I read this when it came out Tyler and it absolutely wreaked me. In the sense that so many things resonated with myself and you had written it out so well. Afterwards I was done I didn’t even know how to respond or what the best response would be. I could t craft any sort of comment that would sufficiently articulate what I had felt reading it. Leaving a simple heart on the piece would have felt disingenuous. So I didn’t do anything. Coming back here to say thank you for this piece and all your pieces.
“Those alternate realities where I ended up in Melbourne or Utrecht or Portland. Where I did something greater with my life. Part of growing up is realizing the limitations of these dreams and how they might be nice at their most ethereal but there’s a real world out there that’s structured in a way that’s stacked against your dreams. Or maybe I didn’t actually want to live those dreams, but merely indulge in the fantasy.”
I think a lot of times about this and I guess I console myself by saying I wouldn’t be the person I would be today. I might have potentially ended up trying to chase a career and having more “things” going on in my life, but I wouldn’t have the community, the people I have with me today. The consoling doesn’t always work. Growing up I loved crafting alternative histories for different countries and societies. In a meeting with my therapist I made the realization that as I get older and look back on my life, this previous pastime has now become an unhealthy tendency.
it’s funny timing that you wrote this. i’m currently in holland and having a lot of feelings stirred up by it.
my grandfather emigrated from here to canada after wwii. he, like many at the time, saw anglo-america as a place with possibility and progress, a better spot for the next generations of your family to grow up in than “the old country.” and yet, 70 years later, those dreams didn’t pan out. somewhere like canada feels like the worst of both worlds. it hasn’t got the economy and iconography of the united states nor does it have the quality of life of europe. we have underbuilt infrastructure where we don’t properly build for car culture like the US but also you’re fucked if you don’t drive unless you live in a few overpriced cities. our public services are crumbling and terrible for what we pay viz other countries. the housing crisis, the overdose crisis, it all feels super bleak back home. i look at holland and it’s so clear why north america has so many problems.
in many ways, for an urbanist like myself, canada feels like a purgatory and i’m stuck wondering what my life would’ve been like if i’d grown up here instead. would my health be better? would my sense of community be better? i’m sure it wouldn’t be perfect but this place fits me like a glove in terms of lifestyle. but of course, it’d have been impossible to grow up here too, as i wouldn’t have existed without two disparate people with different ancestries meeting in a settler colony (my parents).
unlike you, i don’t have much of a community. like, there’s people i know and love but it’s very fragmented and i’m often quite lonely and sad. edmonton and winnipeg are kind of unhealthy for me at times but anywhere “better” is ridiculously expensive now. even calgary is expensive. the only other city that’s relatively “affordable” is quebec city.
long story short, i’m having a lot of thoughts to chew on while i’m out here. and it’s kinda depressing. i’ll probably do an actual post about it when i’m back and can organize my thoughts more coherently. my apologies if this didn’t make too much sense.
My grandfather also emigrated from the Netherlands to Canada and so it’s interesting you mentioning about how our ancestors seeing how this place would be better from where they came and how it isn’t necessarily like that anymore. Ahh fuck yeah I can only imagine being in the Netherlands now and seeing the stark contrast and being depressed by it. I haven’t been back to Europe since 2020 and since I have become more critical of urban design and particularly critical of car centric North American design. I can imagine going to visit now (particularly the Netherlands) would cause similar thoughts.
Community is such a nebulous word. I would say that there has been family that has moved to Winnipeg over the years since being here and fortunately I have a good relationship with them so that’s what I would mostly define as community. There are downsides and sometimes having family as your main community can feel quite insular but I guess in this way I will take it. I think similarly, community outside that can feel quite disparate. Social media and Instagram certainly don’t help. There is something so addicting about navigating and interacting with folks on Instagram. You feel like it is a community of sorts, but it’s not.
Hope that doesn’t come off as trying to equate everything as being similar. Don’t want to disregard the differences in our experience, just also trying to find common ground and I think that’s why I appreciate your thoughts and musings. Look forward to figure posts! Safe travels for the rest of your time in the Netherlands and Europe!
oh, don’t worry about equating things. it’s actually interesting reading your thoughts and seeing the overlaps in who we are.
i don’t fault my ancestors for coming to canada. from the perspective of the past, it makes sense why people moved and viewed canada as an “upgrade.” still i can’t help but have my mind go... you left this gorgeous, historic country with a nice, mild climate for... edmonton? really?! but nobody has a crystal ball.
this is my first time in europe and it’s just ... idk something to be somewhere you’ve known about and feel a connection to through history but also somewhere you’re not of and have never been to before.
and i’m just jealous of the people here. yes things are moving in the right direction in north america and yes things take time but i don’t want to be 60 by the time things come together. or suffocate in debt in toronto or vancouver or soon montreal.
part of me wonders if we’ll ever get our shit together though. there’s something deeply disturbed that runs through all the anglo countries. even the uk, while european, and having, from the north american perspective, european things, is a real laggard in terms of the things we tend to think of as european. i think it has something to do with the rampant hyperindividualism completely rotting our brains. the non-anglo countries i’ve been to -- south korea, japan, the netherlands -- are still highly capitalistic but have some sense of a collective and a desire to have a shared standard to living rather than grabbing as much as possible for yourself at the expense of everybody else. there’s something in the marrow of england and nations it spawned, i fear.
family is still community, or at least it can be, if it works for you. i don’t really have that. most of my family i’m estranged from in some way or shape for various traumatic causes. i have my dad, my partner, and a few friends that i don’t really see much and am not super close to anymore.
hopefully i’m not sounding like too much of a downer. i appreciate your comments and responses, though, so don’t feel bad about ‘em!
