San Francisco is a beautiful city. With steep hills, spectacular views of the ocean and crazy streets and boulevards, it is a place that is immediately endearing. Add to that the famous weather pattern, which keeps the temperture around comfortable 70 degrees, and the city becomes utterly desirable to many.
On the other hand, and on the other coast, Boston, where I live, has severe winters. There are days when the thermometer dips to zero degrees (and that is Fahrenheit) and the wind is howling. This is not the comfortable and predictable West Coast weather.
Boston is a pretty city but does not have the same spectacular beauty of SF. What it does have is a great deal of culture, history, and education. Money is of course important, just as everywhere, but somehow it does not seem as important in this city, which emphasizes what you know rather than what you own. The presence of two world famous universities of course adds a great deal to the vitality of the city by filling it with young students
Even its weather has its own charms. The beautiful white coat of winter ice melts as new buds start emerging on plants and trees. The light green shades and beautiful flowers are soon replaced by dense greenery and warm sunshine. My favorite time of the year is fall, when trees break out into all glorious colors and the days become crisp and clear. When you get used to these changes, the routine of same old same old on the West Coast would get boring for some of us.
I completely accept the fact that this is all a matter of taste and priorities.
As a popular saying goes---gentlemen prefer blonds, perhaps even if they are not too bright. As long as they are gorgeous and smile a lot, everything is forgiven. Many men will agree with that.
However, some others may prefer brunets who are pretty but not perfect. Those with depth, culture and smartness---and mood swings to keep things interesting---unlike the case with the fixed smile bimbos.
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Discrimination of any kind is against my own views. Inherent worth and dignity is the very first principle of my Unitarian denomination. As you wrote about the discrimination with respect to money elsewhere, but admittedly you also mentioned discrimination based on the education level in Boston. To me that is also as bigoted as discrimination based on money. Showing bias is easy to do. We all fall into this trap of proving my views or preferences or status etc. are better than those of others. When I was looking for a job in Boston in 1968, after my graduation from USC, I found much more bigotry in Boston. The bigotry was not based in my national origin but based on my degree from the South. May the things are different now. To me sense of home begins with one being comfortable with himself/herself. One has to be comfortable with who he/she is. Where you live is where the fate took you. If one is not comfortable with himself/herself, how much money, or education you have is immaterial.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Bigotry is not good, whether a person from SF claiming he lives in paradise or the one living in Boston thinking he is smarter then the others. Just as there are different types of women around, there are different cities to chose from. The perfect one for one may not be so for the other.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there are some parts of the country where the bigotry may extend to questions such as what is the color of your skin or what church you go to. If you are a gay or an atheist, good luck to you in those parts. Look, my Blog post was not meant to indicate that Boston is heaven on earth (it is not) nor to demean any other part of this great nation, besides SF and Boston. All I am saying is that one can not blindly assume that everyone should like a specific place and aspire to live there, just because it has some specific attributes that are important to you but may not be to others.
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