1/10/13
Mill Valley is the American dream. It is the town that everybody aspires to live in and raise a litter of shaggy-haired, spiritually enlightened children. Unbeknownst to these hippy breeders is the fact that a child brought up in Mill Valley ultimately lives a life of torture. These offspring grow up thinking the whole world is just as good as Mill Valley, when the day comes to fly the coop they have hard truths to face.
I remember the first time I ventured outside the bubble into the real world; everything was too bright and fluorescent. The street was like a seedy motel hallway, stains and trash on the sides sprinkled with a few panhandlers. Where are the comfortably low overhanging trees? Where are the Priuses? IS THAT WHAT A SIDEWALK LOOKS LIKE? I didn’t know you could put them next to houses!
Yes, we Children of the Mill live with a judgmental chip on our shoulder. In the real world, you have to experience life based solely on the merit of what you do. For example if you go play baseball and the game isn’t fun, you can’t just stare into the distance at beautiful scenery, you have to keep focusing the lamest game of all time. If you’re caught staring silently into the distance in most places, people think you’re disturbed or depressed, but in Mill Valley people just nod in approval with a dazed smile.
In the real world, people make a big deal about seeing commonplace things like deer or Lamborghinis. Most sunsets in the real world don’t have at least two bodies of water in the foreground, how bourgeoisie is that? It’s beyond me why people even go on runs in the real world, if you can’t breathe sea air and admire a world-class view then what’s the point? For that matter, why even leave the house?
I bet this is how Howard Hughes became so eccentric. He probably learned to be brilliant in Mill Valley then moved to LA where he spent the rest of his life holed up in his cinema watching old tapes of Mill Valley and peeing in jars, hoping they would someday be returned to their rightful place in the precious Marin County Watershed.
Life is rough always having the best, knowing the best, and generally expecting the best then watching the rest of the world fall short. When Mill Valley kids take Environmental Studies classes, they are seriously shaken. They know what Climate change can do because they already have the comparison for “earth as it was intended” and “earth after the humans had their way with it,” the same parallel happens every time they compare any place with Mill Valley. Nearly once a week I walk out my front door and shout at Portland, “Look what you’ve done humanity! Are you happy? You’ve ruined EVERYTHING!”
People claim to have first world problems but they have no clue what a real first world problem is. For Mill Valley alumni, the rest of the world is the third world. Imagine Mill Valley kids when their parents take them on “vacation” for the first time. No matter where they go, it’s the first in a long line of disappointing trips.
Life after emigrating from Mill Valley is that of hardship and struggle. It’s like living in a five star hotel all your life and then all of a sudden you can’t afford the bill so you spend the rest of your life chasing paper just to get another taste of that five star life.
The Smug Valley syndrome creates a closed loop cycle of native Mill Vallians to be cast outside of the bubble then slowly but surely succumb to it’s quaint gravitational pull just in time to raise more kids and feed the cycle. As long as Mill Valley remains the happiest place on earth there will always be snoots like me to look down my nose at you.
PS If you read this and did grow up in Mill Valley, you can see the outrageously overdone truth in it. If you've never been to Mill Valley, I suggest stopping by to see what all the fuss is about. It's such a unique place that I couldn't resist taking it down a peg.
