I thought about calling it a youthful attitude. That's pretty accurate, but not quite right. I also thought of stubborn, but other cities can be described as stubborn. I'm going to go with willful. The LA attitude is like that of a willful toddler.
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| these are way fun! |
Much like toddlers, people here can be a bit self obsessed. They want to be paid attention to. They are not always cognizant that they need to use their nice words when dealing with others.
However, the attitude comes with a lot of upsides. People try new things. They aren't afraid to look silly. Frankly they don't care what you think. I frequently see adults skateboarding and riding kick scooters. I think that is awesome. These aren't just young adults either. These include folks with gray hair. I've seen them riding for fun, riding with their kids, riding to/from work, and riding for errands. I've seen people in scrubs and guys in business shirts. My personal favorite was a guy riding away from the grocery store on his skateboard with a new frying pan in hand.
Having lived other places, I know that many other cities carry social pressures about acting "outside the norm". Despite many areas being flat and blessed with far nicer sidewalks than LA, I really can't imagine a 40 year old cruising into work on a kick scooter in other cities. Why is that? Why let social stigma affect our actions? Be like that toddler and think you're the greatest thing ever.
Are you commuting by scooter now?
ReplyDeleteHaha, @katina no, still bike commuting. I do use it to get around sometimes on the weekend. It was very handy at the ESRI conference last summer since my hotel was a mile away from the convention center.
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