ARCHETYPES

one of my many quirks is having spontaneous bursts of yearning, and because i am generally hanging out on my own when these bursts occur, like today after the Architecture class i'm taking, where i sat introspectively on the bench in the quad, observing the stream of students walking by me in segregated clumps - a gaggle of chirpy white girls, a cluster of designer-wearing Asian kids, a pack of athletic guys in baggy jeans and Red Sox caps, a group of freshmen reveling in their new found freedom, all of whom i feel no affinity toward, i direct the intent on sharing these aspirations toward my unsuspecting brother. But sometimes he doesn't answer my calls, so the yearning i experience slowly dissipates within the abyss of my mind, and that's that.

i'd never gotten sucked into the trend of cliques and all that bullshit, in high school or wherever, so i don't really have any horror stories that allows me to personally relate. but just observing these sort of things around me is fascinating. it's like people have restrictions, like they can only hit it off with people who look and sound just like them. last week i was talking to a girl from Saudi Arabia, and she was telling me how she was already in her third year and she calls her mom at the start of every semester to cry and ask to come home. she isn't weak or timid or anything, in fact she's pretty bad ass and easygoing. obviously, i was really surprised. she explained to me that because her English was a little broken she gets slighted by other students on a daily basis. when asking for help, to form study groups, that sort of thing. when she asks about the assignments just to clarify, they look at her like she's stupid.  "just imagine," she says to me at our table outside of the campus' Dunkin Donuts. "if they were in my country, or any foreign country, and did not understand something. and there was no one to help them. how would they feel?" ah, empathy. a lost practice. at least i think so. of course it never crossed the minds of those dipshits in her classes. why extend any courtesy to the foreign students sitting right in front of your face when you can do a study abroad in their country for a semester and only then suddenly be fascinated by their people and culture? why travel to distant lands like Saudi Arabia and the like when there's Europe with their sidewalk cafe's and Western brethren who are more recognizable?

BECAUSE EVEN ANGELS HAVE THEIR WICKED SCHEMES

DID THE CAPTAIN OF THE TITANIC CRY?

Andy: You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific?

Red: No.

Andy: They say it has no memory. That's where I want to live the rest of my life. A place with no memory.

ONLY THE HONORABLE SACRIFICE THEMSELVES

LIFE IS A HIGHWAY

Back in San Francisco, back where we started.

We did manage to road trip through some of California, heading south through San Jose, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, Pebble Beach, Monterrey and Carmel, Morrow Bay and last stop Santa Barbara. We spent two nights in Santa Barbara, as it's a pretty nice city. Nice in a very unproductive-unaffordable-homogenous way. But whiteness tends to add a tinge of manufactured niceness to places, as evidenced by certain limited areas of the world. The streets were lined with sky high palm trees, sidewalk cafes, Italian eateries and South Asian restaurants, againt a backdrop of elaborate idleness.

I am here right now, at a cafe called Mochilla in The Mission district of San Francisco. Observe this sad scene of every patron staring at a computer screen. Cafe's, for those who have trouble remembering or were not aware of its significant history, were originally places of socialization when first established in the Muslim world. A French guy named Jean Chardin wrote in the 17th century about his first experience of a cafe while traveling through Persia -

"People engage in conversation, for it is there that news is communicated and where those interested in politics criticize the government in all freedom and without being fearful, since the government does not heed what the people say. Innocent games... resembling checkers, hopscotch, and chess, are played." (from Wikipedia)

Another degradation of a culture by the soulless West. Is this the beginning of a bleak and apathetic future? Because if this is San Francisco, and the way of progression, count me out.