If I got to choose a coast I got to choose the East
I live out there, so don’t go there
But that don’t mean a ni%$@ can’t rest in the West
See some nice breast in the West” – Biggie
Two and a half years ago I found out what it’s like to be a New Yorker in the City of Angels – insert all relevant stereotypes here. In the last week or so I’ve been back on forth to NYC and after fully embracing the Angelino lifestyle I’m truly starting understanding the other side of the coin. Those Biggie lyrics use to represent me to the fullest but these days I’m lucky enough to have a different perspective, one that ask why choose? LA and NYC are completely different places, so much so that there’s no valid reason to compare them, but you talk to natives of either and they’re so die hard about one or the other. I’m not knocking loving your city but I am promoting being able to appreciate it all. It seems like much of life is centered around making these drastic decisions but why do we have to limit our love to one thing? We’re forced into these limits as if humans aren’t capable of endless love. Further more why do we get caught up in the frame of mind that strongly identifying ourselves with things is so important? In my opinion we’re led into that by commerce but more on that later.
If you don’t know by now Steve Jobs is one of my idols and part of his philosophy on intelligence is that it’s all about having crap load of experiences to draw upon…
A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”
I love that, I love the concept of having a huge bag of experiences to draw upon when it comes to anything in life. Sometimes we get caught up looking at a thing from one perspective while completely forgetting that there’s an entire world out there. Often we get caught up in the material and forget how insignificant that is compared to the divine, we get lost looking at something from the ground instead of going up and seeing it from a sky scraper. We always have to keep that in mind, that’s why I chose this song because it truly is about being objective enough to have The Greatest View.
So to that I say live somewhere else! Save your money and travel, experience new energies, new people, new cultures and make your bag of experiences as big as possible. I said we’re led into these limited identities because of commerce and I think that’s a big part of it. The world wants to make you define yourself because that makes you easy to sell to. The more of a “demographic” you are the easier it is for marketers to target you and sell you shit. But kill that noise, we’re better than that and we’re not limited to one, two or even three things. Technology and all the progress we’ve made as humans allow us to make the most of our lives, don’t take that shit for granted. There’s no limit to our love, enjoy.