Many older cultures have an oral tradition, a history passed down by word of mouth and storytelling. With each retelling, the story changes, until it becomes myth and legend. America, though, was born to a different time. Its is a visual tradition, where nothing happens without leaving a mark, preferably a big one. This history doesn't change in each generation so much as magnify and multiply, monuments upon monuments, until the founding fathers were God's chosen messengers, sent down from Mount Vernon with amendments on graven tablets. America is a country telling its own story, and when that story reaches its own retelling the storyteller just keeps going, but louder.
In many countries, being involved in politics feels optional, incidental. Here it's something fundamental, not just to the operation of the country but to the nature of being American itself. The two-party system is easy to blame on the electoral system, but it feels deeper than that. This country is red vs blue, pickups vs hybrids, fear vs arrogance. Standing in the middle of the crowd, listening to the screams and cheers as their gladiators throw one-liners, you get the sense of a national scar. A wound formed long ago that never really healed, and perhaps never will.
In many ways, New York feels like a New York-themed theme park. There's a sense of performance here: this is New York, we're New Yorkers and we act like it. A lot of the city is the way it is for no other reason than that's what people expect to see. You might think that would feel shallow or false – I mean, everyone's just putting on a show, it's not real. But the performance doesn't stop being real just because you know it's a performance. In fact, once you see behind the curtain, you realise that you're part of the show too. When you get down to it, every human space is a shared illusion. It's just that this one is self-aware.
The metric system is obviously superior, and some day, though it may not be soon, wibbly wobbly American units will be finally condemned to the obscurity they deserve. Obligatory tipping makes no sense. American coffee is a vaguely coffee-inspired sludge. It's easy to find aspects of another culture to criticise, but there are also things to learn. Driving on the right makes more sense, the food here is amazing, and the attention to public spaces and public architecture puts my country to shame. Fortunately, you can choose which parts you take home with you and which you discard, and by doing so you build your own culture. A place like this gives you a glimpse of what the future could hold, when the world draws close enough that everyone can choose from everything, one giant culture with all the best parts of each. A global melting pot.
The funny thing about America is that in many ways it's not that different from anywhere else, it's just that there's more of everything. A big country means a big population means big cities. When a place gets big enough, dense enough, you start being able to take a lot for granted. You don't have to find somewhere to eat, you just walk and something will present itself. You don't have to plan to do things, you just go to the place where things are and they will, inevitably, happen. There's something quite comforting about this, about surrendering the large to focus on the small. Just seize the opportunities in front of you, and the city will provide the rest.