I can retire to a less congested area, but the reason I like city life right now is the wonderful profusion of choices available to me any day of the week in any category. It's great to decide to cook Indian one night, go out for Japanese the next, and explore a Russian deli the next. Variety thrills me. In a small town, just the limited choices of food and supplies readily available might depress me, and I'm not one for commuting long distances for groceries and home stuffs.

Who knows . . . maybe once ensconced in a small town I'd never look back and never regret my choice. I would think it's a huge choice, though, and that having family or community near would be a key factor. It's hard to emphasize the importance of friends when thinking of moving. It's easy to factor them out, to think you'll make new friends easily. Some small towns have reputations for being unfriendly, so you might want to consider posting on a place like citydata to get feedback from residents of any particular area you consider. Then you'll hear from the horse's mouth so to speak.

originally posted by: Metallicus
I absolutely agree with you, especially now with an empty nest. The only problem is that as I have gotten older I have lost some of the physical stamina that may be needed for a more rural lifestyle.

I just wanted to highlight this post.

Last year, my family and I moved waaaaay up north. Northern North Dakota.

Last winter we had -60 days and plenty of cold-cold-cold days on top of that.

A harsh climate, a barren terrain. I'm 51. Have artificial joints, metal plates, arthritis, am a feeble old man.

But I do feel better.

What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger.

There are pros and cons to either situation. I currently reside in the boonies. There are fewer hot chicks to copulate with and it is a real chore to seek out a good musician to collaborate with. Cops are pretty much dicks anywhere you go, but it is easier to blend into the crowd in more populated areas. I want to leave this planet.

Yep, felt that way my whole life.
Up until last year I lived in the perfect area in Pennsylvania... And then I had to move to south Florida, where it's the exact opposite of everything I like. I've felt like I'm in a living death ever since. There's not a single thing about this area that doesn't disgust me. I need to get back to the mountains and the seasons and actual forest... But for now I'm stuck here.

a reply to: seeker1963

I live 32 miles from the nearest stop light. Those are tight winding twisty miles through 2 lane mountain roads. It's a fun game of dodge the deer and possum at night, and dodge the groundhogs, rabbits, and squirrels during the day.

I go to the Farmer's Market on weekends to sell my hand made goods, and barter for fresh veggies and fruits, and corn for my goats. That's about all the city life I want these days.

I used to live in Palo Alto Ca. Worked for a high tech firm, never away from people, noise, and constant filling of all waking time with activities involving other people.

I will admit, after moving to where I live now, it took me a couple of years to adjust to not having the amenities of living in a metropolitan area. No movie theaters here, no opera house, no choice of 50 restaurants to hop in my car and go to on a whim.

I've traded all that for seeing a herd of deer in my front yard, watching hawks and falcon feasting on my field mice, and my pond being visited by geese, ducks, and the occasional heron.

Seeker. We've talked on the phone. You sound anything but anti-social. Quite the contrary, you sound like a well balanced, fairly content person. So screw those who try to label you. As long as you are living the way you want. Who gives a damn what they think.

Des

ME! Me!
Ever since I started going back to college, I begin to resent the metropolitan city. The air and the impposibly crowded space...I wonder how I lived in the same city 5 years before.

a reply to: onequestion

I'm not surprised that so many people experience the same psychological stress in city areas.
Like others have mentioned earlier, we've spent most of our history as a species living in small communities as hunter gatherers. Our body and psyche litteraly have evolved to be surrounded by nature and faces we recognize. Thus, it's no wonder neither that psychological disorders seem to be more common now than ever, but even more disturbing, in younger and younger individuals as well. It might be that we are better at detecting psychological disorders earlier now than before and that this is affecting the statistics, but honestly, to me the most logical explanation to why we even have them is because we do not spend time in our natural environments enough (among other things as well of course). Like putting monkeys in cages, litteraly.

Say homo sapiens have been around for approximately 100,000 years, ignoring that homo as a family may have been around for as long as 6 million years, then we've only lived lives that somewhat resemble those of present for about 10% of our history so far. In other words, we are much better adapted for life in small communities than in cities with hundreds of thousands or even millions of people.

