How Does Life Change For Expats In Chiang Mai?

[JustCurious]

How does life change over time for expats living in Chiang Mai?

1. Do they become part of the community?

2. What kind of things wear them down?

Note: I visited in 2008 and liked the community at first glance, but was wondering how that could change over time.

[mallyrd]

Don't hold your breath waiting for responses.

[gotlost]

You spend a hel_l of allot more time on Thai Visa.

[Blinky Bill]

A requirement is to get old and cranky. You must whinge about everything and criticise any other expat who appears to be making a successful business.

[sarahsbloke]

How does life change over time for expats living in Chiang Mai?

1. Do they become part of the community?

2. What kind of things wear them down?

1) Almost never, there appear to me to be two types of expat guys,

those who spend all day locked in their air-con room with internet and TV

those who get drunk all the time (often at home)

(but it's cheaper and warmer than it was in the home country)

2) not having anyone that speaks English to talk to.

Edited August 29, 2010 by sarahsbloke

[Thailand]

1) Almost never, there appear to me to be two types of expat guys,

those who spend all day locked in their air-con room with internet and TV

those who get drunk all the time (often at home)

(but it's cheaper and warmer than it was in the home country)

2) not having anyone that speaks English to talk to.

I think you are mixing with the wrong people.

Are all expats English?

[NancyL]

JustCurious, please tell us a bit more about yourself. Age, sex, interests?

I know many female English-speaking expats, middle aged and older who are thriving here. If they remained in their home countries they'd be just barely getting by on their pension income, watching every penny, stirring up problems with their kids and grandkids and living a pretty isolated life.

Here they have many English-speaking friends with the time available to go to movies, concerts, shopping trips plus the funds to do these things. They can attend lectures and classes to learn a new language, new cooking styles and new cultures. They can shop for fabrics and work with excellent dressmakers to create fancy clothing to wear to dressy charity events where a $20 donation makes you a high roller. They can have spa and beauty treatments for a fraction of the cost of these services in their home country. They can exercise at excellent health clubs where the staff treats them with respect even though they have grey hair, are female and out-of-shape.

If they want to become more a "part of the community" they can spend time at orphanages, schools, animal shelters, wats on a regular basis. (Note, they aren't volunteering or working -- that would be a violation of their visas. They just spend a lot of time at these places.)

And they can do all these things without using a car or motorcyle.

In short, life here is good for the many older western ladies that I know. Some have been here for decades.

[T_Dog]

Wasn't it Yogi Berra that said, "If you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right."

[garyh]

Wasn't it Yogi Berra that said, "If you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right."

Actually that was Henry Ford.

[T_Dog]

Wasn't it Yogi Berra that said, "If you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right."

Actually that was Henry Ford.

Thanks! That explains why I couldn't find it earlier!

And to answer the OP, your life can be very satisfying in Chiang Mai if you let it. It's all about attitude.

[alfieconn]

How does life change over time for expats living in Chiang Mai?

1. Do they become part of the community?

2. What kind of things wear them down?

1) Almost never, there appear to me to be two types of expat guys,

those who spend all day locked in their air-con room with internet and TV

those who get drunk all the time (often at home)

(but it's cheaper and warmer than it was in the home country)

2) not having anyone that speaks English to talk to.

Which one are you Sarahsbloke ?

You've missed the 3rd type, the ones who go down the gym,play snooker/pool,go for walks in the country, play/'watch cricket, go and watch Chiang Mai football team, have an interest in motorbikes and cars, generally keep themselves busy.

Edited August 29, 2010 by alfieconn

[BarnicaleBob]

You spend a hel_l of allot more time on Thai Visa.

Well I guess anyone who has posted over 5,000 times on TV within one years would say something like that. :>)

[NancyL]

Oh, I just realized I didn't answer the second question -- " what kind of things wear them down".

For me, it's seeing all the older, male western retirees who apparently are just spending their lives "existing". I see them on our soi, sitting at the restaurants at the outdoor "smoking" tables eating their high-fat breakfasts at noon and drinking their cheap beer at 7 pm in order to get a buzz on before visiting the Loi Kroh bars to snare a "date" for the night. I don't begrudge them this lifestyle, but I don't enjoy smelling their cigarette smoke thru my bedroom window or hearing their drunken, opinioned ramblings if they linger at the cheap bars on the soi after my bedtime. I wish they spoke something other than a dialect of English. If it were a language foreign to me, then it would be easier to ignore. During the day, I walk down the soi with my eyes downcast, yet I sense these old farts staring at me,. I think some of them feel that western women shouldn't be allowed to live in Thailand.

