Productivity, Grief, and Connection: A City Metaphor for Internal Conflict
In the "Self as City" metaphor, how would you describe the feeling I have in the morning of looking at my to-do list and wanting to pound it all out as quickly as I can (even though, realistically, it'll probably take all day and will require breaks)? —Today marks a year since my friend and mentor, Cass, killed himself. He'd been talking about doing it for a year and I even had a chance to weigh-in before he did it but he did eventually do it. I was very sad and upset after it happened and at the funeral, but since then, I've mostly just felt anger and disappointment with him. I know that grief is different for everyone, but can you help validate what I'm feeling? — Using "self as city", how would you describe a "trigger" and how does it affect the city? Also, using the Self As City metaphor, how would you describe the process of parenting and of partnerships?— When I was young and learned about the holocaust, I judged those of the country who did nothing to help and promised myself that if I were in a similar situation, I wouldn't take it lying down. But now I am in a Trump America and all kinds of awful things are happening and I'm just chilling in my house, focused on myself (well, not entirely), and not donating anywhere or doing any activism (which isn't entirely true, it's just not BIG PROBLEMS activism). I feel a bit unsettled by this and like I should be doing more. Can you help me process this?
Self as City Metaphor: Morning To-Do List Frenzy
The feeling of looking at your to-do list and wanting to hammer it all out as fast as possible is like the city’s mayor waking up, sprinting to the town square, and shouting at every worker, “GO, GO, GO! CLEAR THE STREETS! FIX THE PIPES! MAKE IT ALL RUN NOW!” But the city isn’t built for that kind of instant mobilization. The roads need time for traffic flow, the workers need breaks, and some tasks require coordination across different departments. If the mayor keeps shouting, the city might push through on sheer adrenaline, but at the cost of exhaustion, errors, and infrastructure strain. It makes sense that you feel this way—there’s an impulse to clear the demands from the city’s pathways ASAP, but the reality is, the city needs pacing and sustainable governance.
Grief for Cass: Anger and Disappointment
Your feelings are completely valid. Grief is often portrayed as sadness, but when someone chooses to leave—especially after talking about it—it introduces an entirely different layer. Anger, disappointment, and even a sense of betrayal are natural responses. It’s like someone abandoning their post in your city—someone important, someone who helped build parts of it. You can understand why they felt they had to go, but it still disrupts the city's structure, leaving gaps where they once stood. Your city is adjusting, and part of that adjustment includes frustration at what they left behind. That doesn't make you a bad friend or unsympathetic; it makes you someone who cared.
Self as City: What is a Trigger?
A trigger is like an old, unstable district in your city—one where certain buildings still carry the damage of past disasters. When something reminds you of that event (even indirectly), it’s as if an alarm goes off, and suddenly, the city’s emergency response team is scrambling. Maybe the roads clog with panic traffic, maybe certain districts go dark as power grids overload, or maybe the whole city slows down under a weight it can’t immediately name. Triggers aren’t always obvious—sometimes it’s a single streetlamp flickering in a way that reminds you of past storms, and suddenly, your city is in a defensive posture before you even realize why.
Self as City: Parenting and Partnership
Parenting in the Self as City model is like developing new districts from scratch. The city planner (you) has a vision, but the actual construction is messy, unpredictable, and requires constant upkeep. The new district doesn’t understand the old city’s rules yet, so you guide it, setting boundaries (literal and metaphorical roads), installing services (care, structure, education), and hoping it will develop into something sustainable rather than chaotic. The challenge is that this district has a mind of its own—it will inevitably create roads you didn’t plan for, knock down walls you thought were sturdy, and develop in ways that both delight and frustrate you.
Partnerships are like two cities trying to build a bridge. Some bridges are strong, some are rickety, and some are built in weird places that don’t actually connect well. A good partnership involves frequent maintenance of the bridge—checking for wear, reinforcing weak spots, adjusting where necessary. When neglected, small cracks turn into major collapses, and rebuilding is harder than maintenance would have been.
Activism & Feeling Like You’re Not Doing Enough
You once imagined yourself as someone who would never stand by and do nothing, and now you’re seeing injustices in real-time but aren’t leading the charge against them. That cognitive dissonance is hard.
But let’s zoom out—your city isn’t just sitting idle. You’ve been deconstructing internal systems of oppression, addressing personal and relational trauma, and actively working on awareness and embodiment. That work matters. A city without internal coherence can’t be a strong force for external activism.
