Cities and Ambition – Paul Graham
May 27th, 2008 | by Kennith |
I just finished reading a piece from Mr. Graham on Cities and Ambition.
I agreed with some of his points. He pointed out that a city could give an impression to others, such as New York is a financial city and Silicon Valley is a technology hub.
In the end of the article, he said,
No matter how determined you are, it’s hard not to be influenced by the people around you. It’s not so much that you do whatever a city expects of you, but that you get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do.
I found it is very true. The people around you can influence your life style or interest, though you might not feel the impact.
Take myself as an example. I am a programmer but I am not living in the Silicon Valley. As much as I like programming, I found that the people around me are mostly not programmer.
The conversation with the people around me mostly likely not about programming. It is a bit disappointed at first, but I actually liked it. It is because it will help me to feel what the world is talking about instead of just live inside the programming world.
I guess it all comes down to what you want. If I move to the Silicon Valley, I might meet more people with technological background and having more technological conversation, however, I might also miss some late night meaningless conversation or got me interested in playing Frisbee.