But, this is a minor inconvenience and really more of a source of amusement except at midnight when I wish everyone at the bar next door had gone to Loi Kroh for the evening.

[Ulysses G.]

A requirement is to get old and cranky. You must whinge about everything and criticise any other expat who appears to be making a successful business.

I lOVE Blinky! (but not like that).

Edited August 29, 2010 by Ulysses G.

[garyh]

Oh, I just realized I didn't answer the second question -- " what kind of things wear them down".

For me, it's seeing all the older, male western retirees who apparently are just spending their lives "existing". I see them on our soi, sitting at the restaurants at the outdoor "smoking" tables eating their high-fat breakfasts at noon and drinking their cheap beer at 7 pm in order to get a buzz on before visiting the Loi Kroh bars to snare a "date" for the night. I don't begrudge them this lifestyle, but I don't enjoy smelling their cigarette smoke thru my bedroom window or hearing their drunken, opinioned ramblings if they linger at the cheap bars on the soi after my bedtime. I wish they spoke something other than a dialect of English. If it were a language foreign to me, then it would be easier to ignore. During the day, I walk down the soi with my eyes downcast, yet I sense these old farts staring at me,. I think some of them feel that western women shouldn't be allowed to live in Thailand.

But, this is a minor inconvenience and really more of a source of amusement except at midnight when I wish everyone at the bar next door had gone to Loi Kroh for the evening.

Don't tell too many about those older farangs, you might start a rush of new ones arriving.

[gotlost]

You spend a hel_l of allot more time on Thai Visa.

Well I guess anyone who has posted over 5,000 times on TV within one years would say something like that. :>)

Coming from you I take that as a complement.

[Soulwy]

I am not an expat, just someone who lives there several months per year.

ad 1) which community? CM -Thai- community?

You have to keep yourself satisfied, whether you live in CM or in your home country. If you don't like e.g. the mentality of N-Th, then you'll have a hard time being here.

My experience is that it is not difficult to be socially involved. There are courses and other meetings where same minded people go to. In a couple of months I made friends with Thai, Koreans, Europeans. Don't expect the closest friendships as you may have in your homecountry, it is possible, but these contacts are nice to be socially involved.

So you don;t necessairily have to stay in your aircon room or go to Loi Kroh. It is all about how you stand in this. But I think when you don't make friends easily in your homecountry, this probably would be the same in CM.

ad2) I like massages of blind massagetherapists. But no one speaks English there (Blind Massageschool), so I can't explain my prefs.

Have in mind: everything changes over time, where ever you are.

[Genericnic]

How does life change over time for expats living in Chiang Mai?

1. Do they become part of the community?

2. What kind of things wear them down?

1) Almost never, there appear to me to be two types of expat guys,

those who spend all day locked in their air-con room with internet and TV

those who get drunk all the time (often at home)

(but it's cheaper and warmer than it was in the home country)

2) not having anyone that speaks English to talk to.

Sarasbloke, your response reminds me of what my stepdad told me about retirement" "it is better to wear out than to rust out." I'm not yet a Chiang Mai expat (156 days to go) but I see it more as a staging base for the travel and photo trips to Angkor Wat, Bhutan, Western Nepal, etc. (not to mention all over Thailand, of course).

As for not having anyone to speak English to, well, that just makes learning Thai (or any other language) so much easier. Besides, if I really needed that, I could stay in the US.

David

[WinnieTheKhwai]

How life changes over time... you meet a girl, get married, get a dog, get kids, get a house & mortgage... So not too different from anywhere else to be honest.

It's probably the same for the retiree-crowd; don't think a whole lot goes on there that they couldn't do at home either. (With a few exceptions perhaps)

[CMX]

Sarahsbloke,

I have admired your knowledge of the community for the while I've looked at our forum, particularly with regard to economies. I use that in a larger sense, meaning use of time and life, as well as details of finance.

However, your generalization about us retirees makes me, speaking as one, a little upset. It is as if upon retirement, in your observations, we are all retired from life, this way and that. You could not be more wrong.

