The City & Chance

London looks so beautiful from above. I’ve flown over this city dozens of times now, but I still can’t keep my eyes from the window. Especially at night, with all the lights forming the contours of the Thames. Walking down there in the streets it sometimes feels different. Sometimes it’s hard to see the beauty in the daily chaos of city life.

Homeless people sleeping on the stairs of underground stations, mothers pushing their strollers into wall-to-wall filled train cars. People are getting high at 7am in the park you walk through to get to work in the morning.

The city robs people of their identities. In a crowd everyone is equal and unimportant. The man sitting across from you in the tube might see that you notice him picking his nose, but he won’t care because he knows you will never see him again.

Our plane flies over the sea towards a line of lights on the horizon.

There’s something beautiful about that anonymity as well. You don’t have to keep up appearances. You don’t have to hide who you truly are. You can go wherever you want and do whatever you wish to do. No need to fear running into family or friends, one-in-hundred-thousand chance that happens.

Hundreds of thousands of new people to meet. One-in-ten-thousand chance you’ll like any of them. One-in-three-million chance you’ll become life long friends.

We’re landing in Amsterdam. Let’s turn around.

So many chances.