Interesting thoughts, and well written. Thanks for sharing!

I try to write a blog post or two about these themes, some time in the future when I feel like taking time for that. Currently so very busy with indie coding =)

For now I'll just reply shorty about the "silent structures" of urban life;

A while ago I visited Helsinki. Friends living there had just posted addresses "come here, see you there". OK, I could find the places; big buildings with many entrances, and all the doors locked. I had a feeling that for the city-dwelling people these things are obvious and self-evident, no need to spell them out in detailed instructions. And based on my earlier experience I could guess the range of possible alternatives - either I need to find a right door-bell to ring, or there is some device I can use to enter a pin code to unlock the door, or lacking any of those I just need to call a friend so that they can come down to open the door. (And I remember when I was younger, all this stuff was new to me and I felt more or less lost and perplexed, just simply trying to figure out how to enter a building in urban environment.)

I walked the streets of Helsinki together with a friend who also currently lives in rural environment. And we both reflected on how, when you have spent longer time in the less crowded countryside, and then come to visit a city, at first you pay a lot more attention to the other people. Constantly picking up random pieces of conversation of unknown people passing by, and such. But after a while your brain again adapts to it and you start to automatically ignore a lot of the irrelevant information.

This is one of the reasons why I avoid driving a car in a city. Here in the countryside, while driving I need to react to anything which moves, and to every animal or human being which I spot near the road. But in a city my brain gets bombarded with a constant stream of information; cars moving, people walking, lights flashing, and all of that needs to be filtered to pick up the meaningful signals and to ignore the rest. Since I have no routine for that, I quickly feel overwhelmed.

Some time ago I went to see DakhaBrakha, as they performed in Helsinki. The gig was great, so very good! I stayed at a friend's place, and the friend felt too exhausted to go to the concert, so I went alone. I took a tram to get to the venue. And after the concert when I was leaving back there were no other people at the tram stop, and I felt unsure how I'm supposed to behave - I think I've seen the local people behave as if they try to pay no attention to the approaching tram, and just board it when it stops. But does it stop automatically, or do I need to somehow signal that I wish to board, like it is with buses? Not a big problem, it was just funny to notice how my brain needs to do extra work to do something which is self evident for the urban folk.