You sir, do not get out to golf enough; I can tell these things. If you make a study of golf courses in this community, and there certainly are a dozen, you will find there hundreds of us farang actively taking part in a physical activity, out of doors. I myself have seen golfers walking the course! They have a woman caddy, of course (no pun intended), but they very often carry their own umbrella.

Also, you are obviously remiss in your researches and have left from your guesstimates the dozens or scores, nay, hundreds of our (retiree) numbers wandering around malls, holding hands. These chaps, however pasty their complexions or red their noses and eyes, have taken on a challenge of sorts, that female at the other end of the grip. A fair judge would consider it very encouraging to see such, such, energy, such optimism. Well, OK, they do tend to look somewhat worn down when she heads into the stores, even though he doesn't have to go in. Yet there they are, brave souls.

Also, i am not sure you have gone to the removed places where volunteer work is done, and perhaps on your motorcycle you missed some truly stringy fellows on their bicycles, perhaps because of the darkness of their outdoor tans (not a good idea, but they don't look like cadavers either). Glance inside some of our bookstores; do it enough and you may spy someone who might be retired. The local expat group has a lot of sub-groups involving activities other than meetings.

But the thing that puzzles me most is how you figured out how I hole up (and I do, too, when it rains , and in the hot season's p.m.'s I become a Spaniard) and watch TV (which I don't even have). I agree that time on ThVi is NOT living, but I'm trying to pick up local wisdom, maybe in the wrong place.

Still, by percent, you could be right. Could be wrong too, though, speculating.

Edited August 29, 2010 by CMX

[orang37]

JustCurious wrote:

How does life change over time for expats living in Chiang Mai?

1. Do they become part of the community?

2. What kind of things wear them down?

Sawasdee Khrup, JustCurious,

We think there are many "farang realities" possible in Chiang Mai, and a few of them have been elaborated on this thread, already. We would, however, suggest adding "whoremongers" as a separate category (even if that category does often overlap with alcoholism). And then there is the category of "legends in their own minds," who, after "small potatoes careers" in whatever back home, come here and suddenly find themselves able to get away with creating another reality where "greatness" is, at last, finally, "thrust upon them."

We observe that some farangs (older males), when they first move to Thailand, appear to go through a kind of phase of "recapitulation of adolescence," or an "acting out" based on a perceived freedom (in reality an "illusory freedom" purchased with money). In our experience this "phase" can be either brief, long, or fatal. But, ioho, most longer-term expats, if they do go through that phase "outgrow it," some without permanent brain damage.

If by "part of the community" you mean really a part of a Thai community, we think that's rarer, but we know farangs who've married Thai, raised look-khreung children, and have roots here that go way down. And there are farangs here who have long-lasting committments to participation in some aspect of Thai culture, be it Buddhism, the arts, ethnography, etc.

Speaking for ourselves (who, in many ways, we know the least about), we can say we feel we participate in several types of "community" here.

But, both of us in here (the Orangutan and the Human) have been, each in their own way, somewhat "loners" by nature, so we may not be typical. In some ways we feel we are here as "refugees" from America (for the Human), and captivity in a private-zoo in Bangkok (for the Orangutan).

"What wears us down" is an interesting question, on a metaphysical level, ioho.

Certainly the gaping jaws of mortality and death impinge upon us courtesy of time ?

But we take refuge in the fact that Mother Kali's breast-milk manifests here in the form of fresh soy-milk, and that the severed human head she holds with one of her innumerable arms and hands ... while immobilized in rictus ... has a smile, not a frown on his face.

Why not ask: "What wears us up ?"

If you asked that, we might say something like "a frangipani blossom floating on the Ping." Or, "the timeless smile of Mae Laelai as she presides 'in state' over her trays of the best, freshest Thai food in the world every afternoon at Talat San Pak Hoi."

We like to say to our Thai friends, "Phratet Thai mai mee farang man kan suan sat mai mee ling." "Thailand without farangs would be like a zoo without monkeys." Almost always gets a laugh

best, ~o:37;

Edited August 29, 2010 by orang37

[Soulwy]

What a beautiful writing, Orang37...

"What wears us up", I go for this one

[ThaiPauly]

JustCurious wrote:

How does life change over time for expats living in Chiang Mai?