I read this when it came out Tyler and it absolutely wreaked me. In the sense that so many things resonated with myself and you had written it out so well. Afterwards I was done I didn’t even know how to respond or what the best response would be. I could t craft any sort of comment that would sufficiently articulate what I had felt reading it. Leaving a simple heart on the piece would have felt disingenuous. So I didn’t do anything. Coming back here to say thank you for this piece and all your pieces.
“Those alternate realities where I ended up in Melbourne or Utrecht or Portland. Where I did something greater with my life. Part of growing up is realizing the limitations of these dreams and how they might be nice at their most ethereal but there’s a real world out there that’s structured in a way that’s stacked against your dreams. Or maybe I didn’t actually want to live those dreams, but merely indulge in the fantasy.”
I think a lot of times about this and I guess I console myself by saying I wouldn’t be the person I would be today. I might have potentially ended up trying to chase a career and having more “things” going on in my life, but I wouldn’t have the community, the people I have with me today. The consoling doesn’t always work. Growing up I loved crafting alternative histories for different countries and societies. In a meeting with my therapist I made the realization that as I get older and look back on my life, this previous pastime has now become an unhealthy tendency.
it’s funny timing that you wrote this. i’m currently in holland and having a lot of feelings stirred up by it.
my grandfather emigrated from here to canada after wwii. he, like many at the time, saw anglo-america as a place with possibility and progress, a better spot for the next generations of your family to grow up in than “the old country.” and yet, 70 years later, those dreams didn’t pan out. somewhere like canada feels like the worst of both worlds. it hasn’t got the economy and iconography of the united states nor does it have the quality of life of europe. we have underbuilt infrastructure where we don’t properly build for car culture like the US but also you’re fucked if you don’t drive unless you live in a few overpriced cities. our public services are crumbling and terrible for what we pay viz other countries. the housing crisis, the overdose crisis, it all feels super bleak back home. i look at holland and it’s so clear why north america has so many problems.
in many ways, for an urbanist like myself, canada feels like a purgatory and i’m stuck wondering what my life would’ve been like if i’d grown up here instead. would my health be better? would my sense of community be better? i’m sure it wouldn’t be perfect but this place fits me like a glove in terms of lifestyle. but of course, it’d have been impossible to grow up here too, as i wouldn’t have existed without two disparate people with different ancestries meeting in a settler colony (my parents).
unlike you, i don’t have much of a community. like, there’s people i know and love but it’s very fragmented and i’m often quite lonely and sad. edmonton and winnipeg are kind of unhealthy for me at times but anywhere “better” is ridiculously expensive now. even calgary is expensive. the only other city that’s relatively “affordable” is quebec city.
long story short, i’m having a lot of thoughts to chew on while i’m out here. and it’s kinda depressing. i’ll probably do an actual post about it when i’m back and can organize my thoughts more coherently. my apologies if this didn’t make too much sense.
My grandfather also emigrated from the Netherlands to Canada and so it’s interesting you mentioning about how our ancestors seeing how this place would be better from where they came and how it isn’t necessarily like that anymore. Ahh fuck yeah I can only imagine being in the Netherlands now and seeing the stark contrast and being depressed by it. I haven’t been back to Europe since 2020 and since I have become more critical of urban design and particularly critical of car centric North American design. I can imagine going to visit now (particularly the Netherlands) would cause similar thoughts.
Community is such a nebulous word. I would say that there has been family that has moved to Winnipeg over the years since being here and fortunately I have a good relationship with them so that’s what I would mostly define as community. There are downsides and sometimes having family as your main community can feel quite insular but I guess in this way I will take it. I think similarly, community outside that can feel quite disparate. Social media and Instagram certainly don’t help. There is something so addicting about navigating and interacting with folks on Instagram. You feel like it is a community of sorts, but it’s not.
Hope that doesn’t come off as trying to equate everything as being similar. Don’t want to disregard the differences in our experience, just also trying to find common ground and I think that’s why I appreciate your thoughts and musings. Look forward to figure posts! Safe travels for the rest of your time in the Netherlands and Europe!
oh, don’t worry about equating things. it’s actually interesting reading your thoughts and seeing the overlaps in who we are.
i don’t fault my ancestors for coming to canada. from the perspective of the past, it makes sense why people moved and viewed canada as an “upgrade.” still i can’t help but have my mind go... you left this gorgeous, historic country with a nice, mild climate for... edmonton? really?! but nobody has a crystal ball.
this is my first time in europe and it’s just ... idk something to be somewhere you’ve known about and feel a connection to through history but also somewhere you’re not of and have never been to before.
and i’m just jealous of the people here. yes things are moving in the right direction in north america and yes things take time but i don’t want to be 60 by the time things come together. or suffocate in debt in toronto or vancouver or soon montreal.
part of me wonders if we’ll ever get our shit together though. there’s something deeply disturbed that runs through all the anglo countries. even the uk, while european, and having, from the north american perspective, european things, is a real laggard in terms of the things we tend to think of as european. i think it has something to do with the rampant hyperindividualism completely rotting our brains. the non-anglo countries i’ve been to -- south korea, japan, the netherlands -- are still highly capitalistic but have some sense of a collective and a desire to have a shared standard to living rather than grabbing as much as possible for yourself at the expense of everybody else. there’s something in the marrow of england and nations it spawned, i fear.
family is still community, or at least it can be, if it works for you. i don’t really have that. most of my family i’m estranged from in some way or shape for various traumatic causes. i have my dad, my partner, and a few friends that i don’t really see much and am not super close to anymore.
hopefully i’m not sounding like too much of a downer. i appreciate your comments and responses, though, so don’t feel bad about ‘em!
that low level bridge shot tho... and “i’m basically a lesbian” haha.