New York City is a rather intimidating place to find yourself looking for anything close to affection. Even a pity fuck comes with a pre-screen in this town. Last week, I was out with Sal, Hulk, and their friend Kid Dynamite at a swank bar in the East Village. Swank bars are the result of gentrification: they’re the only places in downtown Manhattan where someone who’s supposed to be a starving artist can network on his Sidekick III over a pint of Brooklyn Lager and not look ironic. At the end of the night, Sal, Hulk, Kid, and I parted ways and I stumbled back towards the Washington Square Park area (“the N.Y.U. campus” - as I call it) to catch the train. Meandering through the East Village at one in the morning on a Tuesday left me utterly astounded at how subtly quiet downtown is without the college kids, the yuppies, and the weekend Long Island frat boys. It was as if the buildings were so empty, they yearned to be filled with something other than kegs, plasma screen TVs, and loft beds. There was no traffic. So much so that I was able to stand in the middle of Broadway in Cooper Square and take a few pictures without fear of being hit by a car, this one is my favorite:
I also stopped by Tower Records, a bit more westward, and snapped these shots in its last days:
Maybe it was the desperation in that sign for cheap porn, the mood in the air, the fact that I didn’t feel as if I should worry about being mugged in the East Village at 1 a.m., but it was the first time I felt genuinely alone in this city.
In Buddhism, there’s the belief of being alone and finding solace in it. The idea is that there is no savior to come for us, and reality is what we see. Life is now: it was here before us and it’ll be here after us. But then the principle further dictates that while we are alone in a “big picture” sense, we are not alone in a communal, human race sense. Not only is that thought incredibly daunting, but it can also be seen as depressing taken at face value. In New York, we are famous for embracing ourselves as a community, but then saying “Fuck off.” to the guy in the Red Sox cap standing next to us on the F train – (apologies to my brothers and sisters in the Red Sox Nation, this example is hypothetical). So we, in fact, embrace a contradictory lifestyle and we have to; it’s the only way to get by in this city. But then, somewhere in there, I’ve stopped to think: “Well, what about the occasional human connection?” And then, it all seems to deflate for me. Everything that I thrive off of from being alone: my independence, my pride, my self-assurance, my self-reliance, etc. – they all seem oddly miniscule if it’s just the same old thing day in, day out. But I’m here to be an entertainer: an actor, a writer, a director, etc. My self-determination remains focused and I know what I want to accomplish with the time that I’m given. So why can’t I find a woman to sleep with from time to time? Why is it that, if I chose to be alone, I want to be alone, and, actually, prefer to be alone at this point in my life, do I seek out some romantic ideal of companionship… which doesn’t exist. It’s been proven that most of what we seek out as “love,” “romance,” or “serendipity” has actually been skewered in our national consciousness by the John Hughes generation and people who took When Harry Met Sally to be “Word-of-God” (in reference, I point to “This Is Emo” from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman). And I know that I am not the only New Yorker, nay, young college grad who feels this way.
We dismiss loneliness as something that’s bad and most of the time we’d rather prefer to be with someone who leaves us miserable because it’s a body to spoon that night. But I don’t think the cosmic outlook had the choice to spoon or not to spoon when free will was realized. So I wonder if we even value our relationships the right way if we hold up so many shallow principles in them. But, in that respect, do we really understand the deep impact of being alone and the self-aware potential we can achieve from it? New York seems resoundingly centrist on that question; I remain more or less piqued yet yearning at the same time. Yearning more so to just get something done, out of the way, and move on with my life until the desire pops up again… but then that just sounds pathetic as I sit here typing it.
All I do know is this: what I felt that same night, as I stood in Cooper Square, on Broadway, was some weird sense of awe coupled with a range of possibility. A possibility that no one, other than myself, can stand up to and answer; and until that answer is made, I guess I’ll never know what remains to truly be gained by being alone in New York City.
In Buddhism, there’s the belief of being alone and finding solace in it. The idea is that there is no savior to come for us, and reality is what we see. Life is now: it was here before us and it’ll be here after us. But then the principle further dictates that while we are alone in a “big picture” sense, we are not alone in a communal, human race sense. Not only is that thought incredibly daunting, but it can also be seen as depressing taken at face value. In New York, we are famous for embracing ourselves as a community, but then saying “Fuck off.” to the guy in the Red Sox cap standing next to us on the F train – (apologies to my brothers and sisters in the Red Sox Nation, this example is hypothetical). So we, in fact, embrace a contradictory lifestyle and we have to; it’s the only way to get by in this city. But then, somewhere in there, I’ve stopped to think: “Well, what about the occasional human connection?” And then, it all seems to deflate for me. Everything that I thrive off of from being alone: my independence, my pride, my self-assurance, my self-reliance, etc. – they all seem oddly miniscule if it’s just the same old thing day in, day out. But I’m here to be an entertainer: an actor, a writer, a director, etc. My self-determination remains focused and I know what I want to accomplish with the time that I’m given. So why can’t I find a woman to sleep with from time to time? Why is it that, if I chose to be alone, I want to be alone, and, actually, prefer to be alone at this point in my life, do I seek out some romantic ideal of companionship… which doesn’t exist. It’s been proven that most of what we seek out as “love,” “romance,” or “serendipity” has actually been skewered in our national consciousness by the John Hughes generation and people who took When Harry Met Sally to be “Word-of-God” (in reference, I point to “This Is Emo” from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman). And I know that I am not the only New Yorker, nay, young college grad who feels this way.
We dismiss loneliness as something that’s bad and most of the time we’d rather prefer to be with someone who leaves us miserable because it’s a body to spoon that night. But I don’t think the cosmic outlook had the choice to spoon or not to spoon when free will was realized. So I wonder if we even value our relationships the right way if we hold up so many shallow principles in them. But, in that respect, do we really understand the deep impact of being alone and the self-aware potential we can achieve from it? New York seems resoundingly centrist on that question; I remain more or less piqued yet yearning at the same time. Yearning more so to just get something done, out of the way, and move on with my life until the desire pops up again… but then that just sounds pathetic as I sit here typing it.
All I do know is this: what I felt that same night, as I stood in Cooper Square, on Broadway, was some weird sense of awe coupled with a range of possibility. A possibility that no one, other than myself, can stand up to and answer; and until that answer is made, I guess I’ll never know what remains to truly be gained by being alone in New York City.
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1 comments:
'We dismiss loneliness as something that’s bad and most of the time we’d rather prefer to be with someone who leaves us miserable...'
well put and too true.
i dont want to say reading that made me nauseous, but nausea is kinda of what it feels like (which isnt bad in the sense that you should feel in any way insulted, haha).
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