1. Do they become part of the community?

2. What kind of things wear them down?

Sawasdee Khrup, JustCurious,

We think there are many "farang realities" possible in Chiang Mai, and a few of them have been elaborated on this thread, already. We would, however, suggest adding "whoremongers" as a separate category (even if that category does often overlap with alcoholism). And then there is the category of "legends in their own minds," who, after "small potatoes careers" in whatever back home, come here and suddenly find themselves able to get away with creating another reality where "greatness" is, at last, finally, "thrust upon them."

We observe that some farangs (older males), when they first move to Thailand, appear to go through a kind of phase of "recapitulation of adolescence," or an "acting out" based on a perceived freedom (in reality an "illusory freedom" purchased with money). In our experience this "phase" can be either brief, long, or fatal. But, ioho, most longer-term expats, if they do go through that phase "outgrow it," some without permanent brain damage.

If by "part of the community" you mean really a part of a Thai community, we think that's rarer, but we know farangs who've married Thai, raised look-khreung children, and have roots here that go way down. And there are farangs here who have long-lasting committments to participation in some aspect of Thai culture, be it Buddhism, the arts, ethnography, etc.

Speaking for ourselves (who, in many ways, we know the least about), we can say we feel we participate in several types of "community" here.

But, both of us in here (the Orangutan and the Human) have been, each in their own way, somewhat "loners" by nature, so we may not be typical. In some ways we feel we are here as "refugees" from America (for the Human), and captivity in a private-zoo in Bangkok (for the Orangutan).

"What wears us down" is an interesting question, on a metaphysical level, ioho.

Certainly the gaping jaws of mortality and death impinge upon us courtesy of time ?

But we take refuge in the fact that Mother Kali's breast-milk manifests here in the form of fresh soy-milk, and that the severed human head she holds with one of her innumerable arms and hands ... while immobilized in rictus ... has a smile, not a frown on his face.

Why not ask: "What wears us up ?"

If you asked that, we might say something like "a frangipani blossom floating on the Ping." Or, "the timeless smile of Mae Laelai as she presides 'in state' over her trays of the best, freshest Thai food in the world every afternoon at Talat San Pak Hoi."

We like to say to our Thai friends, "Phratet Thai mai mee farang man kan suan sat mai mee ling." "Thailand without farangs would be like a zoo without monkeys." Almost always gets a laugh

best, ~o:37;

Well I never thought I'd say this.....but what a GREAT post Orang

[NancyL]

Yes, what a great post Orang and what a great concept -- "What wears us UP?"

For me the serendipity of life here is a big part of the pleasure. Daily life is full of many small unexpected pleasures. Sometimes just a sight -- like the blossom on the Ping or children playing -- or sometimes an interaction with a Thai, like the sales lady at the underwear dept at Robinson's who took a close look at my rounded, sagging body (didn't touch or measure anything) went to the rack and selected one beautiful, European-style bra (made in Thailand) that fit like a dream and and cost a fraction of the price of ones I bought in the U.S. So much for the myth that western women can't find good fitting underwear here! I love to say that "nothing is as it appears here" and a big part of the fun of daily life is the discovery.

[Blinky Bill]

Yes, what a great post Orang and what a great concept -- "What wears us UP?"

For me the serendipity of life here is a big part of the pleasure. Daily life is full of many small unexpected pleasures. Sometimes just a sight -- like the blossom on the Ping or children playing -- or sometimes an interaction with a Thai, like the sales lady at the underwear dept at Robinson's who took a close look at my rounded, sagging body (didn't touch or measure anything) went to the rack and selected one beautiful, European-style bra (made in Thailand) that fit like a dream and and cost a fraction of the price of ones I bought in the U.S. So much for the myth that western women can't find good fitting underwear here! I love to say that "nothing is as it appears here" and a big part of the fun of daily life is the discovery.

Yes, NancyL, I know the feeling.

[sarahsbloke]

Sarahsbloke,

I have admired your knowledge of the community for the while I've looked at our forum, particularly with regard to economies. I use that in a larger sense, meaning use of time and life, as well as details of finance.

However, your generalization about us retirees makes me, speaking as one, a little upset. It is as if upon retirement, in your observations, we are all retired from life, this way and that. You could not be more wrong.

You sir, do not get out to golf enough; I can tell these things. If you make a study of golf courses in this community, and there certainly are a dozen, you will find there hundreds of us farang actively taking part in a physical activity, out of doors. I myself have seen golfers walking the course! They have a woman caddy, of course (no pun intended), but they very often carry their own umbrella.

