inconveniences

The greatest demonstration of devotion is doing something that inconveniences you.

Los Angeles is a city of inconveniences. It’s inconvenient the moment you step foot within the borders of this city. To get a taxi from LAX, you have to take a shuttle to a parking lot. If you live in a densely populate area, it’s inconvenient to get anywhere. There’s no parking, no walkability, no public transportation, and too many cars. If you live in the hills, buying a carton of milk or a pack of cigarettes is inconvenient. Grocery stores are out of the way and bodegas are mythical creatures. And yet, the people I know can’t seem to stop inconveniencing themselves for others.

I think a lot about why this is. Why are the friends I’ve found here offering to take me to the airport? Other than my parents and a wayward boyfriend or two, I don’t think anyone else had dropped me off at an airport before I moved here. Why are they driving two hours in rush hour traffic to give me a break from being a mother or to drop off a play pen their daughter no longer needs? For all its flaws, community here seems to mean something visceral, something embodied—a lived experience rather than a talking point for a personal brand or a value proposition for intentional living. It’s something you do; not something you announce.

Maybe it’s that, unlike in San Francisco or New York, efficiency and productivity aren’t virtues. We value, instead, a slow, meandering morning; farmers market dahlias; coral and bright orange sunsets over the Pacific; a perfect facelift. Maybe, because there are no seasons and everyone is ageless, we aren’t aware of the passing of time. In its abstraction, time feels suspended and abundant, even infinite. Our time is happily, perhaps carelessly, given away.

I attended a birthday party once where another guest commented that the atmosphere felt like he was inside LinkedIn. We were outnumbered by talking heads with ready-made elevator pitches and delusions of grandeur. We got so bored of listening to people talk about themselves that we stood by the bar and dosed ourselves with shroom gummies. Self-worth, I suspect, is inversely correlated to how much someone talks about themselves.

I think the answer to a lot of questions is: “get over yourself.” Identity is an expression of ego; a story for your own solace, an attempt to feel coherent, consequential. The tighter we hold onto our selves, the smaller we become. When you set aside your conceptions of self—who you are, what you’re owed, what this all is supposed to add up to—inconveniences become palatable. Devotion comes naturally when you stop centering your life around yourself.