Nothing is perfect. The conversations are about survival, dreams, religion, education, and politics. There are the meth-addicted here, plasma donors, students, and people trying to save their financial footing. I’m on the edge of an area known as “The Square,” which has the reputation of being a high-crime, impoverished corner of Phoenix, Arizona.
A Tesla leaves the drive-through as a couple pushing two shopping carts straggle by, one drawn by the brand and the other by toilets and ice water. A drug deal has been going on where a woman left her van to sit in another car before exiting to rejoin the person in the van who’s waiting on her. But the business is not done as she stumbles back to the black car. This time, they drive to another spot in the parking lot; maybe they think they won’t appear so obvious that way. The guy in the van works his pimples while the girl is likely hand-jobbing her dealer to make up for the shortage of shekels the couple has access to. Having probably run out of zits worth milking, the van driver has taken to compulsively picking his nits; he’s almost frantic in his determination.
The police have shown up, and after a second unit joins the first an officer approaches the car. The van driver remains cool, and after only a few minutes, the policemen leave, and the couple continues. Shortly after that, the party breaks up, with the woman going back to the van and everyone going their own way.
Some guy at a nearby table finally emerges from an extended stay in the bathroom where he’d gone nearly 30 minutes ago. He doesn’t look like a junkie, so I’m left thinking he’s incredibly constipated. Less than two minutes out, and he’s gone back for round two; I listen for the telltale signs of explosive diarrhea.
There’s a near-constant amount of foot traffic from the blood plasma donation center in this parking lot, but they walk on by instead of stopping in today. Within this coffee shop, there’s a diversity that’s missing from yesterday’s location. People from various countries, including China, Mexico, and/or other points in Central America, India, and Pakistan, black, white, young, old, thin, and obese are all represented. On the other hand, most of yesterday’s clientele were between 35 and 65, of average weight, and predominantly, maybe even exclusively, white.
Are we segregated? In many ways, we are, but it’s not necessarily forced by cultural convention but by class and opportunity that are silently imposed. America favors a homogeneous structure and does its best to tamp down diversity. While America may be the leader on some fronts regarding personal freedoms, there is an undercurrent of intolerance even from those that often fain openness and inclusivity.
Against this backdrop of reality, we are shown an impossible dream of happiness through endless happy consumption where we are all just a latte and 64-inch TV away from nirvana. The truth, on the other hand, is something more akin to accepting your series of personal failures and perceived opportunities that proved to be dead ends. At the end of the day, far too many will try to assuage their pain using the crutches of food, drugs, alcohol, pets, and various other surrogates on their path to futility.
Fortunately for the masses, there isn’t much thinking that goes along with the grind. There may be a general dissatisfaction, but it’s misfocused on blaming some mysterious “other.” Accountability for one’s own intellectual progress is myopic at best, which blinds people to understanding their own complacency for how this state of affairs has come to be our status quo. There is no red pill, and there is no blue pill in a world where one’s trajectory has too much momentum towards mediocrity.