Unplugged

It is a warm summer mid-morning with crisp weather — blue skies and plenty of sunshine — much unlike the foggy blanket one would expect in San Francisco; The peak fog game (i.e. Fogust) is still months away; It’s still the time one would expect the city to get uhm… progressively colder with the fog either in the backdrop or enveloping you, all while the chilly winds sweep through. Yet, here I am, at 11 in the morning, at Alta Plaza Park, enjoying every bit of the sunshine glazing my skin.

The wet grass has begun to “bake,” and the sweet fragrance is all around. I lay on my blanket, reading a book and writing in my journal, as I watched the events unfold around me. A sea of dogs running amok unleashed and enjoying the unbridled freedom; A black cat in a harness exploring the park with so much gusto that one would not have batted an eyelid if they said he ruled the park and all of the dogs were his puny subjects; Couples with babies in strollers with bags of food from the nearby Bi-rite market, hoping to find some space to soak in the sunshine and take a pause; A dad with his baby girl, holding onto a beautiful pink kite with a majestic tail, eager to fly it on this windy Father’s day; I bear witness to the curiosity of the dogs welcoming a newly dog off his chains; with the arrival of each dog, there’s a raucous celebration and an abundance of joy spread embraced by all of the viewers.

And there are the tech bros, founders, and VCs on their coffee walks. I cannot escape them. I can hear their chatter; they are the loudest in the park. Perhaps not intentionally, but their enthusiasm for their craft is apparent, much to the vexation of this author, as he tries not to think of work on weekends. I must also apportion some blame to myself, as I am reading ‘LLM Engineer’s Handbook’. Agentic AI, LLMs, ACP, A2A — words of the year so far — our tech bros are discussing the same as well.

To each their own, I conclude, making peace with the failed notion of escaping the chatter of tech, living in the thick of it. The curiosity of the black cat (Ludo) has been piqued; He has tugged on his harness to arrive at my blanket, while at the same time attracting the attention of Daisy, the majestic golden retriever, sitting quietly less than a metre away. Daisy’s intentions are clear: she wants to make a new friend; Ludo’s, on the other hand, is much more nefarious. He stops approaching and looks me in the eye; the eyes of black cats are always captivating, almost like the needy eyes of the labs and retrievers. I get up to pet this friendly cat; his intentions now become clear, as he advances to my blanket and makes himself comfortable, sprawling majestically on the entirety of it. Pure evil, and so… kingly; yes, your Highness, I mutter, while I pet him for a bit until his owner decides it’s in the best interest of all to leave (while Daisy lies down on the grass visibly sad).

In these moments, I reflect how much I have missed this act of doing… nothing; To be able to feel things in their entirety, and not just go with the flow - a flow that I decided to tweak and accelerate in the name of optimization and efficiency. To take in every sound, near and far, including the humdrum of the church bell nearby, it feels uncanny living in a hyper-plugged world of working long hours. Unplanned ambles like these evoke raw emotions that are so deep-seated that I have forgotten they exist; all it takes is doing nothing for them to surface. And yes, I didn’t read the book as the distractions became too positive to immerse myself in one, a reference book no less. As I walked towards a nearby restaurant on Divisadero, I promised my suddenly super-alive heart that I would do more of these unplugged ambles.