My little experiences with the truth: The eleventh exploring expedition... a short but meaningful one...

Dear readers,

Today started with a great conversation with a friend oversea and a big breakfast/lunch of rices and lettuces, I headed out to the city again. Today was a tougher day for me to stay focus and driven. It was the kind of days that I was a bit in doubt with myself and the project that I was carry on. I still finished the exploring that I had assigned to myself for the day but it was not a easy day. But no matter what, it was done and it was fruitful.

Today, I explored the heart of the downtown area, where the expensive hotels, city hall, courthouse, concert hall, popular bars, fancy restaurants, churches, schools, headquarter buildings and big sculptures mixed and stood. This is the heart of the city where the politics, commerce, businesses, arts, educations and religions all share a common spaces. This is a place where people identify most with the city of Grand Rapids, This is downtown. It was a sunny day and the street was full of people with light feet and easy going attitude. Weather does affect people's mood. Out of all these people, I wonder how many actually live in downtown. I wonder what is the percentage of all the people in downtown this afternoon who do not live close to downtown. I wonder what is the number will be like if I added up all the miles that people drove today to get to downtown for their jobs, relaxations, connections and many other purposes. How do downtown get its concentration of people who don't live there? I need to figure that out. I also wonder that then, if look at the local communities where all those people at downtown come from, how many of the people who is there in the afternoon actually come from somewhere else too. I wonder what is the force that pull people away from their community to another community for 8 hours of their 14 hours day. Is it that there are not enough job within his or her community? but surely there are needs if there are people. Is it so, that all the needs are available to be fulfill in another community? Why do we have a city that concentrates places that fulfill our need in only few of the many communities, and not have a city that encourage each community to have its own places and abilities to fulfill its own needs? The fact that our city requires people to leave their community everyday to survive, it shatter the very meaning of community. When most people spend more time away from their community than their own, their communities cease to exist anymore. When community cease to exist, we become individuals that only work for his or her own survival; we become working robots working for its oil and fuel. How sad is that.

As I was exploring today, 2 fire trucks flow pass me to head to the place where they are in need of. The sirens was loud and the flashing lights were keeping my attention. The sirens grow light as the light disappeared, I stood there thinking to myself, "How glad I am to have these protecting system that we have, policemen, firemen and ambulances." Also, I gave a thought to the ones who are in need of those 2 fire trucks and whispered a small prayer, then I was back to my own life. I wondered, is our city so big that, it is hard for me to worry for that people who is in need now. If it is a small town, I bet I would be much more worry as I might came to realize that those people in need could very well be someone I know and know well. But this city is too big for me to worry for everyone. Is this sad... or is it just that I am being silly.

Also, as I walked around, different monuments and signs along the way had enlightened me greatly about the history of Grand Rapids, its buildings and people. It was truly a joy to got to know it. History of a city is truly a very important part of its identity. That is why I went to the library afterward and got couple of history books of Grand Rapids to read up more about the topic.

Here are the marks that I made on the map today: