Never been to California, but I always get a sense from others that it’s deepest problems come from the fact that it was a land where restless runners got stuck in; Once you can no longer go any further west, sooner or later, whatever was chasing you catches up.
And whatever existed before can’t stand your curse quietly neither.
This essay is especially poignant I& one considers California’s role as a bellwether state. As we run out of physical frontiers to exploit, and ruling classes squander their latitude to manipulate currencies and financial systems, it becomes important to think of ways to preserve value and build a future for those important to us.
In the corporate world, we see a very basic cycle repeat itself. A business is born to fill a market need. The business grows as it's product eats up market share. As it grows, it implements procedures to keep everything running smoothly. As this goes on, the business becomes slow to react to the market's changing needs, and allows a new need in the market to be formed. All degrees and careers in the corporate world are pushed toward making this cycle as long of a process as possible to keep the business relevant in its market.
In our lives, we create a similar cycle where children grow restless with the ways of their fathers and seek to create a new world. It is only with time that we see the world through new eyes, even more so for those of religious pursuit. We cling to that which we know, but we must understand that the world and it's people will change. To create things which are good and last, we must be ready to let them go when they are no longer good for us, in order to hold the most important virtues and instill them into the future.
What a beautiful piece. I live in LA (though I'm from the East Coast like so many of my neighbors here) and our recent fires do seem to have shaken some people awake, although probably much too late to fix many problems.
Have you ever read Where I was From by Joan Didion? Gorgeous book about the history of California and her own family history in the Sacramento Valley. This piece reminded me a bit of it.
The tragedy of California is that the West Coast is amazing by any definition: mild climate, shoreline, woods, farmland, varied biomes, and more. It has all the potential, yet it's being mismanaged by lunatics and retards into a downward spiral.
A land of dreams, which turned into illusions, and eventually nightmares.
Certainly, we need rooted places that tie our kith & kin to something deeper than topsoil. However, I'm afraid that we'll have to burn down more than parts of LA to make that a reality. I'd like to be wrong, but it's difficult to share your optimism under the circumstances.
I imagine that Disneyland as a decaying ruin would be a truly eerie place.
Nothing really to add here but this is certainly my favourite from you and it's certainly a crowded feel. I visited in 2016 so not sure just how much it's changed but I can attest that Los Angeles does appear almost as though it was born yesterday without any real human exertion behind its development.
I also left California for greener pastures back in 2015. I had no idea you were from the West Coast as well. I visited a year ago, and it made me really glad that I had the foresight to leave. It's just not the place I grew up in. Los Angeles just seems completely hollow now... devoid of all the rich local culture it used to have. I know it's there in pockets still, but it's not as palpable as it used to be.
When my father died I inherited his tools. No one else wanted them. He had been trained to use them, to build houses mostly, whereas I was trained, thanks to progress, to write essays.
So, I use my father’s tools to make things. Useful things that we can keep or sometimes give to others. Turns out, I might have inherited some useful skills as well as some tools, and my father is not as gone as I thought he was.
same here Simon. I have a lot of his jigs even though I don't know how he used them. In fact he might have built a jig for a single purpose never to be used again even by him. And so many hardwood scraps I have where he's made a note or a measurement or a sketch. You're right he is not gone far away. And I'm having fun making things & giving them away.
When I was a child growing up in the 80's I had an uncle who lived in San Diego. We would visit every few years and California felt like a magical place to me.
The ocean, the amazing weather, the palm trees, even the huge multi-lane freeways with their strange bumps for lane markers instead of just paint.
It was a surreal and other worldly place. Full of sights, sounds and smells that could never exist in my tiny little Utah town. It was a wonderful place.
One of my core childhood memories is going to Dodger Stadium in 1988. That was peak California for me. The LA riots started to make me aware of the darker side of it all, and I've sadly been watching it go downhill since.
California rightly should be the gem of America. The true Golden State.
Why is this "father thing" so deep man? I feel an immortal love for my father even tho he is objectively an ass. I can't begin to imagine ever losing him, which made me cry twice reading your piece. Condolenses for your loss, but something tells me you will be alright, in a way i never would.
