Pleasant & Paranoid
February 3rd-13th, 2022
I haven’t been writing in over a week - pretty much ever since visiting San Francisco. The first half of my stay, I spent being basically bed-ridden with a migraine. The other half, I was too busy to pick up my laptop to reflect. Or well, maybe there were moments I could have written down my experiences. In LA, I could do it easily during breakfast or before bed. SF just didn't stimulate the creative parts of my brain like that. It's a pleasant and liveable place, that's for sure. But it doesn't tingle the senses.
My first observation of SF, is that the city is walkable, apart from the hills. Public transportation is well arranged and safe to use. The whole week was spent without cat calls. The people I met also reminded me more of the people back home. They’re well educated and ambitious, though way more opportunistic. I could actually talk to guys I met in museums or restaurants without fearing for my safety.
San Francisco also feels more international somehow. There’s Chinatown and Little Italy of course, but there are also suburban neighborhoods that resemble Scandinavia in terms of liveability. Visiting the beach over there had the same vibe like visiting the beach near Copenhagen. I guess it's more European somehow.
Though I've heard that there are neighborhoods that are flooded with homeless people, I avoided them without intent. Still, there were some people sleeping on the streets whenever I walked home from the Bart. Even if it comes to me in scarcity, it’s an image I’ll never get used to. It’s heartbreaking to see men crawled up in corners, leaning against walls to shelter from the wind. They’re often tossing in a sleeping bag on the concrete, like there’s any way to make it more comfortable. It’s terrible. And writing this, I feel terrible for even rating the liveability of a city in terms of how many people can afford a roof above their head.
In this city, most people are struggling with the living situation. The rent is skyrocketing. You can easily pay fifteen hundred a month for a room and five thousand for an apartment. There were even some international students staying at the hostel because they couldn’t afford rent. SF is the place to make it in tech, but you're income will go down the drain easily.
Yet somehow, these problems go unnoticed to the casual visitor. In my experience, San Francisco is a chill and friendly place with little to complain about - as long as you’re not apartment hunting. And I suppose that’s why I haven’t been writing that much: The city is too pleasant. As a writer, you need flaws. That’s what keeps your brain cracking and keeps the creative juices flowing. A city that's well-organized is also utterly boring. It's the moments of annoyance that confront you with yourself and the absurdity of life. A writer mistrusts pleasantries. A scene is built on tension. If there's no friction, there's no story. This is probably an unhealthy outlook on life, to cover up the conviction that we don't deserve pleasantries. We mistrust it. Still, it only confirms my previous observations about LA: It's an amazing place to be, but it will drive you nuts if it's all you have.
