Juxtaposing San Francisco & Chicago, I find Chicago to be a concrete jungle with no curtain of scenic beauty or free spirit to combat the reality of inner slavery and bondage. In California the mountains greet you when you wake, the global liberal attitude gives the city a free spirit. Like everywhere else though, the under trodden, the helpless, and the poor transcend the glory and beauty of this curtain. Their spirit takes mine to it's depths. I'm also realizing how much larger Chicago is. Flying over the city all you can see for miles are the illusions of a massive sea. A sea of yellow lights, one right after the other. Just as you begin to think that's all Chicago is, you look over your choulder, out the other side of the plane and see monolithic structures, stories upon stories of concrete and glass. They tower over this ocean of lights. They seem to be exactly in the center an dconfined to about 50 square miles. To be immersed in such a sea, especially in daily life, would leave me feeling quite small.

I suppose San Francisco has turned out to be a step up the ladder. I have my quiet suburb to retreat to. It's just outside the city on the hill and a few miles from the Pacific Ocean and the green mountains. It really is beautiful. It's a great start for all it's worth. That will be true no matter how many times I tell myself I'm worthless and will never amount to anything.

It's a little frightening. Something a friend had mentioned to me just 24 hours ago. He was describing how he could actually pin point the voices of good and evil in his mind. He said they sometimes, audibly told him what to do. Sounds like Schizophrenia, but whatever. The reason it's frightening is at that monment I realized I heard voices as well. I admitted this to myself, not to my friend. I hear a good and evil voice everyday. One reminds me in thousands of different ways, even through examples, that I will never amount to anything and that I am a complete failure. The other voices tells me I can be a success. I wonder if these voices belong to my mother and father. Vygotskey and Freud may agree with me, but its a very humanisitc approach. The spiritual outlook is quite obvious. I can't help but wonder that if perhaps I wasn't such a damn Creten I would be more blessed. Examining that just opens up an entirely different conflict regarding my perception of God as either a true diety or simply my own self percieved worthy. What's an alone, unemployed, grave diggger to do? Keep digging.