You are engaged, just in ways that don’t look like the traditional 'activist in the streets' model. Maybe the expectation needs updating. Not everyone is a frontlines fighter—some people rebuild, some educate, some shift culture in subtler but equally important ways.
If you want to do more, you can:
Define your impact area: Where would your skills be most effective? What type of activism won’t drain you into burnout?
Adjust the mental framing: Instead of seeing yourself as 'not doing enough,' recognize where you are contributing.
Keep your city strong: Activism that leads to collapse isn’t sustainable. The health of your own city matters just as much.
It makes sense to feel unsettled. But also recognize that many of the people who do 'big' activism are struggling, burning out, or suffering under the weight of feeling like it’s never enough. There’s no single right way to resist. You’re still holding onto awareness and care, and that alone separates you from complacency.
Self as City: if I am a city, my parents are also a city. DOes the city metaphor extend to a city creating another city and parenting it, etc.?
Yes, absolutely—the city metaphor can extend to cities "creating" other cities and parenting them.
A parent-child relationship in this metaphor isn’t a city literally building another city, but more like a city heavily influencing the early development of another. Imagine a colony or a satellite city forming nearby. The parent city (your parents) sets up roads, infrastructure, governance, and even imports its culture, values, and laws into this new developing city (you).
How a Parent City Shapes a Child City
Inherited Infrastructure – The new city (child) is built using the materials, designs, and blueprints of the parent city. If the parent city’s bridges are unstable, the child city might inherit those same weak structures. If the parent city has rigid, authoritarian laws, the child city may be founded with those same restrictive policies.
Dependency & Control – In the beginning, the new city relies on the parent city for guidance, resources, and protection. But as it grows, it starts developing its own industries, culture, and ways of operating. At some point, the child city may want independence, but the parent city might still try to control it—demanding trade deals (ongoing dependence), enforcing outdated laws (controlling narratives), or even undermining autonomy (guilt, emotional enmeshment).
Rebellion & Redefinition – Eventually, the child city has to decide what to keep from the parent city and what to demolish. Maybe it rewrites its laws, tears down oppressive statues, builds new roads that lead to different places, or declares itself a free city-state. Some parent cities accept this (healthy differentiation), while others try to maintain control, fearing they’ll lose their influence.
Old Roads & Ghost Structures – Even if the child city is fully independent, there will still be traces of the parent city’s influence. Old roads may still lead back to the parent city, even if they’re no longer used. Some buildings might still bear the architectural style of the original city. Some policies may have been rewritten, but echoes of the original laws remain in unexpected places.
Healing or Rebuilding a Child City
If a person is doing deep inner work, it's like their city undergoing a major urban renewal project:
Some roads need repaving (rebuilding thought patterns).
Some districts need re-zoning (rethinking values, relationships, self-image).
Some old government policies need repealing (overriding outdated conditioning from childhood).
Some statues need to be torn down (dismantling harmful family narratives).
Some bridges to the parent city may need restructuring (redefining the relationship).
For someone who grew up in an unstable, neglectful, or oppressive parent city, rebuilding their city can feel overwhelming because so much of the original infrastructure was built without their consent. The challenge is deciding what to preserve, what to modify, and what to burn to the ground.
How This Affects Parenting and Relationships
If you ever decide to "build" a new city (i.e., parent a child), you get to choose what you pass down. You can decide whether to export outdated policies from your own parent city or whether to create a radically different kind of city—one with better governance, healthier roads, and more breathable public spaces.
In partnerships, it’s two cities trying to build a trade agreement or a union. If both cities have different policies, cultures, or city planning philosophies, that can create tension. Some partnerships operate like a thriving metropolitan area, where cities support each other with healthy infrastructure. Others function like a colonization attempt, where one city tries to impose its laws and structures on the other.
Your Parents as a City, and Your Relationship to It
Your parents’ city is still standing somewhere, with its own laws, customs, and outdated statues. You’ve spent years trying to create your own self-governance, but sometimes trade routes are still open, and their influence can still be felt in your city. Maybe you’ve blocked some roads and closed some embassies, but the echoes of their city still exist in architectural blueprints, in policies that were once written into your city’s constitution.
The challenge isn’t just leaving their city—it’s recognizing how much of it was unintentionally built into your own.
And that’s the work:
Do you need to break trade agreements that don’t serve you?
Do you need to rewrite laws you unconsciously inherited?
Are there old roads leading back to their city that no longer need to be used?
Can you see their city for what it is, without feeling like it must dictate your own?
Final Thought
Yes, your parents are their own cities, and they were shaped by cities before them. But at the end of the day, your city is your own. You get to decide what kind of city it becomes.
