No excitement. No edge.

I just read this quote by Rian Malan, the South African journalist and author, who once made a spiky defence of Johannesburg in a British newspaper (as quoted in The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/15/sterkfontein-caves-south-africa)

"Foreigners think we are nuts, coming back to a doomed city on a damned continent, but there is something you do not understand: it is boring where you are.

"You will probably live longer than us and acquire more possessions, but there is no ferment in your societies, no excitement, no edge. Your newspapers are bland and your politics are inconsequential, so many storms in teacups."

I think there's a lot of truth behind these words that goes hand-in-hand with the proverb:

"it's better to live one day as a tiger than a thousand as a sheep."