Teasing the Narrative
I live in San Francisco. Everyone seems to have something that they don't like about San Francisco, and that something is usually "everything".
I've grown tired of hearing this story.
The Internet seems to be lousy with posts with titles like "Why I Left San Francisco and Good Riddance" or "How Bay Area Tech is Destroying the City". And so on. To be fair, there is plenty of validity behind most of these complaints. Yes, things are becoming gentrified. Yes, some stripes of diversity and culture have been displaced as of late by the tech scene. Yes, the cost of housing is driving civic workers, like teachers and police officers, out of the city they serve and they have to commute in, and that's to say nothing of how this has impacted the homeless situation.
We have problems to solve.
I'll tell you the one thing that bothers me about San Francisco a little later on in this post. (And no, it isn't that everyone who lives here seems to hate it.) And that one thing probably says a whole lot more about me and my philosophical pretensions than it does about the city.
The great thing about being a more advanced species of primate is that we have a prefrontal cortex lodged in the front of our skulls. This is the executive brain that is responsible for complex cognition, decision making, and social behavior. If you eat a piece of cake and your brain is urging you to eat six more pieces of cake because dammit that was delicious and more is better, the prefrontal cortex is the part of you that wakes up and says, "Hey, don't do that, because you'll feel sick afterwards, it spikes your blood sugar, and you might gain weight." Calm, rational, angel on your shoulder. (Or maybe it strikes a Faustian bargain with you and lets you eat the extra cake if you make a hollow and half-hearted promise to exercise tomorrow. I didn't say it was perfect.)
Much of therapy is predicated on the notion that we can affect our own emotions by first controlling cognition. Steer your thoughts in a healthy direction and the emotions are sure to follow. For most, this is easier said than done, but the evidence from close to half a century seems to bear out that this approach is effective.
Emotions can also be affected by the emotions of those we encounter. I steer clear of negative-minded people the way I steer clear of people coughing up phlegm on the street. We owe it to ourselves to avoid any physiological and psychological contagions. The fact that the narrative that seems to disseminate so easily is "the Bay Area sucks" means that it's probably an idea that we catch like any pathogen and let derail our thoughts. It can skew our perceptions.
The prefrontal cortex is the part of our brain that lets us choose our thoughts. It lets us accept or reject the ideas we hear from others. And while it is colloquially referred to as the "executive brain" and holds power over the Hebbian mob rule in our heads that would have us eat all the cake, for most of us, the executive brain is probably more of a populist politician than a disciplined person of principle.
Meaning that if you have a few reasons to dislike the Bay Area, and all of your friends around you are expressing this exact same sentiment, you're probably going to come to this conclusion too. And, out of sheer ego, your brain will convince you that this was a conclusion you came to on your own, without any undue influence from your friends or the myriad blog posts talking about why now is the time to move to Austin. Once you feel pride of creation about what was originally a derivative thought, you're all the more likely to cling to it.
I like the city of San Francisco, and I like the Bay Area. There is a lot of culture here, there are a lot of things to do, the weather is pretty great all year round, etc. I could go on. I like it because I choose to like it. Because I control my thoughts, instead of letting others or my capricious impressions control them.
And here's the key thing: even if you think that I shouldn't like the city, even if you think I have no leg to stand on, I can assure you of two things. First, I am happier thinking this way than you are. Second, if there are problems in San Francisco, these problems will only be solved by people who feel that the city is worth fixing. The first point might make me sound like a mindless Panglossian, but this idealism moderates the hopelessness put forward by the extreme realist position. If you think problems cannot be solved, a kind of learned helplessness paralyzes you, and you flee to somewhere else. If you have some hope, that's at least actionable.
Which brings me to what I don't like about San Francisco: the people in it, the ones who can afford to live here as the less wealthy ones are being priced out, are those that should have the resources to tackle these kinds of problems. They should have the free time to chip away at the difficulties facing the city. They could volunteer their time to improve things in their own community, learning what's being done and striving to figure out how things could be done better. I do not see enough of this. I do see a lot of people in bars, out prowling the streets of San Francisco, jumping in and out of Ubers, trying to experience the world through the lens of an elevated Blood Alcohol Content level.
My past self is not stranger to this; I did go to a party school. But I came to San Francisco in the hopes of connecting with people who are interested in having the deep conversations. Who want to discuss, develop and deepen thoughts. Who want to do the hard thing instead of the easy thing, to engage with problems instead of running from them or succumbing to hedonism. In a town full of smart people, many of who are visionaries in tech looking to build the future, I have not encountered many people with a willingness to ask the challenging questions.
San Francisco is a great city. The people who live here are so much better than they give themselves credit for. This city, like all the people in it, are dripping with unrealized potential. We can do a whole lot more than just flee.
