Boulder

It's like Madison without minorities! On that note I'm going to take a little space to rant. Boulder is a carefully manicured upper middle class white town. Being white I can appreciate the Germanic tendencies of our race for compartmentalization, clean design, and fastidiousness. These kinds of towns seem to sprout up wherever there is a gathering of... us. Of the places I've visited on this trip Boulder, Tahoe, Sonoma, and Napa are perfect examples of this. Many larger towns also exhibit some of these characteristics but are tempered by the amount of minorities (economic, racial... etc.) living within the city.

The problem with cities, like Boulder, dominated by the white upper-middle class is that everything is so ordered that disorder can be next to impossible to accomplish. Art and Culture thrive in disorder, in chaos, and from disorientation; drowning in confusion. Only in those times can man see through the fog of reality to grab hold to that one thing that is true. Maybe I'm philosophizing a bit much... art can be art. That is an argument that can be made somewhere else and has been made by much greater minds than mine. I believe that great art, something that can endure time, has to be able to connect to All people in all times. I'm getting off the topic again, I know... The point I'm trying to come to is that to be able to see the great human truths you have to be surrounded by the great gamut of humanity. These towns (the lawyer in me wants to point out that I'm using generalities... that there are arguments against all of these points depending on the locality. Yeah, yeah, yeah... Whatever, you know what I'm talking about out there. Don't you, true believers.) are so homogenized, pasteurized, and grade D sterilized that nothing can grow. Art and Culture cannot take root and hold in these places. Instead I get the feeling of manufactured Culture, manufactured Art. These places reek of seeming.

White upper-middle class Americans are especially prone to seeming. We have the means to seem and not the balls to be. I am not exempt from this accusation by any means. In fact, the people who often protest the most against seeming are often guilty of it themselves, they are just more discreet about what they are seeming; picking obscure or elite models. Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and Twain have all remarked on the alarming prevalence in America of seeming. They point to our lack of history as the root of the problem. We are a moving people. We seldom stay in one place long enough for us to develop a regional identity. Given humanities instinctual tribalism (which is the true root of all evil) we try to grab onto things that can differentiate ourselves from others. Without our regional identity or culture we take what we can from others... and for us, primarily from European sources. Some we adopt and adapt to fit into the insane amalgam of American culture; others we emulate, we seem. Again, white upper class Americans have the means to seem and not the balls to be.

To be takes suffering. It takes the Jungian trip into the cave, into the whirlpool of confusion to face the unknown. This unknown is not simply the dark side of your psyche to be contemplated comfortably in the cozy den of your house but out in the world itself. This is extremely daunting. It can mean not just psychological dissolution but physical destruction as well. Everyone is naturally scared of the journey into the unknown but only in the cave does seeming cease to exist and being becomes a necessity. I'm scared of this. I'm trying through this trip and all others I have made before to refine the seeming from me. Places, like this town and pieces of cities everywhere put forward a seductive deception. It says, "Doesn't this look like the truth?" and like every good lie it does. Then it says, "Doesn't this look like Art and Culture" and it does. "Don't all of the people around here look different and interesting?" and they do... I wonder what kind of interesting lives they lead... what eccentrics! Then they give you the old hard sell, "You won't have to do anything uncomfortable to gain this. This can all be yours, just buy this, eat here, get an apartment in this neighborhood, attend this party, make these friends, etc... etc... all it takes is money! You can completely remake yourself into the most eccentric individual ever. People will look at you and wonder what you're thinking, what kind of life you lead. All it takes is money! No hard work. No cave. How does that sound?" I have to admit that all of it sounds pretty damn good. Maybe you will be happy living a life that way... for a little while. It seems that all I get from towns like this is wanting. Wanting to buy that one thing and dissatisfaction with my own life for not being able to. It's a great lie, America's biggest. Truth, character, and contentedness come through hard work, suffering, and being willing to go to whatever end to destroy wanting. You must be willing to go into the unknown and it will suck; you will be uncomfortable, stressed, dirty, contaminated, confused, and filled with self-doubt. I've not accomplished it and I give in to wanting constantly... In the end the truth is out there in places you don't want to go... in places you don't want to stay.

D-Sax