I grew up on a small island, with only a couple of hundred people living there throughout the year. I had access to a healthy and dense forest, as well as the open ocean and I got to know people on a much more personal level than I've ever been able to do in the city. Every time I return to where I was raised, I feel both at home and in peace. But you have got to earn a living, and unfortunately, the little community that I belonged to is slowly dying because there's no work out there anymore. It's really depressing.

Perhaps one should pull an "into the wild" and just disappear for a while... Preferably with someone so that it doesn't end the same way though lol.

I moved to a rural area 2 years ago, the best thing I have ever done. I absolutely love it. I grew up in an inner city neighborhood and got to the same point as you, just couldn't stand being part of the rat race any more. Now when I go to the city for something I cant wait to get out. Its not exactly like Doc Hollywood or Funny Farm but close.

We are in the megalopolis near Philly. Our retirement plan is the mountains of New Hampshire. That's our hope anyways ...

Never could stand cities .. prefer to live out in the boonies ..
Getting to where hate making the trip downriver every year .. now about the only reason do is to visit my kids and grand kids ..

If wasnt for that would stay out here far from the cesspool of "civilization" ..

a reply to: onequestion

I live in a rural area already, I love it.. Going for a day trip to the city is enough for me, I couldn't live there.. Anything under 200,000 is ideal.. Not too big and not too small.

a reply to: onequestion

I took the plunge just over 3 years ago. It was the best decision ever made.

Just this morning I was enjoying a cup of coffee on my front porch when a family of deer showed up to enjoy their morning meal.

Instead of hearing the bustle of cars driving by, I get to listen to nature.

Now we have 6 acres, a creek, a vegetable garden, an herb garden and chickens. It's fantastic!

I don't think I could ever go back to living in the city.

a reply to: onequestion

Yes. I have for some time now and have decided its time to visit what parks & forests are left in the City before they go too...

The City has become nothing but a Large Prison and we are all looked upon as criminals whenever we enter a shop. I feel and sense 'eyes' on me. Also, we have CCTV on us everywhere we go, not to mention the new 'Drones' which will soon be in the sky's above us in England.

There doesn't seem to be any trust and this has created what seems like a Society of Paranoid people.

There are way tooo many shops in the City and surrounding Towns! We have too much and people still want to build more...

Talk about over-population in the Cities and surrounding Towns. Too much traffic and people are getting rid of their gardens with shrubs and trees and covering it with more concrete. We are losing our Nature & Wildlife at a very fast rate!

a reply to: MagesticEsoteric

Lucky for you. Be great to wake up and see that.

Unfortunately I live in London and at the moment can't get out.

Will the grass be greener?

We've had loads of people move here from cities. Because of how most of them act and treat people, I don't have anything nice to say about that so I won't say anything at all. lol

But good luck to you

a reply to: ItCameFromOuterSpace

Yeps.

It seems like the longer I have to remain on this planet, the less I can stand existing here, and the more the surrounding "people" (if they can be called that) get on my nerves.

I have neighbourgs, who have noisy, unruly kids that do not care about any rules. The parents also of course can't raise them properly, so the only form of discipline is yelling at them (contradictory messages, I might add), after it's already too late. They don't have a doorbell (I have no idea, why - and it has been like this for over a year), and there are lots of kids living in these buildings, all of which seem to know their kids. No doorbell means kids banging on their door all day, and when they finally get the door open, they of course leave it open, or half-closed. And of course the kids won't remain inside (or outside) for long, and they have no consequences for making noise in the hallway, so during the daytime, reading a book in the living room, or just sitting with my own thoughts - is completely impossible.

The distractions are exactly as awful as any of you might conclude them to be. There are other kids who like bouncing their footballs against my door (because the neighbourg's door is right next to mine, and there's little room to maneuver, so practically, every day, there is a bunch of noisy brats assembling in front of my door to make noise of all kinds (from yelling, screaming, and laughing, to stomping and bumping the metal hand-railings with toys and throwing balls in the hallway and whatnot).

