Questioning the Grid Plan: A Metaphor of Discovery

Timothy "Speed" Levitch has the beautiful knack for both articulation and poetry.

For anyone who feels like digging into their biases, who may be struggling in the structure of the everyday-mundane-whatever, or who is interested in some damn good philosophical diatribe, check this out:

Speed Levitch: The New York City "Grid Plan"

Here's the closing passage from the video, which particularly resonated with me.

"By saying everyone likes the grid plan, you're saying: I'm going to relive all the mistakes my parents made. I'm going to identify and relive all the sorrows my mother ever lived through. I will propagate and create dysfunctional children in the same dysfunctional way I was raised. I will spread neurosis throughout the landscape and do my best to recreate myself and the damages of my life for the next generation."

Levitch seems to emphasize the importance of questioning and skepticism--who is "everyone" when relating the values of our society, particularly in this metaphor of the New York grid plan.

Pop culture's influence is intravenous. It has merged so many identities with skewed views of reality, of past mistakes in search of feeble justification. I remain adamant on three things imperative to self growth: Question, question, question. Do we have biases, and if so, why are they there? What purpose do they serve? It may be difficult to question notions that seem so available, so readily injected into the mainstream. But those are the very values we might not be questioning enough.

We must have the courage to seek them out, and like Levitch says, recognize: "There is no homogenization available. There is only total existence, total cacophony." Isn't it time to change the grid plan?