Existential Bucket List

The plan for the trip, as written in my journal on the plane (and brought to you live and unedited from the fevered mind of a transatlantic traveler):

To learn
To play
To step the fuck back
To dive in somewhere else
To try my new wings
To learn how others love
To see how others fail
To sing in Italian, French, Dutch, Danish, and maybe Swedish
To keep expanding the vessel, so more bliss can pour in
To drop the extra weight
To make room for new thoughts and shoes
To remember, every second, what a gift it is to be alive
To not sit in a cubicle
To find my voice
To eat
To eat slowly
To taste
To savor

more upcoming on London, including a rousing round of rounders in the rain, and maybe some pictures too.

Through Fresh Eyes

My job, as I see it, is to make San Francisco as great a city as it can be. It's a great gig - made easier my the millions who came before and contributed in their own way. It's also not an easy job. Whereas in the path to personal improvement, I've landed on a strategy that's been working (connect to your heart, let it light the way, and use the rest of the tools at your behest to serve the follow the path that's blazed), I've yet to land on a coherent philosophy around city planning. Because what's good for some is not what's good for others. And even what's good for some hearts is not good for others. And so our work is often reduced to a utilitarian calculus with lots of unknown factors. Or we are forced to cede to the power of money, which speaks with a more coherent voice.

Of my many intentions for this trip is to consider the strategies taken elsewhere, both codified and informal, that make societies. What lessons can I take home? Are there patterns that emerge as well? How can I use my fresh eyes to see things at home anew (which, by the way, I've been doing for the last week, as I entered into "traveler's mode")?

We leave for the airport in half an hour. See you on the other side.

Definitions

Yes, I'm about to geek out on you. That's how I roll. But I want to convey a couple of basic concepts. Namely, what do I mean by City, and won't do I mean by Love. How they can play nicely together will be the common thread to this whole bloggy exercise.

City: At one level, of course I mean dense agglomerations of humanity. That's where we live, and where we'll be spending most of our time in Europe. But I also mean it as shorthand for any place that people get together in community. Which means all of us. Because humans are inherently social creatures. Yes, yes, I'm all for rugged individualism. Because I think we are all ultimately responsible for our own shit. But how would we even know where to start without our teachers. And who are our teachers? Well, obviously the parents and professional educators and friends, etc. But also the society at large - the biggest mirror of all, if we choose to look into it. And it's there for all of us, no matter what the population density of your home town.

Love: What makes your heart sing. It could be walks in the Alps or an exquisite plate of Greenland musk ox or great friends - all of which we'll be exploring this trip (well, we're on the waiting list for the musk ox - mmm, musky). And of course we mean romantic love. I imagine you'll be getting a healthy dose of that here as well. And on the deepest level, I mean the love that arises from within and without when you get in touch with the wellspring of the Universe. Yes, I'm going to use the G word. No, not Gorf. God. Or whatever you call her/him/it/them/us/nullset. All of the things we call love are pleasing vibrations of us tuning our own instrument, and then playing with the cosmic symphony. The cosmic symphony is always playing, but most of us aren't listening. Or we pick up our instruments and they are warped or rusty, and we forgot how to play. But little by little, when we practice (this harkens back to the whole teacher thing), we can play a little, then a little more. I'd say I'm in violin lessons in the second grade, but I'm playing my instrument with all my heart. And I try to align all my actions and thoughts to keep getting better and better at my instrument. Because I want to play in that great philharmonic in the sky. Which maybe was a Pink Floyd album?

Cities of Love

This blog explores the interrelation of city planning and love. Two things we're into right now.

It's being created on the occasion of Abbie and I spending Memorial Day to the 4th of July in Europe. Steve's official mission to study how cities redevelop redundant industrial areas. Our unofficial Mission is to explore new ways in which societies organize, with an eye towards those that are conducive to the highest expression of our humanity. For both of these missions, we hope to bring profound lessons into our own lives, and in turn apply those in our work and service in San Francisco.

We really have no idea what we'll be sharing, how often we'll be posting, etc. Check back as you wish, and maybe you'll find something of interest - be it prosaic or profound.