I've grown tired of hearing this story.
The Internet seems to be lousy with posts with titles like "Why I Left San Francisco and Good Riddance" or "How Bay Area Tech is Destroying the City". And so on. To be fair, there is plenty of validity behind most of these complaints. Yes, things are becoming gentrified. Yes, some stripes of diversity and culture have been displaced as of late by the tech scene. Yes, the cost of housing is driving civic workers, like teachers and police officers, out of the city they serve and they have to commute in, and that's to say nothing of how this has impacted the homeless situation.
We have problems to solve.
I'll tell you the one thing that bothers me about San Francisco a little later on in this post. (And no, it isn't that everyone who lives here seems to hate it.) And that one thing probably says a whole lot more about me and my philosophical pretensions than it does about the city.
The great thing about being a more advanced species of primate is that we have a prefrontal cortex lodged in the front of our skulls. This is the executive brain that is responsible for complex cognition, decision making, and social behavior. If you eat a piece of cake and your brain is urging you to eat six more pieces of cake because dammit that was delicious and more is better, the prefrontal cortex is the part of you that wakes up and says, "Hey, don't do that, because you'll feel sick afterwards, it spikes your blood sugar, and you might gain weight." Calm, rational, angel on your shoulder. (Or maybe it strikes a Faustian bargain with you and lets you eat the extra cake if you make a hollow and half-hearted promise to exercise tomorrow. I didn't say it was perfect.)
Much of therapy is predicated on the notion that we can affect our own emotions by first controlling cognition. Steer your thoughts in a healthy direction and the emotions are sure to follow. For most, this is easier said than done, but the evidence from close to half a century seems to bear out that this approach is effective.
Emotions can also be affected by the emotions of those we encounter. I steer clear of negative-minded people the way I steer clear of people coughing up phlegm on the street. We owe it to ourselves to avoid any physiological and psychological contagions. The fact that the narrative that seems to disseminate so easily is "the Bay Area sucks" means that it's probably an idea that we catch like any pathogen and let derail our thoughts. It can skew our perceptions.
The prefrontal cortex is the part of our brain that lets us choose our thoughts. It lets us accept or reject the ideas we hear from others. And while it is colloquially referred to as the "executive brain" and holds power over the Hebbian mob rule in our heads that would have us eat all the cake, for most of us, the executive brain is probably more of a populist politician than a disciplined person of principle.
Meaning that if you have a few reasons to dislike the Bay Area, and all of your friends around you are expressing this exact same sentiment, you're probably going to come to this conclusion too. And, out of sheer ego, your brain will convince you that this was a conclusion you came to on your own, without any undue influence from your friends or the myriad blog posts talking about why now is the time to move to Austin. Once you feel pride of creation about what was originally a derivative thought, you're all the more likely to cling to it.
I like the city of San Francisco, and I like the Bay Area. There is a lot of culture here, there are a lot of things to do, the weather is pretty great all year round, etc. I could go on. I like it because I choose to like it. Because I control my thoughts, instead of letting others or my capricious impressions control them.
And here's the key thing: even if you think that I shouldn't like the city, even if you think I have no leg to stand on, I can assure you of two things. First, I am happier thinking this way than you are. Second, if there are problems in San Francisco, these problems will only be solved by people who feel that the city is worth fixing. The first point might make me sound like a mindless Panglossian, but this idealism moderates the hopelessness put forward by the extreme realist position. If you think problems cannot be solved, a kind of learned helplessness paralyzes you, and you flee to somewhere else. If you have some hope, that's at least actionable.
Which brings me to what I don't like about San Francisco: the people in it, the ones who can afford to live here as the less wealthy ones are being priced out, are those that should have the resources to tackle these kinds of problems. They should have the free time to chip away at the difficulties facing the city. They could volunteer their time to improve things in their own community, learning what's being done and striving to figure out how things could be done better. I do not see enough of this. I do see a lot of people in bars, out prowling the streets of San Francisco, jumping in and out of Ubers, trying to experience the world through the lens of an elevated Blood Alcohol Content level.
My past self is not stranger to this; I did go to a party school. But I came to San Francisco in the hopes of connecting with people who are interested in having the deep conversations. Who want to discuss, develop and deepen thoughts. Who want to do the hard thing instead of the easy thing, to engage with problems instead of running from them or succumbing to hedonism. In a town full of smart people, many of who are visionaries in tech looking to build the future, I have not encountered many people with a willingness to ask the challenging questions.
San Francisco is a great city. The people who live here are so much better than they give themselves credit for. This city, like all the people in it, are dripping with unrealized potential. We can do a whole lot more than just flee.