Why I Write

Welcome Back! Hats and New Podcasts Coming

Hello everyone and welcome back! I have some more great podcast episodes coming up, including one on the evolution of the California dream and an interview with a really bright up-and-coming writer.

Also, some exciting news from the California Future Society merch department. I just got the first test of a new hat. Until the budget for hat models increases you’re stuck with me showing it off. I love the way they turned out and I'll be ordering more to make available to subscribers in the near future.

With that, here's my latest writing, a big picture look at the motivation behind why the California Future Society exists in the first place.

Enjoy!

Escaping my Cynicism

As a fourth-generation Californian, my family stories were woven into the state.

I grew up hearing about my great-grandfather moving the family here from Kansas during the Depression, lured by the prospect of growing oranges in the Inland Empire. His son, my now-94-year-old grandpa, spent his whole life in my hometown and still tells stories of how the region evolved. When he was a kid they used to only hit 4 stop signs on the 40 miles to sell oranges in Downtown LA, a stretch of farmland now covered in concrete.

On the other side of my family, my father packed up his car and moved here seeking a better life. He left behind a childhood spent in and out of poverty and was the first in his family to attend college, piecing together odd jobs and pell grants to work his way through grad school where he met my mother.

Underneath these stories was a consistent message. California is the land of opportunity, and we were part of the Americans who went West. This is the state where immigrants and dreamers show up to find a better life.

After a childhood of being steeped in the mythos of California, early adult life here was jarring, a rude awakening to the harsh realities of a stagnating state. I’d doom-scroll Zillow and feel resentment knowing that my grandparents built a custom home on a teacher’s salary. I’d read about the working class fleeing the state, knowing that behind every statistic was someone unable to imitate my Dad and the millions of others who were better off moving to California.

I felt a nostalgia for a land I never knew. I’d overlay my grandpa’s stories of my hometown, wondering what my life would have looked like if I had simply been born earlier. I’d even fantasize while driving up the coast, picturing what it must have been like to see virgin hills rolling into the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

I reached my late twenties feeling like I had missed California’s golden age. I believed my generation was doomed to live in the shadow of glory, like the caretaker of an aging British manor, stewarding the memories of past wealth as the place I called home slipped into decay and disrepair.

At a subconscious level, I felt I had simply missed the party, condemned to an era of mediocrity after California spent decades as the global center of innovation and opportunity.

Nothing glorious lasts forever. Why should California be any different?

The Question That Started It All

I don’t like moping. I can look back now and see I was resigning myself to California’s decline, but it was never obvious in the moment. It was a subtle form of self-pity, an unspoken sense of helplessness.

I’d cope through pragmatism, telling myself to, “lower your expectations, things are different for your generation. Be grateful for what you have.”

Over time that appeal to “accepting reality” stopped sitting well with me. Nothing about California’s decline is inevitable, so much of it is due to bad policy and dysfunctional politics. Many of the state’s failures were not random acts of God but mismanagement, a squandering of our state’s great inheritance.

Decline is a choice. I refuse to accept it.

This is about more than just home prices and material wealth. My happiness isn’t contingent on a mortgage or a bigger bank account. This is about opportunity, about California’s role in the world and fulfilling our state’s role as the engine of invention and widespread prosperity.

This thinking led me to a simple question: "What would it take for California to enter a new golden age?"

At first it felt naive to ask, wishful thinking shaped by childhood nostalgia.

But over time, the question has gnawed at me, opening up the possibility of change and pushing me to think practically about how to carve a path forward.

Reading

I started asking this question right after finishing grad school. I used my newfound time to dig deeper into California history. I read thousands of pages, including everything by the state's great historians and commentators like Kevin Starr, Carey McWilliams, Mike Davis and Joan Didion.

What emerged was a deeper understanding of the state, one in constant evolution with a remarkable potential for reinvention. California is not on a long, slow march towards a demise. It has been in an ongoing battle to realize its ideals, to live up to its promise as a global bastion of opportunity.

It’s endured waves of booms and busts and periods of scarcity. Things have been bad before. For example, in response to the bone-crushing poverty of the 1930’s the Sheriff of LA (unconstitutionally) even tried to patrol the state border to turn back ‘Okies’ seeking opportunity. Every wave, from the early gold rush and oil boom to the dotcom bubble and Cold War defense buildup, was paired with a crash and questions of whether the dream was just a mirage. Who could even access the dream has also been contested in a state with racial housing covenants, Japanese internment, and mistreatment of farm laborers despite a reputation for progressive openness.

Yes, we are now living through one of the most challenging eras of the state. The state’s population has shrunk for the first time ever and we lead the nation in poverty. These are symptoms of a dysfunctional state and will demand intense, radical changes.

But change is possible. It’s happened before. All it takes is people with the courage to make it happen, to will California’s next wave of prosperity into existence.

The Core Beliefs of the California Future Society

This is why I write and interview people. In my own small way, I want to help fuel a movement of people committed to the state’s future and willing to do what it takes to “plant trees so that future generations might enjoy the shade.” I’m just getting started, but I know what I’m working towards.

The California Future Society exists to challenge the narrative of inevitable decline, connect those who believe in California's potential, create actionable visions for a thriving future, and cultivate the next generation of California leaders and thinkers.

It is based on a few core beliefs:

1. California is too important to give up on. California shapes the future of America and the world. We're the most innovative state in the most innovative country, with the 5th largest global economy. What happens here matters everywhere and it is irresponsible to stop caring about the state’s future.

2. We're at a critical inflection point. The state can either reinvent itself to continue its leadership into the next century or recede into mediocrity. This is a time for action, not resignation.

3. There’s a glaring gap in the ‘Marketplace of Ideas’. Politically, right-wing pundits use the state as a punching bag of failed governance while left-wing leaders often gloss over its shortcomings. Culturally, most outsiders have a shallow understanding of our diverse regions and complex history. Better analysis is needed if we want to understand how to push the state forward.

4. Change requires both imagination and practical action. We need dreamers and doers working together to address our challenges. The solutions won't come from the same thinking that created our problems.

This Matters to Me

The more I write and speak about California's future, the clearer my purpose becomes. What started as curiosity has evolved into conviction.

I care about California in a way that runs deeper than I have words for. As I put in my pinned X post from a character in a Louis L'Amour book, "I have chosen California, or it has chosen me, I do not know which."

That's what the California Future Society is about. Not just resisting decline, but actively building what comes next and expanding the horizon of what’s possible.

Thank you for reading. If you believe in California's potential as I do, thank you for subscribing.

See you in the future.