Archive for February 18th, 2013
stark hideousness
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is never truly alone in New York City, given that it is one of the most densely inhabited and developed sections of the entire planet, but one often experiences a deep and abiding loneliness here. This is paradoxical, as any New Yorker- when queried as to their deepest wish- will answer with “I’d just like to left alone and have everyone else just mind their own business instead of paying attention to mine.”
That, and they’d like to win something called the Lottery, quit their jobs, and move someplace called “the country” where there is “no bullshit.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A product of this place, having existed in its schools and streets and along the waterways, your humble narrator is lonely by nature- but that has nothing to do with the City. Vainglorious humility is oft invoked when describing myself as an Outsider, but I’m only half joking. Regardless of my social status and ability to “fit in,” one would have no desire whatsoever to leave New York were my “ship to come in.”
That would be giving in, and allowing the City to say that it beat you (although the thought of a little country place in Vermont sounds pretty sweet).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The desolations of solitude, wherein the mind spawns metastases of self accusation and secondary guessing, are at the root of much of what ails most. How can one truly be alone in a crowd, or lonely in New York City? One such as myself craves (and in fact deserves) desolating isolation, the quiet of the tombs, and the absence of others.
Then again, I was raised as an “only child” and never had to share a bedroom with someone I didn’t wish to.
The Newtown Pentacle 