Memories, Again

The past is not something I wish to toss aside. And yet so much disappears after it has been experienced (even just moments after).

What has the city of S.F. done to the way I can remember past times? Surely it has isolated me from so many people who would remind me of different social pasts. And it has brought some social pasts to my attention as well.

Maybe I should be reading Proust or something - sometimes I just yearn so much for my past. But another's fiction would not satisfy my own yearnings. Nor would mutual understanding be able to bring those places and people back.

Another example of the world traveler's challenges: after having traveled far and to many places, he or she must then confront the utter nonexistence of those places and people in his or her present life. For once they may have given great meaning to everyday life, and now they cannot do so in the same way.

The Eyes and the Mind

Things continue to flow and change. And the philosophy of my late grandpa, "let it come, let it go, let it flow."

The Bioneers conference, as well as sleeping under California Bays for two nights in a row, was very refreshing.

I haven't taken photos for a while... and I've been remembering just how much the use of a camera can direct my attention away from the mundane, normalizing aspects of life, and toward other various things. There is something about capturing a small portion of the world and being able to view and think about that small portion for as long as you wish....

I've been seeing a lot of old friends recently, and there are more coming... This weekend I was so lucky to see Amber, Nicole, and Lillian. Heartie also showed SF a surprise visit. And soon, Aaron will visit the city. Reconnecting with these people feels so good.

Last night Slaven and I went out to Alamo square with my guitar and played some tunes. We played some Silver Jews, some pseudo Smog, as well as some Elliott Smith and Beatles. We rocked.

Also seeing a healthy dose of the family (both extended and immediate).

Silence has a voice.

It's been a long time since I have spoken with you, dear reader. I've been silent, but silence also has a voice, right?

It's about being a homo sapiens sapiens, a human being. These days I have been evolving and hence do not wish to write myself down as I evolve for fear of pinning my own evolution down.

But here I've found myself, entering a new phase, a phase which I could never have imagined and still cannot imagine.

Tomorrow I will start training to become a phone counselor. I will learn to talk to, and give support to, HIV positive, AIDS, and hepatitis C victims. It is a once a week thing, but I have a feeling that it will have a much greater effect on me than I could possibly imagine.

I also participated in politics today. I supported Angelides for Governor in a rally in front of city hall.

So what's new? Everything, and it will continue to be.

Life is new, at every moment. And now I am feeling it a little more.

Lower Haight

I've found myself in one of the hippest, nicest neighborhoods in the city. And because of some of the best luck in the world, I found myself paying 415 plus utilities to live in an amazingly nice flat with four very interesting young professionals/artists.

The house is on Oak and Fillmore, just a couple of blocks away from Haight Street (of Haight Ashbury 1960s fame, where the original Gap was), Hayes Valley, Union Square (with the string of Victorians made famous by 'Full House'), and a view of the city's capital dome which is reminiscent of Paris (one could say).

Still, poverty of some sort is almost ever-present. Homeless roam the streets begging here and there. Some stay put in one place for hours on end. Then just some blocks away are housing projects - some of the nicer ones I have seen.

As with every city there are lots of people, the individual multiplied. But in American cities it is really just that - many individuals everywhere, each vying for their own separate way. In Japan, for example, there was much more of a communal feel, as if the people all agreed on what the city, and the life therein, was all about. Here, on the other hand, there is the sort of chaotic energy produced by the diversity. It means that the cultural landscape is much broader, and yet one must be sensitive to an array of cultural norms rather than just one.

With all the mixtures of values in the city, what happens to the individual's socially-based values? Does one learn to accept more diversity or less? Does one tend to accept the contingencies of his or her own moral and ethical beliefs?

You could look at S.F. as a model of globalization. There are many challenges to enacting social equality: the individuals' hard-headedness and inability to step out of his or her own culture and personal habits, the difficulty of getting the city's government to take care of its people in many of the neighborhoods (Bayview for example). And then there is the tragedy of the commons (which sometimes seems to be exacerbated by both the illumination of contingency and the disrespect for other cultures that can occur from time to time).... Luckily, there are many factors working in quite the opposite direction. Cultures seem to be fusing as people inter-marry and cultural knowledge equalizes and spreads. Then there is the huge amount of positive energy derived from times when people from different backgrounds can be good to each other - and that happens all the time around here, fortunately. So not to lose hope mi amigos!

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Today and Yesterday blue fighter jets stormed above the houses of our little neighborhood. They made the walls shake. Here is a photo of one of my roommates in her goregeous room (mine is much smaller, but that doesn't bother me).

Domesticated

do‧mes‧ti‧cate  [duh-mes-ti-keyt] verb, -cat‧ed, -cat‧ing.
–verb (used with object)
1. to convert (animals, plants, etc.) to domestic uses; tame.
2. to tame (an animal), esp. by generations of breeding, to live in close association with human beings as a pet or work animal and usually creating a dependency so that the animal loses its ability to live in the wild.
3. to adapt (a plant) so as to be cultivated by and beneficial to human beings.
4. to accustom to household life or affairs.
5. to take (something foreign, unfamiliar, etc.) for one's own use or purposes; adopt.
6. to make more ordinary, familiar, acceptable, or the like: to domesticate radical ideas.


In the last five years I've noticed some interesting trends in living. I am much more accustomed to spending a lot of time indoors. I am in love with sleep, and now with my new futon. I am content searching the web for hours, sometimes shopping, sometimes chatting or emailing, sometimes writing, etc.

Of course there is something missing: the outdoors, the soil, the trees, the wind. In Claremont, California I found myself in a highly indoorsy environment, but yet there was incredibly easy access to the great outdoors: Baldy was twenty minutes drive away, the organic farm about 10 minutes walk away, the foothills a ten minute drive.

But what is this about getting more comfortable with the life indoors? Have I become domesticated? Have I lost my ability to live in the wild?

There is an interesting way that our society domesticates us (often without us knowing it). Without going too much into the basics: the fact that most Americans grow up in a house or apartment, that schools keep us indoors at least half of the day, etc... Let's talk about how colleges get people used to living among each other, get us into debt so that we have to obey (and so that we are unable to simply escape), and so on....

Living in the city now makes me see this all more clearly. Monthly bills, expensive purchases (or just food), and other pressures like huge parking tickets, health insurance and bills, etc....

The system sucks you into the whirlpool and once you're in it's very hard to get out.... Not that you'll want to get out; most likely you will find it very hard to cope elsewhere because you have gotten used to the ways of the city.

Going back to the land, going camping, doesn't that just pull us back toward the domesticated life even more? Living in the countryside surely is no way to avoid domestication (I learned that last year in Ubuyama).

So what is the answer my friends? Is domestication something that is avoidable? If so, is there good reason to avoid it? I know that you will answer so kindly by saying that a 'balance' should be found, but what an easy escape from the question. Perhaps I am trapped here, albeit comfortably enough.