The City

Santa Barbara is the California we are told exists as a kid. Super wealthy playground of the rich and famous. There is warm weather, surfing, powdery beaches, and beautiful people. This is not San Francisco. There are homeless here but its different than the market street doods who get in your face. No, the homeless here exist behind the scene. The first thing you notice is its warm. The second thing you notice is the mountains followed by the beach. Everyone I talk to says this isn’t a place you would want to live any long period of time. I get that it’s expensive but why wouldn’t I want to live here? I went to an expensive pretentious coffee shop disguised as a normal average local hang out. I paid the 9 bucks for a glass of lemonade that could have been premix and a regular 8oz cup of coffee. It was great, but its all part of the lie. You think you’re getting added value, but the real added value is that everyone has bought into the fact that its added value.

Greyhouse in Lafayette Indiana makes better food, has better service, has free wireless, great design, more seating, live music, and above all else; equal or better coffee. Why is it not a household name? Because people don’t work 50 weeks of the year to fly into West Lafayette to hang for a week and romanticize the cup of coffee they shared with their lover like they do in here.

But the need for mountains, and salty ocean air is a real human need. Why. Why are we drawn to them. I feel like its the unknowable vastness of them both. That we crave to stand on the mountain top, look down and feel important. I feel like it is the secrets hidden in the ocean that draw us to them. However, I promise there are oceans of secrets to the corn fields, woods, valleys, and glens hidden in the midwest.

Man, Santa Barbara is not San Francisco, they left their surf boards on the roof of the car overnight in SB. In SF you’d be lucky if the car is still there in the morning. As I ran today, people smiled, and waved. A notion I forgot about. A principal only found living somewhere people are first innocent until proven guilty. Its a defense mechanism. No one wants to be taken as a sap, if you’re kind in the city, more often than not your a sucker.

I sat with kids who are in the act of graduating from Westmont. They have their whole lives ahead of them. Brilliant. They name dropped the places they’ve been and the places their going. They are too young to know that it doesn’t matter and no one cares. Everyday I’m faced with action trumps everything. Push farther, harder, longer.

We sat in the CEO’s house of a tech company, and we talked shop, and he mentioned manufacturers in China who are hustling in the wee hours of the night. They leverage whatever they can to reach whomever they can as long as they can. Its brilliant and terrifying. What am I pushing towards. How can I push towards something. God bless my folks, but they taught be how to protect myself from failure by instilling a fear of it in me.

But today was a good day. I told the boys in the car that it is scary how depressed smoking made me. Really it gave me suicidal thoughts. However running has the exact opposite effect. I ran six today and I feel alive and ready to go. I’m going to punch the world in the mouth. I’ve been running, I’ve been blogging, I’ve been asking for help with jobs. Everything is pushing me. Lord fill me with drive and desire every day.

I’m going to eat tacos and hang out with people who are full of optimism, love, and drive. Hope your life is so sweet.