America birthed the "Hollywood Elite"
I’m just finding these things on my old computer and reprinting without editing. From 2018.
I come from a suburban town. I went to Catholic school and church every Sunday. We watched cartoons and played video games until it was time for dinner.
I didn’t know any gay people or transgender people, but we knew plenty of people who loved America and the 4th of July.
I can’t imagine how much different my life would have been had I grown up very far from a big city but I also cant imagine it being much too different.
But I eventually left home to chase my dream. I wanted to be a part of the process that entertained the world. And once I got there I learned that the world is as big and diverse as I had imagined but never witnessed first hand. I met gay people, immigrants from the Eastern hemisphere and women who were just as capable and as strong as any man Id ever met.
Being at home was fun and fine and safe. But being in this world opens your eyes to what is happening in the real world. It makes you empathize with your fellow humans.
Everything the transplants were taught about love family and community is still here except that we expanded our idea of community to include all the other people out here who had left home to chase the dream.
I have friends from all around the country and the world here. Some of them felt they had to leave home because they couldn’t be who they wanted to be. Some of them left because they felt they didn’t fit, they knew that the world had a different story for them. Very very few of them say I never want to go back or I hated it. They appreciate and love their homes but eventually they find a different but equally strong version of home here.
Out of sight out of mind is the truth you learn when you get to a big city. You didn’t have a homeless problem or a overcrowded classroom problem or a single parent who has to work day and night to feed their kid problem. Or if you did, then the community would rally around them to help. That’s what we all learn to do here. We realize that there are many many people that need help and we want to do the most to help them. But like an independent movie or TV show it takes more than one man. It takes a nation.
Ill admit there’s a giant bureaucracy that is wasteful but the good things it does outweigh that bad over and over and over.
Rich people do great things, and they continue to but it really is easier to let other people do the work and support them with money.