It has been a problem for more than a year, but lately it has gotten worse - or I have gotten more sensitive to it.

There are also neighbourgs living above me who don't generally seem to understand the rules of a western world (yes, they are probably from the continent that we do not speak of). They have visitors running up and down the stairs all day and most of the night. They have no qualms about talking with a loud voice and laughing on the balcony after midnight, even when it's not weekend. They have not learned to walk erect without heavily utilizing heels of their feet, like they want to make sure the floor stays put. No matter what the time, it's "stomp-stomp-stomp-stomp" from the roof.

There was a time, when I could have some peace and quiet, at least during the night - but no more. The kids in the hallway, the neighbourgs above, and generally the neighbourghood.. I am realizing that I live in a ghetto. And this used to be such a nice place. Kids do anything they want these days, parents have no control over them, and are completely clueless (as the show 'Supernanny' shows, DESPITE such shows..).

Whenever I try to escape for a trip somewhere, I see dog owners that let their dogs do whatever they want, and almost get into fights with other dogs, are scared whether I have dogs with me or not (and relieved to hear that I don't), and generally don't seem to ever seek help or information as to how to properly raise dogs. It's unbelievable. Why don't they just watch a couple of episodes of "Dog Whisperer"? It has been translated to so many languages, and western libraries probably almost all have some kind of DVD or books of Cesar Millan and/or the show. And yet, these dog owners just rather remain completely clueless, just like the parents of the kids.

A kid / dog wants something, and the parent / dog owner rushes immediately to give it to him/her. What kind of raising is that, of either a dog or a kid? Where's the exercize, discipline, affection? Why is it just affection, affection, affection? Where are the rules, boundaries and limitations? Instead, it's just "I exist to serve the dog/kid"!

If I try to just relax on the balcony or just walk outside, the modern moped-thugs called 'Cessna pilots' are doing their best to ruin my eardrums and my breathing air, peace and harmony. Every day, all day, and sometimes in the middle of the night.

At 3 am, you can hear the trucks making a lot of noise nearby on a relatively new bit of road.

It's like there is no sanity, harmony, peace, quiet or respect for these things anymore. It's like no one is supposed to ever stop, think and rest - everything has to be moving all the time, full speed (if not faster), and no one has time to actually learn useful skills (like parenting or dog ownership/psychology) anymore. But everyone remembers to smoke a lot of cigarettes to ruin the small bit of fresh air I could otherwise have, so I can't really keep windows or balcony door open for long.

Whenever I try to TALK to one of these so-called "people", things get even crazier.. but you can't really escape that, because the internet is global, and no matter who you talk to, or where they are located, you are basically talking to the same ten morons with ten slightly different viewpoints about things. There's the religious nut, the atheist, the hunter, the horror-freak, the politician, the grease monkey, the feminazi, and so on. It's never any different - the same exact 'types' are found on every continent, it seems. You can travel thousands of miles, and end up talking to basically the same weird automatons that caused you pain before you left. It's no use. This planet is doomed to be filled with this kind of stereotyped 'people'.

There's no spark of intelligence, no caring, no real humanity, no pure and correct values. No colors in clothing or vehicles, no curves in building architecture, and no knowledge about the difference between law and legal system.

There is no deeper pondering about the Universe, no concern about how things are going (except in a generic, learned, vague way), or knowledge about who pulls the strings, who created money and how it all works.

And there's this blind belief in the 'official story', whether it's the Moon Hoax, UFO phenomenon, Pearl Harbor, Titanic, September WTC controlled demolition, "Meaning of Person", and so on. Most everyone on this planet simply can't entertain the thought that powerful people might have gathered together to form a conspiracy. Even the word immediately creates a knee-jerk response.

