Having been born and raised in the fine state of California, I have many wonderful childhood memories of that place. However, that has been some time ago. More than thirty years to be exact.

Perhaps it is then the typical case of only remembering the good things and complaining about how much worse things have become now. Maybe not.

You see, this great state of California has become such a complete mess that I feel pretty bad about it, almost affronted in some personal deep-down kind of way. How could this have happened? It bugs the holy heck out of me to see all of this happening. What's going on?!

Well, I have a few theories. In reality, the causes of these kind of things are due to a complicated interaction of various factors, the one more subtle than the other. One of the most important factors I think is a loss of faith which has taken over by excessive greed. One loses touch with the past and the present and therefore also with oneself.

At least that is my theory.

Time to elaborate. People forget about the past, start ignoring the present, and they become fixated on the future. Getting better and better and better. Being the very best. The best there is as if this is such an important thing to achieve in the world. Strange but true.

And when we die, what happens to all that stuff we collected?

Collected material things and making tons of money has much to do with this. Why would one want to get even richer except to save up for the future? The future comes and then it goes and becomes the past once more.

Whatever happened to the present?

I realize that things will never be like they used to in good old California. That would be pretty boring if nothing changed. However, there are some pretty basic principles of life which should never be neglected. Perhaps people should stop a second and rethink a good solid moment. Once a day at least.

Living in the present, for example.