Amtracking

The sunrise this morning in San Francisco, amazing as always, and the clouds make sense too.

 On Amtrak yesterday traveling north from LA, an unerring sense of unreality invaded the very small quarters of my meditative space. I asked, rhetorically, why do so many people crave fantasy?

Passing junkyards, huge mounds of thoughtlessly discarded trash, then one homeless encampment after another along the banks of the LA River, witness to the constant flow of graffiti on concrete walls, on large and small buildings, on trees, on lampposts, graffiti on almost every imaginable object, this passenger couldn’t help but wonder, are these signs of some sort of spiritual unrest? A constant kind of a deeply human disturbance that demands expression, or an escape from reality through brightly colored spray paint often culminating in the artist’s name scrawled on the wall?

This publisher will report that at the very, very top of the best-seller list are often romance novels: there’s a hero and a heroine who overcome great obstacles and fall in love; at least I think that’s the formula, which also seems to include at least one anti-hero. Happiness or unhappiness for the main characters can be gained via the fulfillment or discouragement of human potential, with a satisfying, apparently compelling  beginning, middle, and end plot-line, the book exceeding the expectation of both publisher and author

The hard lesson of reality, at least leaving Los Angeles on Amtrak: chug along the train tracks and, if you seem to be getting somewhere, look straight ahead so as not to see what you don’t want to see. Instead, sit back, enjoy the slow train ride north until you’ve passed Hollister Ranch where the coast is so clear, then Nipomo, San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, King City…

I too crave unreality, it has often served me well, though not in the form of such mindlessness. Mindlessness is still new to me, this mid-20 century disregard for the consequences of one’s thinking and action. Throw a cigarette butt in the street, a plastic bottle, the receipt for the bag of Cheetohs just purchased and the Cheetohs too!

I welcome reality. Reality begins with dots and goes from there as long that we clean up after reality without painting over it.

San Francisco, 7:15 am, February 21, 2025. Not a smoked cigarette in the sky. Photo by author.