The Habit of Looking at Home

My hometown, ChicagoDe Botton’s chapter “On Habit” got me thinking about my hometown of Chicago. I’ve lived there my whole life and clearly fall under De Botton’s category of usualness—that I have become so accustomed to Chicago I am rarely amused. Though the same is not true for New York (I always seemed thrilled and adventurous here), it is for Prague. Perhaps certain cities people live in can remain impressive where as others don't. My sister, for example, has lived in London for the past five years and still loves it, finding new places to hang out and is constantly excited by her residential neighborhood. But I have lived in Prague for a fraction of this time and I do not share this excitement. The initial flame has gone down. When I walk into Old Town Square, I am still moved by the aesthetic beauty, but it’s a different feeling than what I had previously experienced. I used to just stand for 10 minutes at a time, floored at how cool the Church of our Lady Tyn was, but now I walk past it in a hurry to avoid the seemingly Time Square crowd. This is not to say that Prague becomes un-impressive over time, but I have reached a point of subconsciously submitting myself to not look at it as a new place because I am used to it. It’s important, as De Botton points out “to notice what we have already seen” because if we don’t, we become bored and ill thrilled in the place we reside. Though De Botton just states this truth that Xavier de Maistre emphasizes, the idea seems forceful. How do you make yourself excited by a place when interest becomes peripheral? To make or force this upon yourself seems a difficult task. Arrival for me is the essence of excitement. The first time you see a place is arguably the best. But how do you reignite that interest when you’ve seen something so many times?