There’s an alchemy to what meaningful memories are made of.
Impactful people are certainly part of that equation. Unique settings and experiences too. The human mind seems to etch most deeply the volatile times. Vividly. The rollercoaster ride of emotions. Some chase those euphoria highs more than others. To have them is to accept the equal and the opposite. Dysphoria - its unyielding companion.
The stoics propose temperance of both: neither get too carried away with the highs nor get too unhappy by the lows. The rational mind agrees. Yet the irrational mind is usually in control. The lizard brain wants to soar like the eagle, funnily enough (wrong species mate). Even bearing in mind all the inevitable pitfalls that undoubtedly ensue. Perhaps there is some vestige of the expectation that reptilian regeneration is possible. That whatever ills, real or perceived, that are experienced will be alleviated. The product of autotomy: self-amputation of a part of ourselves enabling us to carry on (more or less) intact otherwise.
Spending time in San Francisco, home of the Hippy Generation, and Los Angeles, the city of angels, shone a light on this sensation. This tale of two cities is also a tale of highs and lows.
The SFMoma museum of contemporary art houses breathtaking pieces, and is shepherded by the kindest of souls. The symbolism of Diego Rivera’s Flower Carrier sticks out pellucidly, invoking empathy at one burden of beauty being the weight of expectations that beholders place on the beholden. So too does the Broad where a Yayoi Kusama installation Longing For Eternity invoked a sense that patterns, behaviours, motifs and proclivities around us: they all repeat, this is nature, expect otherwise and you might be longing for eternity.
Seeing and hearing Bryce Vine live put paid to the idea that modern day philosophers are to be found in innumerable enclaves of the cultural zeitgeist. The modern day American Dream isn’t amorphous, undefined, and not so universally experienced, understood, or desired. There is a disillusionment with reality that becomes apparent in the normalisation of escapism, narcissism, and avarice. Perhaps not reality per se but “the pursuit of happiness” seems to have been supplanted by the pursuit of pleasures in an age of overabundance.
Contrast that with the ethos of the oldest bar in San Fran, the saloon. The epitome of self expression. Liberation in ideals and musicality. A conflagration of characters, young and old - meek and unreserved. This is a place where the art of imagination prospers, dancing is reflex, and libations flow easily as conversation. A legendary blues bar, how majestic that theme (the blues) was also a central pillar of a Papa release this month too: fed up.
The homelessness is on a scale unlike any I've seen in the developed world. Rows of tents, on the streets and in the parks. Weapons carried for self defence. Not against the tyrannical government that the founding fathers imagined possible, but against the products of unheard of levels of inequality. Against each other. Methamphetamine, adderall, vicodin, xanax, zoloft, advil - all ingested with alarming frequency by the wider populace. In reaction to what? A comedy show at the Hollywood improv gave some clues as to the answers. Andre Kelley poking at a (too) slowly evolving acceptance of diversity in race and sexuality; Eleanor Kerrigan flipping the script on entrenched stereotypes around femininity, sexism, and health; or Ian Bagg who just DGAF. My G.
