Despite the weird name, I’m just a plain old American, and haven’t even really traveled abroad that much, but for some reason every day of my life I am so grateful to live here or at least in a place where I can pursue whatever the hell interests me in the moment or build whatever kind of strange life I want to have. To me, being able to pursue art and all that goes along with it, is the greatest luxury and one that would not be possible in many places in the world, where I might have to worry about my fundamental safety and survival, or conforming to oppressive cultural norms. I don’t have golden toilets or gray poupon in the fridge, but I think it is because of these things that no matter what goes wrong in a day, my life still feels like it is full of luxury. And so this is what I am most grateful for, thanksgiving and every day… that I live in a place where
you can one day wake up and lift your head out of whatever hole you’ve been living in and decide to head in an entirely different direction in life, and suddenly things can begin to unfold in mysterious ways letting you know you’re heading in the right direction, and turning your life into an unpredictably fantastic adventure.
a place where you have the luxury of making your life whatever kind of personal journey you want, instead of being stuck inside the cage of other’s dogma.
a place where you can pursue art & learning, or whatever kind of creative expression appeals to you instead of worrying about basic human rights, survival and safety.
a place where you can spot a twinkle of mischief in a stranger’s eye from across the room and instantly know you’ve just had a collision beyond coincidence and you just know you are already friends.
a place where you get to decide if the security of ceiling over your head makes you happy or if it makes you feel more claustrophobic than the thought of death, and you decide instead to live a life of uncertainty pursuing whatever vision you have for the imaginary ding you will make in the universe.
a place where you can fall into a rabbit hole for hours exploring the designs of the human and animal machine, marveling at whatever it is that made us all in equal parts random chaos and precise perfection.
a place where you can pursue the oddest, strangest version of what you want love to be like just because you’re heart tells you there are things out that will make you happy in ways that you can’t quite articulate.
A place where no matter what hand you are dealt in life, no matter what black clouds loom above you, you can find the resources to clear the sky above you and climb as high as the view inspires you to.
A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN CHOOSE YOUR OWN FATE.