the random oracle

Those of you who’ve heard me complaining about New York know that I lost my infatuation with the city a while back.  Don’t get me wrong there are still things about it that I love: the fact that everything’s open late, the excitement in the air, the creative and talented people you meet, the diversity in all aspects, the people it draws from all over the world, the all-night subway, and so on.

But something has been nagging me and did not feel quite right.  I had two main culprits in mind: my poverty and the difficulty of dating here.  But, like a physicist in search of a Grand Unified Theory, I thought there might be something more fundamental behind it all.  And now I have my theory: what really bothers me about New York is excessive ambition.  The most visible aspect of it is money, and the unimaginable amounts people spend on apartments, restaurants, and luxuries here is mind-boggling.  But I’ve decided that money is just a symptom, not the source, of what bothers me.

Everyone here is trying to outdo everyone else.  It’s all about who got a bigger bonus.  Who went on the most exotic vacation.  Who has the nicest apartment.  But it’s not just about money, it pervades everything else too.  Who knows the most obscure restaurants.  Who knows the password for that underground bar.  Who’s in on the latest fashion.  Who is recycles more.  Who has more angst.

Ambition and a desire to outdo others leads to excellence, but it also leads to neurosis.  What really bothers me about New York is how far on the neurotic end of ambitious it is.  New York shouldn’t stop pursuing the next great thing, or else it wouldn’t be New York.  But I think it (and people here) could stand to take a second every once in a while to stop and appreciate that, gee wow, we’ve already got it pretty good here.