I once explained to a co-worker that I live in a cabin in the woods.
"So you hunt and fish and stuff?"
"Nope."
"So how do you get food?"
"We have grocery stores in the country."
One time I told an Uber driver that I live out in the country.
"Wait, how do you get around?"
"I drive."
"Oh. Do you have your own parking spot?"
"It's the country. Parking is everywhere."
"And do you have DoorDash?"
"Nope. No apps, no delivery, nothing."
"But how do you eat?"
It seems like urban people just don't grok how anything works outside the city.
I grew up in the country where nobody walked or bicycled. Parents would drive their kids 1000’ down the driveway to the school county road where the school bus picked them up. To move themselves they believed they had to get in a car/truck/SUV.
Nobody understood why/how I chose to never learned to drive (I’m 40 now) and that I just choose to walk to the store, bike to work, take the bus to the movies, etc.
> It seems like urban people just don't grok how anything works outside the city.
Earnest question: is it possible that the people asking were genuinely curious?
And a follow-up: why should they grok your lifestyle?
People have a thousand different things they need to deal with on a weekly basis. Having a full understanding of how someone who lives a hundred miles away probably isn't high on the list.
Every time I've traveled and it's come up that I'm from Seattle people tend to ask me the same things: where is Frasier's apartment, how many Starbucks are there really, and do we all throw fish or is it just for special occasions. A coworker from Texas gets asked if they own a horse.
I guess my underlying question is how is this anecdote relevant? Maybe I am misreading but it feels, to me, like you're just having a go at "those silly urbanites", which, if I'm right, seems unfair. Do you know how to get from Queen Anne to Columbia City on King County Metro?
I find that extremely unlikely. From a simple read of GPs post, they are definitely in the right to judge and ostracize urban people. It's a shame that more free thinkers like him are slowly becoming eroded in our world, as I believe we'll truly miss something once the cabin people are all gone, probably due to DoorDash using urbanites.
Y'know the more I think about it the more I think I'd learn everything about how exactly to handle the next 20 years by just being a fly on the wall at the study groups the people that made WALL·E go to.
Wait, WALL-E wasn't made in earnest?
I personally cannot wait for walking to be "outmoded" by personal floaty devices and for life to resemble a trip on a cruise liner (or so I imagine--I'd never step foot on one!) I'll own nothing and be so fucking happy.