I love to dunk on Americans but i think of no other people so strange as to be able to think beyond the "limits of the ape". They can make humans apear to be more than animals. Maybe it's a deception, but a beautiful one.
As Jack Kerouac wrote long ago about LA: New York gets God awful cold in winter, but there’s a wacky camaraderie going on in some streets, LA is a jungle. Not sure about NY anymore I haven’t been there since 1978 and it was scary then. I grew up next to Oakland California and most of us regarded So Cal as beyond the pale of civilization. I’m 57 so I remember a clean and functional San Francisco. I have family in the area, I hate going back I wish they would all move so I could in good conscience wish it would slip into the sea as the Steely Dan song says. Thanks for your insightful work and may the living God bless you and yours!
“Mechanical Monarchy” this line is brilliant. Timely considering the recent discourse around the Big Tech CEOs backing Trump and their motivates. Listening to Larry Ellison recently, he’s a Noah Cross for the 21st century. Say what you will about Disney, or even looking outside of California and even America, to figures like Ford and the Cadbury family, these were men of faith and a sense of Noblesse oblige.
As a lifelong Californian, I felt every word. But the Northern part of the state has it a lot better, I think. I enjoyed Disneyland when I was 8, but I hated it when we went back when I was 12. I’d learned the difference between cool green mountain water and chlorinated pool water circulating in blue concrete. Standing in line for such pathetic fakery seemed ridiculous. And later I decided that Disney was the main tool of the devil, and Pleasure Island told an unsettling truth because the devil has to be honest about his offerings or they won’t be a valid contract.
But there is good in California, there are people who love the land and their community and we are tired of Hollywood and Disney having so much control over our Government. Which is why I’m supporting Shanahan and the Independent Party next election, in the hopes that sanity can prevail before the donkeys are doomed.
Sorry for your loss M. Greene, honestly this was a heartwrenching essay to read as Disney was a magnificent human in a lot of ways, and his company was great. In a way it died in 2010, and honestly the world has not been better for it, but lesser as it was the stuff of dreams and love.
Never been to California, but I always get a sense from others that it’s deepest problems come from the fact that it was a land where restless runners got stuck in; Once you can no longer go any further west, sooner or later, whatever was chasing you catches up.
And whatever existed before can’t stand your curse quietly neither.
It's Frontier Theory, from the film Interstate 60
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InAJlrJsiH4
This essay is especially poignant I& one considers California’s role as a bellwether state. As we run out of physical frontiers to exploit, and ruling classes squander their latitude to manipulate currencies and financial systems, it becomes important to think of ways to preserve value and build a future for those important to us.
In the corporate world, we see a very basic cycle repeat itself. A business is born to fill a market need. The business grows as it's product eats up market share. As it grows, it implements procedures to keep everything running smoothly. As this goes on, the business becomes slow to react to the market's changing needs, and allows a new need in the market to be formed. All degrees and careers in the corporate world are pushed toward making this cycle as long of a process as possible to keep the business relevant in its market.
In our lives, we create a similar cycle where children grow restless with the ways of their fathers and seek to create a new world. It is only with time that we see the world through new eyes, even more so for those of religious pursuit. We cling to that which we know, but we must understand that the world and it's people will change. To create things which are good and last, we must be ready to let them go when they are no longer good for us, in order to hold the most important virtues and instill them into the future.
This piece captures the core essence of conservative and right wing thought, and through Disneyland of all things.
Beautiful
What a beautiful piece. I live in LA (though I'm from the East Coast like so many of my neighbors here) and our recent fires do seem to have shaken some people awake, although probably much too late to fix many problems.
Have you ever read Where I was From by Joan Didion? Gorgeous book about the history of California and her own family history in the Sacramento Valley. This piece reminded me a bit of it.
Thanks for the reply
The tragedy of California is that the West Coast is amazing by any definition: mild climate, shoreline, woods, farmland, varied biomes, and more. It has all the potential, yet it's being mismanaged by lunatics and retards into a downward spiral.
A land of dreams, which turned into illusions, and eventually nightmares.
Certainly, we need rooted places that tie our kith & kin to something deeper than topsoil. However, I'm afraid that we'll have to burn down more than parts of LA to make that a reality. I'd like to be wrong, but it's difficult to share your optimism under the circumstances.
