Monday, April 06, 2015

Layers of Perception

DC Metro Yellow Line Crossing 495 between Huntington and Eisenhower Ave
My perception of the world is based on my life experiences, each one adding a layer to my understanding of what I see, hear, smell and taste. The more I experience, the more complex my understanding of the world. Washington DC, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Paris, Rome, Athens,and London, having experienced some of the greatest cities in the world, colors my vision of cities that aspire to greatness.  I have seen the pretty side of the cities, and the not so glamours underside. I like to go a few blocks off the beaten path, in search of the city that the locals live in. I grew up in the country; the house I grew up in is still over a mile from the nearest paved road.  That experience helps me to understand the vast rural areas of this country and other countries.Fly over the middle of America, there are hundreds of miles of farms and grazing land. I have been to some very remote and isolated places. An hour by float plane from Anchorage Alaska and you are 50 miles from a road, power line, or  phone line (surprisingly at 10,000 feet I had a cell signal.)  This experience tempers my view of urban sprawl, we have a little to worry about when it comes to paving over paradise, there is a lot of wilderness a long way from urban sprawl, that acre patch of woods is far from the last wildness.  

So where do I go next? How will it add to my perception of the world?   


3 comments:

  1. The Amazon jungle. perhaps. One of those man made cities where they destroyed the rain forest to build?

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