Also, you are obviously remiss in your researches and have left from your guesstimates the dozens or scores, nay, hundreds of our (retiree) numbers wandering around malls, holding hands. These chaps, however pasty their complexions or red their noses and eyes, have taken on a challenge of sorts, that female at the other end of the grip. A fair judge would consider it very encouraging to see such, such, energy, such optimism. Well, OK, they do tend to look somewhat worn down when she heads into the stores, even though he doesn't have to go in. Yet there they are, brave souls.

Also, i am not sure you have gone to the removed places where volunteer work is done, and perhaps on your motorcycle you missed some truly stringy fellows on their bicycles, perhaps because of the darkness of their outdoor tans (not a good idea, but they don't look like cadavers either). Glance inside some of our bookstores; do it enough and you may spy someone who might be retired. The local expat group has a lot of sub-groups involving activities other than meetings.

But the thing that puzzles me most is how you figured out how I hole up (and I do, too, when it rains , and in the hot season's p.m.'s I become a Spaniard) and watch TV (which I don't even have). I agree that time on ThVi is NOT living, but I'm trying to pick up local wisdom, maybe in the wrong place.

Still, by percent, you could be right. Could be wrong too, though, speculating.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply,

There are, of course, many variations on the expat theme. I live in a mooban where I know there is a white man in every house, but only ever see the same 1 or 2. The rest are all locked away with air-con running 24/7. I do call round to see one particular person, he will accept visitors but absolutely refuses to leave his air-con. You are quite correct in that his wife can get him to drive his air-con car to a air-con shopping mall, where he can walk round with her, hand in hand. Where you have specified these as a separate type, I consider them type 2).

I did completely miss the golf/gym/cycling crowd, my bad, I don't, so I don't encounter many of this sort and I completely forgot about them. I shall add a 3) Overactive health/exercise.

I don't really fit into any category, being newly married, and with a wife who really, really wants a baby, I don't get much of a chance to do anything ..... I might just be able to squeeze into my new type 3) expat definition. I would be willing to bet money that 75% of expats fall into type 1) or 2) though.

I don't write anything about expat females, as I have met so few.

Edited August 30, 2010 by sarahsbloke

[elektrified]

JustCurious wrote:

How does life change over time for expats living in Chiang Mai?

1. Do they become part of the community?

2. What kind of things wear them down?

Sawasdee Khrup, JustCurious,

We think there are many "farang realities" possible in Chiang Mai, and a few of them have been elaborated on this thread, already. We would, however, suggest adding "whoremongers" as a separate category (even if that category does often overlap with alcoholism). And then there is the category of "legends in their own minds," who, after "small potatoes careers" in whatever back home, come here and suddenly find themselves able to get away with creating another reality where "greatness" is, at last, finally, "thrust upon them."

We observe that some farangs (older males), when they first move to Thailand, appear to go through a kind of phase of "recapitulation of adolescence," or an "acting out" based on a perceived freedom (in reality an "illusory freedom" purchased with money). In our experience this "phase" can be either brief, long, or fatal. But, ioho, most longer-term expats, if they do go through that phase "outgrow it," some without permanent brain damage.

If by "part of the community" you mean really a part of a Thai community, we think that's rarer, but we know farangs who've married Thai, raised look-khreung children, and have roots here that go way down. And there are farangs here who have long-lasting committments to participation in some aspect of Thai culture, be it Buddhism, the arts, ethnography, etc.

Speaking for ourselves (who, in many ways, we know the least about), we can say we feel we participate in several types of "community" here.

But, both of us in here (the Orangutan and the Human) have been, each in their own way, somewhat "loners" by nature, so we may not be typical. In some ways we feel we are here as "refugees" from America (for the Human), and captivity in a private-zoo in Bangkok (for the Orangutan).

"What wears us down" is an interesting question, on a metaphysical level, ioho.

Certainly the gaping jaws of mortality and death impinge upon us courtesy of time ?

But we take refuge in the fact that Mother Kali's breast-milk manifests here in the form of fresh soy-milk, and that the severed human head she holds with one of her innumerable arms and hands ... while immobilized in rictus ... has a smile, not a frown on his face.

Why not ask: "What wears us up ?"

If you asked that, we might say something like "a frangipani blossom floating on the Ping." Or, "the timeless smile of Mae Laelai as she presides 'in state' over her trays of the best, freshest Thai food in the world every afternoon at Talat San Pak Hoi."

