In New York Everyone around me seems so unhappy. People look miserable on the train. Very few people smile. Very little small talk. People seem content to be malcontents.
My friend T argues that New York is a miserable city, more so that other places in the US. And the weather seems awful, particularly in comparison to the U.S.
Cambodians are poor, but they seem pretty happy. They tend to be focused on the short-run, which works until things go wrong, when they get anxious.
Does economic development make people happy?
Bhutan supposedly has a GDH/GNH, an index that measures the aggregate happiness of the population.
I wonder where New York would score on the GDH.
Loisaida is a term derived from the Latino (and especially Puerto Rican) pronunciation of "Lower East Side", a neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City. Loisaida Avenue is now an alternate name for Avenue C in the Alphabet City neighborhood of New York City, whose population has largely been Hispanic (mainly Puerto Rican) since the late 1960s.
2 comments:
NY is a completely unfriendly city. I know that I give myself away as a non-native when I greet my busdriver every morning, when offer to help confused-looking tourists before they ask, etc.
That said, I don't know that people are unhappy, and I certainly don't think most NY-ers are bad or even unfriendly ppl, but everyone is in their own world, I suppose that's inevitable in a city this densely populated where so many people are incredibly busy/stressed. In an average day I must walk past hundreds of people, there comes a point where you just have to shut it out or risk not being able to interact with the people you really do care about because you're too burnt out.
This sounds very like London to me!
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