I have lived in San Francisco since 2001. Prior to that I spent the first 21 years of my life in San Diego. San Diego is where I grew up, where I can say I somehow came to the place I am at today, and the reason I left to come to San Francisco. My mother's house is still there, the place was raised since I was born, but that structure is just another building i lived in, not my home. Home brings a much deeper meaning of immediate place, integration, and comfort, all of which can not be accurately described through language. San Francisco has never really felt quite like home either and I am not sure what it takes for me to finally feel as if any one location is, but recently something has changed.
I spent a few days in the beautiful Seattle area with Dustin, chilling out and scheming on various projects. I had a great time, and another short freak out, where I was willing to drop everything in SF, and move to Seattle to pursue a more 'pure' design binge (I do this quite a bit). Feeling refreshed with a new sense of perspective on where I am heading with my life, returning to San Francisco was a bit strange, hesitant but nice. For the first time, San Francisco felt like home. As I got off BART and chose to walk slightly more grime-y streets through the Tenderloin to my studio, something felt good about being back. I felt as if I had a sense of place here, that this was where I should be. But, I have not really been able to discover why or what has changed.
San Francisco is a city that both inspires and infuriates me. So many positive things with so many negatives, yet I still retain a strange connection. San Francisco is a mash-up of so many different things, and I think this may be part of what makes me feel at home. I tend to think it is something more along this route of looking at San Francisco as an entity of itself. The people within the city are something as a whole I do not connect with, but I also can not connect with the most of the people in this country. However, there is enough here that I can connect with and that tension between those two sides are one of the common things in everyones life.
Whether it be looking at our current state of affairs inside the USA (in relation to our current state of affairs outside the USA), or just looking at the suits that occupy the area in which I work, I am not able to grasp how these people live their lives. How they think and act seems so strangely foreign to me. I can not understand, in relation to my own thinking and acting, how they live the lifestyles they do. Whether it be necessary or not to need this connection or understanding I am not sure, but I would like to have my own understanding of others, and how to interact with them, which is part of communicating and thus my role as a designer. This inability to place myself into their shoes without looking with an intense amount of criticism is really only something that I experience in this country.
Outside of this country I am in constant awe and have respect of the people and how they live. How I try to explain this is, that within the USA the people by majority have quite a bit (read opportunity), and yet still retain a strong amount of ignorance. An example is the Iraq War, and the current president. Leading up, the majority believed, almost blindly, that the President was correct in his reasoning to go to war. Now there is still nearly 40 percent of the population that still believe he was correct, when countless inconsistencies have been revealed and no consequence to the his error. On another level, it is a contrast of the 'haves' versus the 'have-nots'. The people of this country, and others within the world, who live with little or nothing garner much more respect and admiration from myself. I feel a connection via that respect that I do not get from many people here in the USA, something similar to a sense of wisdom and understanding through struggle that I do not find as common here. While this is not just a monetary issue, many European countries reveal themselves to me as just being more open and intelligent in how they live. Not finding a connection inside the country I currently reside is a problem since my role as a designer is to communicate with those people. Outside the context of design, I am not too concerned with not identifying with a large majority of people around me. I wish I could, but realize it is inevitable that I can't on many levels. As long as I continue to be open to the possibility.
While as a whole it is difficult to find commonalities en mass, quality relationships are as result, impossible. These sprout up consistently, and while few seem to weather the temporal storm, I am happy to know a number of people through a variety of cities that help push me in a positive and wise direction. For these friendships I am extremely grateful. Without them I would be not be doing what I am doing today. I just hope that I can further see in people the qualities that are beneficial and keep them going.
Time to live more with heart.
I spent a few days in the beautiful Seattle area with Dustin, chilling out and scheming on various projects. I had a great time, and another short freak out, where I was willing to drop everything in SF, and move to Seattle to pursue a more 'pure' design binge (I do this quite a bit). Feeling refreshed with a new sense of perspective on where I am heading with my life, returning to San Francisco was a bit strange, hesitant but nice. For the first time, San Francisco felt like home. As I got off BART and chose to walk slightly more grime-y streets through the Tenderloin to my studio, something felt good about being back. I felt as if I had a sense of place here, that this was where I should be. But, I have not really been able to discover why or what has changed.
San Francisco is a city that both inspires and infuriates me. So many positive things with so many negatives, yet I still retain a strange connection. San Francisco is a mash-up of so many different things, and I think this may be part of what makes me feel at home. I tend to think it is something more along this route of looking at San Francisco as an entity of itself. The people within the city are something as a whole I do not connect with, but I also can not connect with the most of the people in this country. However, there is enough here that I can connect with and that tension between those two sides are one of the common things in everyones life.
Whether it be looking at our current state of affairs inside the USA (in relation to our current state of affairs outside the USA), or just looking at the suits that occupy the area in which I work, I am not able to grasp how these people live their lives. How they think and act seems so strangely foreign to me. I can not understand, in relation to my own thinking and acting, how they live the lifestyles they do. Whether it be necessary or not to need this connection or understanding I am not sure, but I would like to have my own understanding of others, and how to interact with them, which is part of communicating and thus my role as a designer. This inability to place myself into their shoes without looking with an intense amount of criticism is really only something that I experience in this country.
Outside of this country I am in constant awe and have respect of the people and how they live. How I try to explain this is, that within the USA the people by majority have quite a bit (read opportunity), and yet still retain a strong amount of ignorance. An example is the Iraq War, and the current president. Leading up, the majority believed, almost blindly, that the President was correct in his reasoning to go to war. Now there is still nearly 40 percent of the population that still believe he was correct, when countless inconsistencies have been revealed and no consequence to the his error. On another level, it is a contrast of the 'haves' versus the 'have-nots'. The people of this country, and others within the world, who live with little or nothing garner much more respect and admiration from myself. I feel a connection via that respect that I do not get from many people here in the USA, something similar to a sense of wisdom and understanding through struggle that I do not find as common here. While this is not just a monetary issue, many European countries reveal themselves to me as just being more open and intelligent in how they live. Not finding a connection inside the country I currently reside is a problem since my role as a designer is to communicate with those people. Outside the context of design, I am not too concerned with not identifying with a large majority of people around me. I wish I could, but realize it is inevitable that I can't on many levels. As long as I continue to be open to the possibility.
While as a whole it is difficult to find commonalities en mass, quality relationships are as result, impossible. These sprout up consistently, and while few seem to weather the temporal storm, I am happy to know a number of people through a variety of cities that help push me in a positive and wise direction. For these friendships I am extremely grateful. Without them I would be not be doing what I am doing today. I just hope that I can further see in people the qualities that are beneficial and keep them going.
Time to live more with heart.