We like to say to our Thai friends, "Phratet Thai mai mee farang man kan suan sat mai mee ling." "Thailand without farangs would be like a zoo without monkeys." Almost always gets a laugh

best, ~o:37;

Excellent post orang37!

[elektrified]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply,

There are, of course, many variations on the expat theme. I live in a mooban where I know there is a white man in every house, but only ever see the same 1 or 2. The rest are all locked away with air-con running 24/7. I do call round to see one particular person, he will accept visitors but absolutely refuses to leave his air-con. You are quite correct in that his wife can get him to drive his air-con car to a air-con shopping mall, where he can walk round with her, hand in hand. Where you have specified these as a separate type, I consider them type 2).

I did completely miss the golf/gym/cycling crowd, my bad, I don't, so I don't encounter many of this sort and I completely forgot about them. I shall add a 3) Overactive health/exercise.

I don't really fit into any category, being newly married, and with a wife who really, really wants a baby, I don't get much of a chance to do anything ..... I might just be able to squeeze into my new type 3) expat definition. I would be willing to bet money that 75% of expats fall into type 1) or 2) though.

I don't write anything about expat females, as I have met so few.

You see the world in a very odd way. Perhaps get out more.

[Blinky Bill]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply,

There are, of course, many variations on the expat theme. I live in a mooban where I know there is a white man in every house, but only ever see the same 1 or 2. The rest are all locked away with air-con running 24/7. I do call round to see one particular person, he will accept visitors but absolutely refuses to leave his air-con. You are quite correct in that his wife can get him to drive his air-con car to a air-con shopping mall, where he can walk round with her, hand in hand. Where you have specified these as a separate type, I consider them type 2).

I did completely miss the golf/gym/cycling crowd, my bad, I don't, so I don't encounter many of this sort and I completely forgot about them. I shall add a 3) Overactive health/exercise.

I don't really fit into any category, being newly married, and with a wife who really, really wants a baby, I don't get much of a chance to do anything ..... I might just be able to squeeze into my new type 3) expat definition. I would be willing to bet money that 75% of expats fall into type 1) or 2) though.

I don't write anything about expat females, as I have met so few.

You see the world in a very odd way. Perhaps get out more.

Couldn't agree more. He also fails to see the large expat community that actually work here in real jobs. What a narrow point of view.

There are numerous large businesses and factories in the Lamphun Industrial Estate amoungst other areas, employing large numbers of expatriates, ie. the tobacco industry, in the 1980's and 1990's there were more than 60 foreign employees many of whom had their expat wives and children with them, the numbers are less nowadays but nonetheless many are still here with their family. This is just 1 industry, there are many others in the area and of course there are other successful businessmen/woman doing there thing on an individual basis. There are NGO's and Diplomatic staff as well to mention a few.

sb, open your eyes.

[CMX]

I think that SB may live in an atypical moobaan. Also, he is doubtless at a stage in life where action seems to be the stuff of life. If I were newly married and living in his region and worked and drove a motorcycle, I might not identify entirely with retirement activities, deliberation, contemplation, voluntary study, Payap's musical concerts (and others), special film showings twice a week, or know much about associations of writers or photographers or cyclists or hikers or the postings of orang.

I do.

But on the other hand, there are certainly a lot of wasted farang guys here, this way and that. As to percents, who is to say? Any survey here on ThVi (can't bring myself to write TV) will only give us an idea of who answers surveys on ThVi.

Orang raises a particularly relevant issue, rarely discussed here, in that, within the retirement community, there may well be a lot of heavy thinking regarding the grim reaper. The guy with the scythe. Doesn't care who you are, just comes along and cuts you right down. Might be slow or might be unexpected and all at once. Grim. Personally, I never think of it, but I have seen a number of farang of "senior" age who don't seem awfully happy, inside. Still, some of us may meditate, practice some school of Buddhism. We won't show up a lot in the bars.

My theory is - as said above - that we make of life what we make of it, circumstances permitting. Here, since it is (financially, at least) permitting, it is sad to see so much sadness. But I would bet too - that if we all were picked up and plunked down in another place, everything being akin, that we'd go on as we are, taking advantage or turning away, as we do now.

Anyone remember "The Blind Men and the Elephant?"

Edited August 30, 2010 by CMX