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Life Goes On In Spite of Everything

My hometown’s on fire.

Vincent Van Patten
2 min readJan 12, 2025

My hometown’s on fire.
I’m sickened for those that have lost everything.
It’s a nightmare, and I’m not even there.
In Tokyo, I pass a girl skipping across the intersection.
Boys in school uniforms,
Playing baseball underneath the overpass.
A couple seated and smiling on a bench.
Back in LA, the sky is black.
Here on the other side of the world, the sunset is clear.
Purple. Miraculous.
Life is so beautiful; so painful. And then it’s gone.
How can it be that the world exists in such duality?
How can we make sense of it.
Flowers bloom from ashes, eventually, they do.
Where there’s pain, there may be deeper love.
It’s how we respond, with fear, or with compassion.
With hate, or with open arms.
We’re all just people, trying to make sense of
Incomprehensible circumstances.

In the introduction of The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood, a novel of life in early…

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Vincent Van Patten
Vincent Van Patten

Written by Vincent Van Patten

Exploring what lights my soul on fire while living a nomadic life. vincentvanpatten.com

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