I was sitting in the courthouse last Thursday, and found myself pulled into a conversation with an Armenian, a 19 year old Jewish kid, and a second generation Serbian.  We weren’t changing the world; just shooting the breeze.  As I’ve found throughout my experience, the Islamic Center I attend the most frequently is a wide variety of brothers and sisters from Africa, the Middle East, and America.  And around the corner from the center is a Buddhist temple.  I’ve implied it from my earliest posts, but for someone as individual as myself, the diversity of the big metropolis is one of its strongest points.

Let me get on my soapbox for a minute: each of us has a story to tell.  Each of us was born with a talent; and while some people certainly have more colorful details than others and are born with more or less money or opportunity; we’re all here for something.  It always irritates me to hear of someone who doesn’t find themselves or anything about their own life interesting.  You may not recognize it (or be proud of it), but it’s in there.  Our differences certainly create enough issues and problems, but overall they keep our lives interesting.

Don’t get me wrong; L.A. can also be as segregated in its own way as any other city.  There was a night a few weeks back where I got the side eye in the morning from a guy at the post office with an ‘Impeach Obama’ sign, and later on that night I got the same side eye from a young guy in West Hollywood.  And if you’re not from here trust me; those two guys will NEVER be hanging out together!  But just the fact that I can, without effort, cross paths with each of these type of characters in a normal day is very cool to me.  It’s like I’ve never left college in a way.

Those last couple sentences actually just gave me the idea for something else I love about L.A.; more on that next time…