For a long time, I have wanted to escape to where there's no one in around 10 mile radius. Well, maybe 5 miles would be enough. In any case, some relatively isolated place, where there's no one in the immediate vicinity, and where I could still reach the grocery store with a small, brisk walk. But that store would be spoiled by kids and teenagers hanging right next to the entrance, as if they can't really figure out what those doors are for, and get annoyed if you are trying to get in or out of the store because you need to buy food.

But I know it would not be a solution. Even if I could find a place, where there's practically no one there (and the grocery store would have the simple food I am accustomed to - chances are, it wouldn't), and still the distance to the store would be 'walkable' - it would not be a solution.

I used to know this really nasty guy. I met him when my body was still very young. He bullied me and did all kinds of horrible things to me, from actual punching violence to damaging my possessions on purpose, right in front of me. He pretended to be my friend, but I just wanted to be away from him. Still, he was so scary that he bullied me into being his 'friend', and I didn't have the guts to tell him the truth. It was a miserable existence, and from my point of view, he ruined a lot of my summers, that could have otherwise been so great.

At one point, he disappeared from my life, but the feeling and the 'ruining of summers' stayed - other things took his place. I realized that the 'nasty guy' never goes anywhere, it just changes form. It can be the 'system', it can be 'other people' or it can be 'circumstances' or 'happenings'. It can be anything that makes me feel the way he made me feel.

So even if I moved to a 'better place' - as always happens, that place would soon reveal not to be all that much better anyway. Oh, it could be better in one way, but suddenly have this new annoyance that I never even considered before. (Happened to me before)

Escaping one's problem physically, doesn't remove the root cause of the problem spiritually/mentally/circumstancially (take your pick). The 'nasty guy' is a constant - something will always fill that role.

Besides, when I find myself delving in these selfish thoughts, I ask myself; why did I come here? Did I incarnate just to have a luxurious vacation on the physical plane, just to feel good, just to escape problems and difficulties? Or would the incarnation actually be more meaningful exactly because I have all these problems, annoyances and hardships? I realize that Karma is not easy - but it will be liberating to get the bad deeds amended, so that I don't have to carry them with me for all eternity.

So, as much as I comprehend and know exactly what the original poster means and wants to rant about (I want to rant about it, too!), and I know what it's like, and I agree...

...I just can't help seeing the other side of the coin that makes me see the value in all the horror these 'half-animals' put me through. My next plan is to deliberately saturate myself with badly raised dogs - and people, who have no clue. I plan to put myself into situations, where such people and their miserable carnivore pets are impossible to avoid or miss, and just do it until I become numb. I figure, if that works for dogs, perhaps it works for me as well.

I haven't successfully yet been able to just listen to the awful brat noise in the hallway and just feel like it's ok, and that I don't have to do anything about it (I have given in to my anger and gone to say "hey!" to the kids, and told them (again and again) the rules of the hallway, and so on - which of course never has any impact - but I can't really utiliize Jo Frost's techniques, because I am not their parent, so it's a difficult situation. Yes, I could talk to the neighbourgs, but they are a bit scary and very 'typical' in certain ways, and I am sure they wouldn't take criticism about their parenting well - and besides, I have other problems that prohibit me from doing it that I do not plan to discuss here).

For me, this has been the worst year in perhaps ten years or so.. so I can really relate to the original poster's rant. I could rant about this planet's 'half-animals' for many pages every day for the rest of the year, and still have more to rant about them (is that a coherent sentence?).

My point is; optimizing your life to your liking is satisfactory, but we have also Karmic duties that are more important, and there's always time to optimize your life when you are not on a Karmic mission.. What can you learn from a life where everything is arranged to the way you like it (even your location and surrounding entities)?

For many years I lived in a rural mountain village with 50 families. We all knew each other and respected each other....
Then the rednecks discovered our peaceful village and drug up their junky trailers, dogs and loud ill mannered kids. Essentially they ruined a small mountain town with their whitetrash behavior.

I'm blessed to be able to make a good living anywhere I have an internet connection so I sold out and moved to a larger more affluent village. Even though there are many more people the life style is very nice and close enough to the city where I maintain office where I can meet with clients if need be.

