Loud Places, Fast Paces

Everyone has a preferred place to be. There are multiple reasons behind the patterned sprawl of people across the planet, and one of those reasons is each person's ideal population density. For clarity's sake, we'll say it's a difference between introverts and extroverts. When I was applying for colleges, I was encouraged to think of the environments I would be in to learn, keeping my extroverted tendencies in mind. Top priorities were definitely getting the majors and classes I wanted. Secondarily, and also incredibly important, was the locale. I knew immediately I needed to go to a big, city-based school.

A little context... My high school, North Penn, was over 3,000 students, sophomores through seniors. They didn't have the room to fit freshmen, so that class was split between the three middle schools. My graduating class was, as a rule of thumb, four times larger than most anybody else's that I've met. And I loved every second of it. Not that high school held the best years of my life - no, more like it cultivated my taste in learning atmospheres.

I knew I needed a large place with lots of different individuals. I wanted the opportunity to meet new people and try new things every single day. A city, a cultural hub mishmashing diverse lifestyles together, would be essential. I looked at Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh was the only city I hadn't been to before college applications. It became my city for several years. 

I have since returned to my hometown, making the closest big city Philadelphia. For being in the same state, the two cities couldn't be more different. But both of them give me the same feeling, a sensation I get from being in a city. There's this fantastic rush, of thousands of lives zipping past. Lights and glass and concrete are flecked with trees and food vendors. It's a wild cornucopia of smells and colors. The surge of emotion is a little like lightheadedness, a little like an adrenaline rush. It can't be replicated from one place to the other, because each city has its own twist or accent to that feeling. It's what causes people to write about cities as living organisms - because they are, in the sense that there's a pulse of life stirred by the bustle of others hustling about their days. It kicks up this energy that makes your eyes go wide, that carries a metallic taste on the breeze. 

It's the strangely reassuring unnatural environments humanity has built for itself, close and cramped and always moving. And it's amazing.