Geoff at bldgblog articulates what makes living in Los Angeles so confounding, liberating and existentially raw:
Los Angeles is where you confront the objective fact that you mean nothing; the desert, the ocean, the tectonic plates, the clear skies, the sun itself, the Hollywood Walk of Fame – even the parking lots: everything there somehow precedes you, even new construction sites, and it’s bigger than you and more abstract than you and indifferent to you. You don’t matter. You’re free. (bldgblog)
Hat tip: E.G.
More/tangent: Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear