🥛Cream & Sugar
Ideas about living a more intentional, innovative life. The kind of stuff that makes a newsletter (and coffee) good.
This week was my first week in New Jersey after two months of being in California.
The change got me feeling like I was a new person. Being in my childhood home feels so fundamentally different from being in the city where I very quickly had to learn to be independent.
As I've thought (and overthought) about the importance of place, I've realized that the difference may not be just a figment of my imagination.
Investor and entrepreneur Paul Graham has a theory about place that he describes in terms of cities. "Great cities attract ambitious people," he says. "In a hundred subtle ways, the city sends you a message."
Each city's message is fundamentally different. While Los Angeles, California might whisper to be prettier, Boston, Massachusetts might whisper to be smarter. The different kinds of people that a city attracts create a message that the city then echoes back to you.
But merely being in a city doesn't mean you feel inclined to listen to the message. In order to embrace what a city has to say to you, you have to lean in close enough to hear it. When you actively make an effort to listen, you can take full advantage of what a place has to offer.
Listening looks different everywhere. Where do the ambitious people go in your city? In Los Angeles, you may sign up to be an extra on movies being filmed in Hollywood. In Boston, you may find yourself sitting in the public library and meeting academics from surrounding universities.
This can go the other way around too. The whisper of some places may oppose your goals and ambitions. In that case, listening too carefully can be an issue for your long-term wellbeing. Part of the magic is in hearing all of the messages a place whispers, and then selectively choosing which ones to listen attentively to.
What does your environment whisper?