Summer
Summer
San Francisco
Summer, what’s your take on America at this time?
“I think it’s a really divided country. I feel like everything is at extremes right now. You have this hurt and anxiety and fear coming out of what recently happened, the election of course, so it’s really easy to get down about that and to think the world’s coming to an end, but then, out of that has come this really amazing sense of community, and you see people banding together and I even find myself trying to engage more in my community.
“I’m in this huge city, with thousands and thousands of people, and I’ve lived here seven years, and lately I’ve been walking around feeling really alone, which is a weird feeling around so many people. And my eyes have been really opened to the hurt that’s going on. I want to try to engage in my community in some way. Just smiling at people, saying hello. Even little short interactions with people. I’m amazed at how soothing that is to my soul. It can be kind of chaotic for instance on the bus sometimes, but now and then you just strike up a conversation about random things and I’m amazed at how much people will share.
“I think listening is a really hard thing to do, but it’s just something I think people need, they just want to share their story with someone, to have someone listen to them, and in a world with everyone on their phones and everyone in this sort of disconnected state, there’s not a lot of listening going on. I’m guilty of it myself, being on one side of the political spectrum, and having friends and family on the other side, I just kind of don’t want to talk to them, I don’t want to hear them. It’s so easy to get caught up like oh my gosh they’re just so wrong, but if you really get to the heart of it, the core emotions that are driving people to feel certain ways, we have a lot more in common that we think.”
What do you think is going to solve this division?
“I don’t think it’s anything that’s going to happen from our government, or from politics, I understand the reason to be involved, and I don’t mean to make light of that, but it has to come from people in sort of a grass roots way. It’s not going to come from whoever the President is or Congress, because it’s just at a stalemate, nobody’s going to get anything done, it’s just a bunch of fighting back and forth.
“I feel like everyone needs to find their own little ways to help heal everybody’s spirit. Maybe turn off the technology now and then, go outside, go talk to somebody. Nature is such a soothing thing too. I’m guilty of not taking advantage of that enough, and it’s all around me in one of the most beautiful places in this country.”
Do you think maybe we need some kind of common vision to bring us together?
“But I wonder if that’s even possible. Because at the end of the day, we’re all selfish human beings that want to look out for ourselves. There’s this every man for himself instinct that’s in us, so it’s figuring a way to step out of that, which I try to do, but I fail at it all the time, and to have us all, as a collective, all do that, I don’t know.
“So I go back and forth, between fear and despair and hope, almost on a daily basis. It kind of depends on how much media I consume, versus how much I’m focusing on what really matters in life, and trying to observe the good that’s coming out of this. There’s always good that comes out of bad, but all we hear about is the bad because that’s what sells. We’ve conditioned ourselves to want to look at the train wreck, and not the other things. “
