Three Weeks from Departure

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA

Three weeks from the start of our trip to Brazil and two days after the Biden, Trump debate. Somehow it feels sad to be here. COVID has definitely added to this feeling of American loneliness and isolation. I know it's not the case everywhere, and some of this feeling is my own disposition, but America feels more lonely than other countries where I have spent time. And Seattle feels more lonely than other places I have been in the United States. That makes Seattle the loneliest place in the world.

Driving around this city, a supposedly rich city, leaves me wondering where is all the money going? It's certainly not towards maintaining the city's infrastructure. Yes, we are building some sort of a train system, but that will take us from one crap place to another. We can get from the airport to downtown to Capitol Hill to Northgate. Basically from one Subway sandwich shop or T-Mobile store to another one. We can get from one level of depressing to an entirely different level of depressing. 

America is the land of uniformity; the land that invented mass production in manufacturing and then in experiences. The sameness that runs through America numbs the mind. You can step onto the street anywhere and feel like you are nowhere. And the sameness, as it must be, is one of low quality with no sense of style. We build things with the idea we will tear them down which is similar to how we marry. Our curse is to mass produce banality. But then is it possible to mass produce originality. Of course it is! Beautiful things can be mass produced it just takes a bit more thought and passion for what you are doing. 

I don't expect more from Brazil, but I do expect to see a different way of living. A better way of living? I don't know. Perhaps it's too late and the sameness of our consumer culture has spread to the far reaches of the planet. Everyone wants the same thing and I don't just mean a safe place to live, a full tummy, and love.    

I leave for Brazil in three weeks and an opportunity to see another world close up even in these pandemic times. Will I learn something new about the world, about myself, or will it all be the same?  

Be free,

gb