JOURNAL ENTRY

Los Angeles is a Strange City

Los Angeles is a strange city. The cascade of hills and mountains cradles this city and separates it from its surrounding world. LA is a city where elevation is key to seeing the city truly. Literally and metaphorically. On the ground, you may gawk at its exotic plants and trees from around the world, and marvel at the Spanish architecture that is infused in every aspect of the city. But you can't unsee the crumbling infrastructure, the lack of maintenance of many of LA's most beautiful areas, and those lost.

When you manage to see the city from above, the city looks like a dream, something unreal. The trees, the hills, and the vastness of this city are truly engulfed as you gaze upon it from anywhere but the ground. There’s a hypnotic Ness to it, a desire to be above and continue to be above. I stand between the ground and the sky. As I sit on the balcony of Netflix’s 14th floor. I gaze upon this city in a way few can. I see the true magnificent beauty of this bubble of a place. But alas, I live in the land of in-between and return to the ground as I walk back to my small apartment. Much better than the home I grew up in but far from the lives that grew up here in the sky with no clue how the ground feels. I want to see how high I could go, but then again why? Is my purpose for me to wander to a point of no return? To reach a pinnacle where my circle is full of no one except those who asked that same question? Is being elevated on the path of fulfillment? What is fulfillment? I guess I was told to not be like my parents. Kids, who had kids that spent a life struggling to survive. Who never got to taste the air outside of the slums from which they were born. I spent so long blaming them for not understanding how to reach up those hills. But if we got there, would that have helped? Would it have helped my mother who never got to live the life that she wanted? Dutifully raised her kids even when her co-creators couldn’t handle the responsibility. Would it have healed her from the trauma dealt to her by kin and strangers?  In these words, I want to immortalize my family and show them that it's okay that they are lost. We all are.

 I - a boy from the slums of Philadelphia with a mother who spent most of her life as a janitor, a father who abandoned me, and a stepfather delusional and deranged from his childhood in the crack epidemic; I now stand at a point where no one has reached but, there’s still much more to climb. Is that what I always needed? To be elevated above everyone else. To not suffer the toll of being stuck, hopelessly at the bottom idolizing those who made it upwards, and share glimpses of their lives? 

I realized now after being at one of the best companies in the world and having an avenue to reach for a comfortable life basking in this LA sun, that I am not fulfilled. Is being elevated on the path of fulfillment? What is fulfillment? I guess I was told to not be like my parents. Kids, who had kids that spent a life struggling to survive. Who never got to taste the air outside of the slums from which they were born. I spent so long blaming them for not understanding how to reach up those hills. But if we got there, would that have helped? Would it have helped my mother who never got to live the life that she wanted? Dutifully raised her kids even when her co-creators couldn’t handle the responsibility. Would it have healed her from the trauma dealt to her by kin and strangers?

I see now in life, that this experience that we are all simultaneously experiencing isn’t meant to simply be wasted on the ideas of others. I am and always have been a creator, bountiful with Ideas and an imagination up to this point that has been only my own. I wish to, in this experience, live my days and nights breathing fresh air, and bring hope and happiness to others. My experience, my creations shouldn’t be tooled to bring me to a shiny apartment on a hillside. My experience and search for freedom is the value I can bring to this world, and my vivid philosophical imagination is set to bring forth things we've yet to see. I want to immortalize my family and show them that it's okay that they are lost. We all are.