I live in Downtown Los Angeles in one of those old office buildings that’s been converted into lofts. I have huge windows with high ceilings, and from where I sit I can see down the street towards skid row. The apartment is on the 4th floor, so it’s not much of a view. Mostly I see some shops in the garment district and one of the LAPD helicopter pads. At night I can hear the sounds of the restaurants and bars on the street below me.
It’s nice being on the 4th floor. You’re not in the fray of downtown. I can hear the homeless person who walks up the street each morning yelling, but I’m not on the street with him. I can watch the party people, enjoy the music, then put in my earplugs and go to sleep.
Most of us live on the street in our minds. Everything is up close and very personal. The person waiting for the light to change at the crosswalk is Very Real. They’re RIGHT THERE. The loud music in the tequila bar is all you hear when you’re sitting at the bar.
We all have moments where we move up to the 4th floor. The street life is there. You can still see people clearly, sometimes you can see the expression on their faces when they look up. It’s like you’re a part of the city, but with a buffer between you and it.
But have you seen the view from the roof?
The rooftop is a different experience. I see south LA stretch out before me, and on a clear day I see the Palos Verdes peninsula. If I peer straight down, I see alleyways and parking lots, and people walking on the street. But it’s so different. From the roof it’s just a city. It’s a network of streets and buildings, people and cars. There’s some street noise, but it’s far away and blends together in one background sound.
I think it’s a gift when we see our experience from the roof. It’s a gift life gives to all of us if we slow down enough to notice.
This street corner might be anxiety. That street corner might be excitement. Here’s a shop full of boredom. Oh look, the crazy panic attack is running straight towards you with a machete! (DTLA joke. You get it if you live here.) Here’s a little park of thoughtfulness. What a fun little eatery full of ideas and creativity! Ugh, this intersection has all my habits I don’t like.
We can get lost running around, trying to find our favorite feelings and avoiding the ones we don’t like.
Sometimes we get our head up above the fray. We get on the 4th floor, and we’re able to ignore things a little bit, but if we look down, it’s there and personal again.
But what if you, the real you, is that space when you’re on the roof looking out at the horizon?
When you see thought for what it is, when you see your chattering mind for what it is, when you see all the complexity and feelings and all the stuff that looks so personal for what they are, it’s like the view from the roof.
And you know, it’s not half bad. It’s rather peaceful, even with the background hum. There’s nothing to solve or fix. It’s just the city being the city. Just the city doing what cities do.
What if your mind is just a mind? It’s got all the peculiarities and particularities a mind has, but it’s just a mind. A mind with one job: keep you alive. It’s not there to make you happy, fall in love, experience enlightenment, or “be successful” whatever that means.
You are here, on planet earth, because your ancestors were good at three things: survive, grow, and reproduce. You inherited their neurobiology. Yay you! You survivor, grower, reproducer, you!
And yet.
And yet…
We have this lovely gift of consciousness that somehow can notice itself. It lives in the mind and neurobiology, and yet somehow can step back and notice it is.
What if that’s you? The noticer. The watcher. Not the voice in your head narrating what you’re watching. The view from the roof. The screen illuminating the movie, not the action taking palce on the scree. What if you’re the sky watching the city grow and change moment to moment, never staying the same.
How innocent to misunderstand and see the street life as personal. What a gift to see the view from the roof.
**Just pause**
Look up. You see. You are not what you see.
Practical Wisdom 