This place doesn’t care about us. This city that I was born and raised in. This place called Winnipeg.

It’s not just the city officials who keep making decision based on which developers promise the most generic ideas, or the lack of decent public transit/needing a car to go literally everywhere or the garbage provincial government overtop of the junk we’re already got to deal with…

There’s all that to deal with, and more, for sure. But in addition to all that is just the barf attitude that most of the people here seem to have. It’s a weird combination of being defeated and being indignant. The idea that everything sucks and won’t ever get better so there’s no point in even trying; alongside the idea that if anyone complains seriously or tries to fix things, that they are betraying you and you love this city. That they are simultaneously dumb for caring, misguided by trying to fix things because they’re fine and how dare they.

I saw a post online the other day about NIMBYs and it seems to sum up things pretty well. I’m paraphrasing but it was something like, “If something’s not 100% good it must be 100% bad, so we’ll do nothing.” (Tweets are protected so I can’t see it but the original post is here if you’re interested.)

This is why we can’t have nice things. Well, it’s a part of why. The rest is tied up in everyone working way too much and focusing on basic survival. It kind of helps if we could all have a few moments to focus on making the place we live, a better place to live. Rather than us stuck in a loop of being constantly upset at each other.

Enlightenment is an odd thing. It often starts slowly and then rushes into your head all at once. I’ve always felt a weird indescribable way about our city but now I think I truly understand. I love this place and the potential it still has but that’s really all it has.

Always.

Potential.