Yesterday, I was exiting the generic coffee shop with my father on our penultimate day working together in California when we noticed a wildfire to the south of Glendale. Later on the news, I saw it may have been linked to the brushfires in Tujunga. My thoughts and prayers are with those souls in that neck of the woods but truly, the one time I felt actually affected by a fire of such magnitude was last year when I was still living in Los Angeles. I was walking outside, around the Promenade, destined to take some nice pictures and videos of the area when me and several other pedestrians noted the suddenly new hue of the clouds and Sun above. A very orange existence indeed. It freaked me out in understanding that probably the World was ending and there would be Hell to pay. Ultimately, it was a majorly massive fire in Pasadena that had smoke flockin’ west to catch some gnarly waves. Jokes—or a lack of therefore—aside, I often wonder about how the future will come after me if I don’t prepare enough. Kinda like how you think fires in the valley won’t reach your posh pad in West Hollywood, but then you forget that given the opportunity, the fires could make their way out of Studio City by taking Laurel Canyon and hooking a right at the Improv. To put it bluntly as one would put out a spark with an extinguisher? We take this life for granted. Not everyone has it this easy, and not everyone that does will have it this easy for long. So truly, what’s the point of prolonging the inevitable if approaching the inevitable is exactly the best way to tackle the unknown? A sneak attack on your sneaking intruder! Why don’t we do that?! Speaking from my own experience, it’s because I’m not gracious enough for what I have. Naturally, instead of giving thanks for what I’ve accumulated so far in my life here in California, I make myself yearn for what I haven’t acquired and/or maintained acquisition of so far. I’m still reliant on primitive transportation, I’m still on a shaky income and I keep skipping to new podcasts. It’s dreadful how out of line my priorities are. But will any of that really matter when everything and everyone I cherish gets swept away? Just one unapologetic swipe away from Mother Nature and I really could be starting from square one. Yet that hasn’t happened yet! As far as I’m concerned, we’re all just striving for our personal best records of how long we’ve been without a workplace accident untill the inevitable becomes evident. And all I can really do to prepare personally for the worst disaster and the best survival is to just get my head in the game and understand where my strengths lie in accordance with the environment my assets chill at. There’s something fair about that, yeah? Life treats no one any different than the last. Whether you sit on a mountain of gold or a mountain of shit, you’re still mortal. You’re still going to die. Live it up, but anticipate what Hell may come for your descendants, lovers or close familiar figures. That’s what I figure. Because all we are doing for ourselves are dawdling in our heads and telling people half-truths because no one can finish the whole enchilada. (Much less without passive-aggressive mole!) Just to sidebar right quick, I can’t comprehend the folk who say it’s worth never having regrets. No. Don’t you see? Should I have them, I want my kids to have regrets. I want my kids to have moments of weakness. Sorrow. The sooner they learn how to face, understand, accept and then graduate from those schools of thought, the sooner they stop worrying about what society says and become human in their own revered manner. You can’t be herding sheep if they don’t know the way to the slaughterhouse. It’s only polite manners that I expel because I’m exhausted of being clueless. Truly. Because I was scared to fail. Now, I can’t wait. Because then starts my uprising from the downfall. I don’t want to just be another dope staring in the sky, wondering “what if?” I want to be the man flying high above, looking below but forwardly below. Knowing “that’s what.”