Anonimity

One reason I believe young adults often flee to cities upon gaining quasi-financial independence is not necessarily the usual suspects of excitement, opportunity, more people, or other overtly monotonous alluring speculations about big cities.  These are reasons, no doubt, that young adults will abscond to New York or Chicago, or any city that is not their hometown.  But another subtler, but just as prominent reason is the anonymity that a city offers.  In a small town, one finds themselves pigeon-holed by their relatives, family-friends and even childhood friends into a certain shell from which they wish to break out of.  One’s ‘business’ is not simply their own in a small town – it is the town’s business.  But in a city, the possibilities for silent slinking through crowds without a soul knowing where one may be going, or why (likely because the ‘others’ in the crowd are also among the crowd hoping to not be audited by the watching eyes of others).  That, indeed, largely encapsulates the wisdom of the institution of family.  Among one’s family, it is impossible to be anonymous.  It is impossible to let crude habits go unnoticed.  It is impossible for one’s decisions, be they destructive or beneficent, to not directly affect others.  Decisions, typically immediately, and almost always directly affect others and the myth of our isolation is imploded under the weight of reality.  The city erects a façade that our decisions have no immediate effect on others since they are often no observed, at least not longitudinally.  I am not against cities – I live in one.  But I think everyone should have the privilege of living in a small town (as I did), at least for while, to see how the ramifications of decisions so quickly radiate their ripples through society.  If not, then everyone should at least have a family.