The Extremes of Society, a Personal Reflection

As of a few years ago, I moved to Los Angeles and began working around the entertainment industry. Within a few months of my move I found a job in catering and started working events throughout the Los Angeles area. I work all types of events: private parties at personal residences, corporate parties, and large red-carpet events like the Golden Globes, Emmy's, and Academy Awards as well as the luxurious high-end pre and post parties that accompany them.

My experience in these years has given me a unique view of our society that is worth mentioning for those who haven't had the privilege of direct exposure. For the first two years of my work in the catering industry, I had no means of personal transportation and had to use public transportation as my means of getting to the various events I was scheduled. This was an interesting experience in itself for I would spend hours commuting on public transit with the poorest members of society only to be swept up into parties occupied by the elite of society. An interesting dichotomy.

The extremes of society are not separated geographically, or not as geographically as they may seem. They indeed lie right next to each other. The only boundary being a few walls and a couple groups of security guards. Downtown LA has been deemed by other bloggers as "The Great Divide" for it's notable difference in lifestyles that brush up right against each other. The distance between the cultures of the wealthy and poor can be measured in feet. On the one hand, we have a group of people who are positioned well economically. They will commute from luxurious apartments to their downtown offices and park underneath their place of business. On the other hand, we have those who have nothing: street people who collect the disregarded belongings of those more fortunate and are no more than a few hundred feet away from their place of business.

The economically fortunate live a life of illusory sophistication which distances themselves from the poor. The poor live a life that is real in deprivation, confusion, and social isolation. Many have turned hard against society and others in general. The imbalance is staggering. Perhaps it is a reflection of this attitude when Manhattan, the financial center of our culture, is represented by a sea of skyscrapers surrounding Central Park, which engineers deem a necessary use of the land to keep the island from sinking into the Atlantic Ocean.