Opinion: I Have No Opinion
An Anti-Op-Ed
I was determined to write last week. Generate some form of opinion. After all, I was safe - in the flatter, more concrete part of the city - twiddling away in an eerie state of guilt ridden normalcy. It was a challenge explaining this to family and friends not local. To anyone who watched news coverage of what looked like the entirety of Southern California up in flames. Explaining such delicate safety felt like explaining the sprawling perplexity of the city itself. A city that contains a multitude of parallel cities. A city that would make any tourist pay the price for attempting to visit the Hollywood sign and Santa Monica Pier in an afternoon.
As always, I tried to avoid the topical. Yet as I attempted to do so last Tuesday, Wednesday, and then Thursday, it became clear that would be impossible. The fires were not topical. They were the only topic. Even just referring to it all as a topic adds insult to devastation. But what should this be in the face of chaos? I drew a blank. By Thursday evening I gave up. Admitted to myself that I valued decency over writing about David Muir’s clothespinned fire coat for the sake of consistency. However, I did read every opinion column, tweet, or re-truth I could find from bystanders like myself. Each and every writer, pundit, or president-elect who assigned blame for the abject tragedy that raged on with less than 0% containment. The finger pointers. The told-you-so-ers. The amateur budgetary oversight committees. And of course, none of it helped. There is no logic or binary truth in the matter. Instead, maybe that of quantum reasoning. A multitude of truths so random and nuanced, bearing no semblance of morality or greed, that even if almost exclusively relevant, feels so obviously manipulative to spin or declare with reason.
Thankfully there were those who put action before answers. The bullshit sifters and the next step takers. The individuals I look up to. The bravest of which, warred over fire while smaller men fueled it with blame.
I don’t know who or what is exactly to blame for an occurrence insured as an act of God. That is if one’s insurance still covers destructively divine intervention. I don’t know what combination of cigarette butts, power lines, or firecrackers combined with whipping winds to ignite such a chain of life-altering events. That’s not for me to hypothesize. I have theories, as we all do. Stances on climate deterioration and such. But I used to believe each week I wrote this, I’d need some form of opinion ready - however weak or strong, informed or misguided, topical or random. Now I know better. On the worst of weeks, sometimes all we have are questions.
What now? What next action can be taken?
Because what’s burned was beautiful. Where it was built still is. And to quote a 2007 standup joke from Daniel Tosh that I most definitely will not quote the rest of…Why would anyone build their homes on those canyons and cliffs, so prone to go up in flames?
Because here in California, we have shit to look at.