Often it's much quieter in the city away from all the dirtbiks, coalroalers, ATVs, Logging trucks, etc than in the mountains.

Eventually I should be able to live on a nice isolated beach Mexico, Central America or South America. I have many expat friends that
encourage me to semiretire and live the good life....tempting, but I still enjoy the competition, vibrancy, entrepreneurial spirit and challenge of the US.

originally posted by: Expat888
Never could stand cities .. prefer to live out in the boonies ..

Cities do have their good points, especially if you don't have a young and energetic body.

The 'comforts' are near, the internet speeds are fast, and rarely down, the libraries are bigger and better stocked, the selection of grocery stores is bigger, so you can easier find exactly the food you want, the ATMs are a short walk away, the buses come every few minutes, and you get to really pay your Karmic debts a lot, because there's going to be lots of 'half-animals' around - with their wrongly raised pets and badly raised kids.

Cities do have their conveniences. If something breaks, and you can't buy things from the net, you can usually just go and replace it or find a way to fix it. If I lived in a field, I wouldn't know which direction to go if I wanted to buy glue to fix a broken pot or a keyboard key (both actually happened, btw). Of course, if you can just order things online, it's probably different.

But I'd say the optimal situation would be to have all the comforts and conveniences of a big city, combined with the harmony and natural life cycle, forests, nature and peaceful relaxation of the more rural areas. Even some suburbs look rather harmonious and nice, compared to bigger ghettobuilding-complexes. Since such a perfect combination is rare, if it even exists, we all have to pretty much choose and try to optimize in some diretion, and make compromises.

I choose to live on the edge of a relatively large city, so that there's lots of nice nature, but also fast net connection and convenient public transport route to anywhere I might want to go (within reason, of course). A small walk away from some great, harmonious suburbs, but unfortunately also in the middle of a ghetto complex, where no one knows or respects the rules of the complex.. (I am not sure if ' complex' is the right word, though)

Oh well, some nights you can actually sit with your own thoughts, as long as you have some background noise in the headphones, or something. So the immediate smaller noises are muffled.

On this planet, I don't think there's a perfect solution - one would have to sacrifice something. In a city, you don't have to work that hard, you just go buy groceries, and you can eat. In a country farm, you'd have to probably do a lot of manual labor, and going to buy groceries would involve owning (hah!) and maintaining an automobile of some sort, or at least a motorized twin-wheel apparatus. Which would directly pollute and create noise - the very thing you are trying to escape..

Small towns have their own problems anyway - everyone knows everyone, and gossip really creates a tight, imprisoning net that no one can escape. If you mind your own business, people will start pointing fingers at you on the street, whispering to each other about the crazy hermit. If you are social with others, someone backstabbing hag will just fabricate stories about you and everyone will still be pointing fingers.. or if you happen to be drunk some night and do something not-so-noble, everyone will soon know about it, and.. yeah. I don't think I could live that kind of a life.

In a big city, there's anonymity.. you can go to the same grocery store or supermarket every day, and chances are, the sales clerks have no idea whether they have seen you before or not, or some of them have a vague idea after a year or so.

I do actually hate big cities, but now that provoked myself to react to your comment to add some information that your comment was lacking, I am finding out that there are plus sides to living in one. You can always live on the edge though, you don't have to live right in the middle of it, you know.

If wasnt for that would stay out here far from the cesspool of "civilization" ..

There's an apostrophe in the word "wasn't", because it's a combination of two words; "was" and "not".

But I know what you mean. There's no civilization on Terra nowadays - ever since the end of the 'Golden Era' after Atlantis sank, there hasn't been a real civilization here - only 'barbarization' in its many, disgusting forms. An ape is still an ape, even if you teach it to use electronics and put him in a suit and give him a machine gun.

Still, it's the cesspool that we came here for. We might be sewer workers - it's a dirty job, but we are obliged to do it.. and perhaps we can leave this 'barbarization' just a tiny bit more 'civilized' than it was before we came here. We can't do that if we just selfishly escape it..