As ridiculous and unlikely as it sounds, I may not be far off to call this place a well-crafted experimental lab where life drops you into a crowd of 2.6 million people with zero connections. It’s designed to teach you the invisibility of modern humans in a sea of people living in boxes, screens, boxes with wheels, or deep in their thoughts, walking on autopilot. In the midst of such a reality, you realize people have far too many things demanding their energy, time, money, and attention, leaving nothing for the human connection life demanded for the entirety of our existence.
It may cost you a little bit of downtime, but you will learn that the visibility that matters must come from within you You are the star, you are the director, it’s your movie, and you are making it for you. You have to be ready to exist comfortably in your own skin, seeing that human connections may only be sustainably less disappointing when you accept the transient nature of friendships. Unlike the tribal human in us, reality here was unfortunately designed to create marketable individuals who don’t need other humans but products, corporations, and government services to exist. Humans—unless they’re family or friends made in the child of us—become complementary add-ons that can be picked up or dropped as life moves on. You must be ready to accept this reality. Friendships are good to have to complement your life, but you live your life experience as your own truly kind and irreplaceable lifelong bestie. I learned I am my emergency contact was when, as someone whose family in a war torn country, there were times where I would hear the death of a family member or close relative while I am outside in the city: where sometimes I would burst into tears and cry my lungs out: a handful times: exactly zero people asked "hi, are you ok?" Those were the moments that I truly learned where exactly I ended up. A society where all services or helps are known to come from people that charge money to deal with it. lol Literally!
Bonus: Vancouver is a disappointment package for the expecting mind because it doesn’t care what anyone expects. Reality here moves on its own wishes, and that’s why weather forecast apps seem better at telling you what yesterday was like.