open message to a liberal vegan friend:

"i had this thought this afternoon: i was reflecting on my experience with cities and travel and car camping, and my time working in San Francisco. one thing I noticed about the homeless crisis is that few or no homeless deranged (largely because of drugs, sadly) people would be up in the hills. they'd always be near the main central avenues like Market St or Mission St especially by the subway stations , i.e. where it was easy to come in contact with passersby with money

seemingly unrelatedly but in my new view maybe actually similar, places with great weather like San Francisco and L.A. inspire a lot of virtuous people to move there for their own self-care and for all the opportunities. but these places also attract vultures and hedonists and debased selfish actors who are just exploitive of the sunlight

i've been reflecting a lot on how cool it is that you've elected to stay close near where you grew up in Oklahoma and near your family. it obviously comes with major trade offs and sacrifices but it just shows so much love in your heart. I was thinking about how there so many good-spirited vegans in the Pacific Northwest, where Oregon and Washington are even more liberal than California at the virtuous end of the bell curve. I was just connecting all these ideas and imagining the likely possibilities that there are lots of young people like us who grew up there, who maybe possibly also came from imperfect family environments, and could be living in paradise weather places like Hawaii or Oakland or L.A. But it's more important to stay close to family and it doesn't matter if it rains like cold hell most of the year. The love in the air and the oxygen from the trees and the flow of the ocean all make up for it. Then maybe this love field starts to have an affect on the asleep people in these states. Suddenly you have fathers and police chiefs who are caring more. I can't help but think about the Twilight movie/book series and how benefic the father figures are portrayed for their divine masculinity

maybe rain and cold and fog makes us all tough and keeps evil spirits away"