I won't lie: part of me moved to Los Angeles because I have an illness: it's called "I-need-to-be-on-the-edge-ness-ingytis."
Apparently, there are innovators, early adapters, early majority, late majority, and boring/lazy people -- I mean "laggards" -- out there. Well, I try to hit that spot right between innovator and early adapter, and tell myself that I'd be a full-fledged innovator had I been born with a trust fund. If I have an addiction, it is for the new, the fresh, the original, the avant-garde, the revolutionary... the "cutting edge," as they say.
So I figure you can't go any closer to the edge than California. We're just one big earthquake away from falling OFF forgoodnessake.
But I'm starting to think the "edge" is disappearing. Well, maybe not disappearing altogether, but more... dissipating, scattering, dispersing. Of course I'm not speaking of a physical edge, but that progressive, mental, ideological edge that keeps humanity in motion. It's been widely accepted for a long time that the United States' coasts, and the cities of New York and Los Angeles in particular, set the stage for the future. But I'm just not buying it anymore.
Technology has blurred lines between the instigator and consumer to such a degree that it's nearly impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends. The internet, magazines, blogs, mega-coporations, MySpace, bookstore chains, email, and the ease of global travel have allowed for the instantaneous dissemination of not only information, but of passions, taste, and style. We export and import culture with the ease of a mouse click. We are rapidly becoming each other, and as our boundaries fade, progression glows from everywhere -- no longer relegated to the simplicity of geographical location.
You can plainly see it in music: where bands used to only be "from" major cities and markets, now we find that it doesn't really matter where one originates -- it only matters if you're good enough (and, probably, lucky enough). To an extent, the playing field has been leveled, in a profound, postmodern sense, and everyone is participating. You can also see it in universities, in churches, in coffeehouses...
Welcome to The New Edge: now playing everywhere.
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It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection . . .
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results . . .
We are prophets of a future not our own.
"A Future Not Our Own"
Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador
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There are many things I love about LA. But some days, I fear for us. Some days, it seems like we are simply a haven for broken angels, where:
...love of art, fame, and money have become the same thing. I almost wonder if I can even separate them anymore.
...love of self has become paramount.
...love of networking has replaced love for people. All that matters is "What have you done for me?" "What could you do for me?" and, most importantly, "What have you done for me lately?" (as I simply cannot remember past the insecurities of my own last 24 hours).
...alone is the new together. Every individual must own a car and drive it everywhere. Alone. Going across the street? Drive. It is state law! You may own a cell phone and talk on it incessantly, but you may not have meaningful conversations. (That is also state law.)
...California is god. We will sacrifice every spare cent we make to live in a city that is almost exactly like every other city on the world, but with more traffic, and an unusually high concentration of businessartists. We will pay outlandish costs for taxes, milk, gas, rent, heat, water, and everyothergodforsakenthing you can buy, simply because our zip codes start with a "9."
...everything can be bought. Everything.
I think we best pray to God that, unlike fashions, mentalities do not spread from the left coast.
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Perhaps the most evil thing about humanity isn't our propensity for malevolence but our ability to get distracted.
The other day I toured Henry Ford's replica of Edison's laboratory inside Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. I was mentally transported to Menlo Park, New Jersey, where Thomas Edison and his team created history in the form of invention after invention and gave me the artificial light by which I write this.
At the Village, I discovered that Edison and I could be friends. Near the historic buildings they have character actors playing the parts of these fantastic people, and Edison seemed like the kind of guy I could get along with (assuming he was even close to still being alive, of course). He was apparently intense and passionate and never, ever gave up. And... he was just a little crazy.
Yeah, we could definitely be friends.
So, during all this, I wondered where the light bulb of today is; I mean, the light bulb was completely revolutionary, has impacted the entire planet, and honestly hasn't changed all that much in the past 125 years. Where are these new ideas? Of course, we can put computers and the internet in this category, but cars and airplanes -- they were invented back in Edison's day, too.
In any case, my point with the whole "distraction" comment above is just that I wonder: if people wouldn't get so easily distracted by the pursuit of dollar signs, if the greatest minds on the planet could be harnessed to better humanity instead of dis-integrate it, if we could somehow look past ourselves and think about somebody else once in awhile...
What in the WORLD might we accomplish!?
I think we, as humans, find a lot of ways to distract ourselves. This idea probably doesn't sound too ridiculous if you stop and think for a moment. I think about what things really make me smile and then realize I spend most of my day NOT doing those things, and I realize that humanity -- particularly western "developed" humanity -- has created an entire ecosystem of material distraction.
It makes me sad, because what comprises the entirety of one's life can be almost nothing but a series of distractions from what's truly important to that person. Now, I hope and pray that at the end of our lives, this situation will describe neither you nor me, but I know a lot of people that already live in this place.
The thing about distraction, though, is that we always have a choice in the matter. By definition, a distraction is something that takes our focus away from something else. So I suppose the trick is to learn to recognize those things that uneccesarily grab our attention, and to not let them control us.
Easier said than done, I know. But it's a start.
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UPDATE: Apparently Edison might have also been kind of a bastard...!? Love the quirky eccentricity, but... yeah, not gonna be friends with that.
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