The ruins of Brampton.

I went for a walk once around my neighbourhood. I passed the lake behind our house and went into a maze of roads. This area was unknown to me so I thought it made for a great adventure. How wrong I was. This was suburbia, at it's worst. It was a labyrinth of houses. Every direction I turned there was a house; pink or brown bricks, with flat facets. They all looked the same. I was suffocated by them. But I kept walking, taking random turns, hoping I can find at least a leaf out of place in this concrete jungle. This reminds me of a Mayan civilization. An outcrop of stone in what was once a forest. I'd think that in a few hundred years, if our civilization becomes extinct, someone will stumble upon this site. This neighbourhood will be a remnant of our lives. As if all this concrete and brick will outlive the flesh and blood of those that lived here. Living, is that what they do here? Because I didn't see a single life in my walk. Just the bricks. I looked at these houses and saw how big they were, how large their lawns were, how they have big porches. What do they use these lawns for? Do they even sit out on their porches? Do they even take notice of their houses, spending so much of their lives indoors?

I thought about this and then how my parents do the exact same thing. This says a lot about their philosophy. They once said, "How can we accept her into our family? She has a different culture, a different religion. How will we communicate with her parents when they see us? What will we talk about?" I think about this statement and how revealing it is of their mentality. It is not about the ninety-nine percent of the time which I will be spending with her, but that one percent of time when they will have the inconvenience of meeting the inlaws. These houses are a physical manifestation of that philosophy. It's not about the ninety-nine percent of the living they will be doing inside the house, but it is about that one-percent of time when their relatives come over and they'll have the fortune of boasting the size of their porch. Hm.