journey
So I'm in CA now, Los Angeles to be specific. My brother's wedding reception was a coupled days ago, and I thought it was really great. It was mostly his wife's family and friends (given that we're from the East Coast), but regardless it was very well-executed, beautiful, and happy.
Things out here are just astonishigly different than from Uniontown, PA where I've been for the past couple months. There are a significant number of hispanic and east asians around; Uniontown has negligible non-caucasian populations. I guess New York was diverse also, but it's been years since I've been an undergrad, and since El Salvador was pretty homogenous also, it's been a while since I've been in a motley crew of any sort. In addition, the people here seem to be much more health conscious (and environmentally conscious, maybe even politically). The priorities just seem to be a bit different I guess, which is fine.
Random note: when I was in the airport on the way here, I was waiting in line at the gate to board the flight. At one point I put my bag down in line and sat in a chair to eat some food. When I got back in line, the person behind me got somewhat agitated because he I guess forgot I was there. I insisted that I had in fact been in line there, got back in that spot, and he was pretty unhappy about that.
As I waited in line, I quickly started wishing that I had just let the guy in front of me. One spot in line is just so irrelevant. And I think that my justification, that "I was right," was not a point I really needed to make or stand by. In fact, I've come to believe that it rarely leads me to act in ways that I fully endorse. Because honestly, so often it matters so little who's right and wrong in these sorts of social situations, and maybe we can instead just strive to maintain some peace and get along.
Things out here are just astonishigly different than from Uniontown, PA where I've been for the past couple months. There are a significant number of hispanic and east asians around; Uniontown has negligible non-caucasian populations. I guess New York was diverse also, but it's been years since I've been an undergrad, and since El Salvador was pretty homogenous also, it's been a while since I've been in a motley crew of any sort. In addition, the people here seem to be much more health conscious (and environmentally conscious, maybe even politically). The priorities just seem to be a bit different I guess, which is fine.
Random note: when I was in the airport on the way here, I was waiting in line at the gate to board the flight. At one point I put my bag down in line and sat in a chair to eat some food. When I got back in line, the person behind me got somewhat agitated because he I guess forgot I was there. I insisted that I had in fact been in line there, got back in that spot, and he was pretty unhappy about that.
As I waited in line, I quickly started wishing that I had just let the guy in front of me. One spot in line is just so irrelevant. And I think that my justification, that "I was right," was not a point I really needed to make or stand by. In fact, I've come to believe that it rarely leads me to act in ways that I fully endorse. Because honestly, so often it matters so little who's right and wrong in these sorts of social situations, and maybe we can instead just strive to maintain some peace and get along.
2 Comments:
environmentally conscious -- yeah, i also noticed :) electric vehicle charging stations everywhere, ads on the radio about saving energy, some other things i don't remember now... well it's easy in sunny CA just to put solar panels everywhere.
congrats on starting stanford law soon, btw!
>maybe we can instead just strive to maintain some peace and get along.
soon instead of saying that, you'll be saying "in the interests of comity..."
enjoy human-speak while you can!
:)
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