I've often thought about leaving
Los Angeles. I've spent my entire 24 year existence in the massive world that seems to have both spawned and continually defined the term
superficial. Every day here is a complete abberation of the day that preceded it. Your moods have changed, your habits have changed, your friends have changed. The Weather, of course, has changed.
Sometimes that's a terribly difficult idea to cope with.
Other days, it seems perfectly natural. But then, this is a city whose bread and butter come from an industry whose sole goal is to create a reality that does not exist. How could the city have avoided that which helped to create it? Indeed, Los Angeles is not a city in the true sense of the word. It has no resilient culture. It has very little pride in itself, if any. Most people are here because they have to be, not because they want to. Los Angeles is not a city, it is a factory of dreams.
Welcome to Distopia. Wander down the streets and talk to the millions of Barbies and Kens that wander this immense metropolis in search of the key to their personal fortune. Take a closer look at that palm tree. Is it real? Of course not. Not a single palm tree in Los Angeles was truly born here. Each one was pulled up from some tropical nursery and brought here, and come to think about it, so was everything else.
Perhaps that's one of the greatest faults of this city. We tried so hard to make it look good. We spent millions of dollars art directing a desert until it became paradise, but deep inside we all know that it is still a desert. Disneyland, for example, is Los Angeles with one exception: It's cleaner.
And yet, for some odd reason, I am still here. The burning desire to escape has, on many occasions, crept into my soul and beckoned me to places more sublime, but I continually resist. If you asked me why, I don't even know if I could pinpoint it. All I could say is that I love this city for no unexplainable reason. I have so many reasons to hate it and the people who live here...yet I do not get up and go. I wish I knew why. I wish I could explain what force keeps me here, in a place where so many dreams and people are destroyed every day.
I wish I knew Los Angeles.