by Richie Mogwai

Created on: October 30, 2010

There are so many good reasons why you should be wandering in your own city.  First, you’re most likely suffering from a paradox that plagues most city dwellers:  Not knowing enough about the city where you live because you work so hard you just never find time to smell the roses in your very own and lovely metropolis.

Second, with economic depression hanging like the sword of Damocles on everybody’s head here in North America, discovering the city where you live may be the only leisure you can afford these days.    

Third, foregoing plans for an extended beach vacation even when you have the budget, is a prudent thing to do to help lower your carbon footprint.  Just imagine David Beckham and his constant air travel between L.A., London, and Madrid.  Or the fact that at the rate that mankind is plundering the earth on a daily basis, it’s now apparent to scientists that the average person may need a planet and a half to live.

And so, until technology becomes available that safely whisks us from our home planet to say, Pandora, in order to satisfy the insatiable human desire for conspicuous consumption, we all have to learn to stay put and retrace our steps in our own backyard.

It’s really not that bad.  Maybe you don’t even know that there’s a hair salon in your own apartment building, or a coin laundry for that matter.  It can even become a voyage of discovery, or who knows, you might even save some serious money down the line.

The empty, grassy lot at the back of your building can be the object of a beautification drive that you can petition City Hall to support you with, or even earn a living from, if not make a business out of.  And what if it turns out that there’s a dead person dumped somewhere in that space that you need to alert the police about?  You could become your city’s local hero, or at the very least, it could make your Crime Scene Investigation dream come through.  After all, what is all the TV viewing of CSI Las Vegas, CSI New York, CSI Miami, and Criminal Minds all for?  Surely, you didn’t let yourself become a couch potato for nothing!

Let’s admit it, it’s human nature to always look beyond our condition.  If the average person is not dreaming of someday going to Bali, or the Caribbean, too much time is being spent pondering the possibilities of traveling to outer space.  Blame it on marketing

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