I imagine that Disneyland as a decaying ruin would be a truly eerie place.
Nothing really to add here but this is certainly my favourite from you and it's certainly a crowded feel. I visited in 2016 so not sure just how much it's changed but I can attest that Los Angeles does appear almost as though it was born yesterday without any real human exertion behind its development.
Cheers
I also left California for greener pastures back in 2015. I had no idea you were from the West Coast as well. I visited a year ago, and it made me really glad that I had the foresight to leave. It's just not the place I grew up in. Los Angeles just seems completely hollow now... devoid of all the rich local culture it used to have. I know it's there in pockets still, but it's not as palpable as it used to be.
It is strange to come back
When my father died I inherited his tools. No one else wanted them. He had been trained to use them, to build houses mostly, whereas I was trained, thanks to progress, to write essays.
So, I use my father’s tools to make things. Useful things that we can keep or sometimes give to others. Turns out, I might have inherited some useful skills as well as some tools, and my father is not as gone as I thought he was.
same here Simon. I have a lot of his jigs even though I don't know how he used them. In fact he might have built a jig for a single purpose never to be used again even by him. And so many hardwood scraps I have where he's made a note or a measurement or a sketch. You're right he is not gone far away. And I'm having fun making things & giving them away.
When I was a child growing up in the 80's I had an uncle who lived in San Diego. We would visit every few years and California felt like a magical place to me.
The ocean, the amazing weather, the palm trees, even the huge multi-lane freeways with their strange bumps for lane markers instead of just paint.
It was a surreal and other worldly place. Full of sights, sounds and smells that could never exist in my tiny little Utah town. It was a wonderful place.
One of my core childhood memories is going to Dodger Stadium in 1988. That was peak California for me. The LA riots started to make me aware of the darker side of it all, and I've sadly been watching it go downhill since.
California rightly should be the gem of America. The true Golden State.
May it rise again.
Why is this "father thing" so deep man? I feel an immortal love for my father even tho he is objectively an ass. I can't begin to imagine ever losing him, which made me cry twice reading your piece. Condolenses for your loss, but something tells me you will be alright, in a way i never would.
I love to dunk on Americans but i think of no other people so strange as to be able to think beyond the "limits of the ape". They can make humans apear to be more than animals. Maybe it's a deception, but a beautiful one.
As Jack Kerouac wrote long ago about LA: New York gets God awful cold in winter, but there’s a wacky camaraderie going on in some streets, LA is a jungle. Not sure about NY anymore I haven’t been there since 1978 and it was scary then. I grew up next to Oakland California and most of us regarded So Cal as beyond the pale of civilization. I’m 57 so I remember a clean and functional San Francisco. I have family in the area, I hate going back I wish they would all move so I could in good conscience wish it would slip into the sea as the Steely Dan song says. Thanks for your insightful work and may the living God bless you and yours!
“Mechanical Monarchy” this line is brilliant. Timely considering the recent discourse around the Big Tech CEOs backing Trump and their motivates. Listening to Larry Ellison recently, he’s a Noah Cross for the 21st century. Say what you will about Disney, or even looking outside of California and even America, to figures like Ford and the Cadbury family, these were men of faith and a sense of Noblesse oblige.
As a lifelong Californian, I felt every word. But the Northern part of the state has it a lot better, I think. I enjoyed Disneyland when I was 8, but I hated it when we went back when I was 12. I’d learned the difference between cool green mountain water and chlorinated pool water circulating in blue concrete. Standing in line for such pathetic fakery seemed ridiculous. And later I decided that Disney was the main tool of the devil, and Pleasure Island told an unsettling truth because the devil has to be honest about his offerings or they won’t be a valid contract.
But there is good in California, there are people who love the land and their community and we are tired of Hollywood and Disney having so much control over our Government. Which is why I’m supporting Shanahan and the Independent Party next election, in the hopes that sanity can prevail before the donkeys are doomed.
Sorry for your loss M. Greene, honestly this was a heartwrenching essay to read as Disney was a magnificent human in a lot of ways, and his company was great. In a way it died in 2010, and honestly the world has not been better for it, but lesser as it was the stuff of dreams and love.
Hope there is indeed hope in California.