The year the bus drivers went on strike in Pittsburgh, I was

“The year the bus drivers went on strike in Pittsburgh, I was twenty-three and living on the edge of the city in a neighborhood that was on the verge of becoming a ghetto. I had just been fired from a good job as a cartographer in a design studio where I had worked for about four months.” — Said Sayrafiezadeh

Thus spoke Said Sayrafiezadeh, a chronicler of the working soul, a man who looked upon hardship not as tragedy but as truth. His words, though simple and grounded in the ordinary, carry within them the weight of human struggle, the quiet dignity of those who endure life’s turning tides. In this passage, he does not speak of kings or heroes, but of the everyman, caught in the stillness between loss and survival — that sacred moment when youth’s promise begins to meet the harshness of reality.

The origin of this quote lies within Sayrafiezadeh’s memoir When Skateboards Will Be Free, where he reflects upon his early life in the industrial city of Pittsburgh, a place both hard and honest, where steel once burned bright and dreams were often forged in struggle. His words summon a vivid moment in time — the bus strike, the failing neighborhood, the loss of work, the uncertainty of youth. It is not just a personal memory; it is a parable of transition, a moment when the idealism of early life collides with the unrelenting truth of the world.

The bus drivers’ strike is not merely an event, but a symbol — a world brought to a halt, systems broken, people stranded. In that paralysis, Sayrafiezadeh finds himself suspended too, his own life mirroring the standstill of the city around him. The loss of his cartographer’s job, a position of precision and design, signifies more than unemployment; it represents the crumbling of direction, the collapse of structure. To map the world is to impose order upon it — to draw borders, to define meaning. But once fired, he becomes a man without a map, forced to navigate the wild terrain of uncertainty on his own.

This moment, then, is not about despair but awakening. For every generation, there comes a time when the illusions of comfort fade, and one is thrust into the rawness of existence. The neighborhood “on the verge of becoming a ghetto” becomes a reflection of the self — a soul on the verge of change, of loss, and perhaps, renewal. In this way, Sayrafiezadeh’s words transcend autobiography; they become a mirror for all who have stood at the crossroads between who they were and who they must become. The artist’s loss, the worker’s strike, the decay of a city — all are threads in the same tapestry of becoming.

We may think here of Vincent van Gogh, who too knew the pain of dislocation — dismissed from his post as a preacher, rejected in love, and cast adrift. Yet from that void emerged the painter who would give light to the world. Like Sayrafiezadeh, van Gogh lived at the edge — the edge of cities, the edge of sanity, the edge of acceptance — and yet, from that margin, he drew beauty. The lesson is ancient: loss is the first teacher of wisdom, and the collapse of stability is often the beginning of creation.

Sayrafiezadeh’s cartography becomes, in this sense, a deeper metaphor. Though he could no longer draw maps for others, life itself began to draw its map upon him — a geography of struggle and endurance. The streets of Pittsburgh, the silence of unemployment, the isolation of change — these became his new coordinates. From them, he would chart not landscapes but the human condition, tracing the routes of resilience, faith, and quiet survival that define the soul of every man.

So, O reader and traveler of time, take heed of this teaching: when the buses of your life stop running, when the map of your path is torn away, do not despair. For the stillness that follows is not death, but the beginning of vision. The fires of purpose are often kindled in the ashes of defeat. Learn to walk when the wheels no longer turn; learn to see when the path is gone. Like Sayrafiezadeh, turn your struggle into your story, your confusion into your compass.

For the world belongs not to those who never fall, but to those who rise after losing their way — those who, having been fired from the design studio, become instead the designers of their own destiny.