I think growing up in a small, rural town does not dispose one to relish the environment of New York City. Its furious pace, dirty streets and extinction of common courtesy would leave many a novitiate frustrated and disillusioned, regardless of past experience. However, there is something there that invites our curiosity and commands our praise.
It is not the gross amount of people or the Empire State building that ultimately enchants us. New York City is essentially the focal point of commerce and politics in the world, but it is not this either that most vividly distinguishes it and beckons us to visit. What does is that New York, more so than any city I've been to or heard of, is alive. It revels during the day and seethes at night. New York City triumphs as a singular functioning organism, an amalgam reminiscent of the archaic vision of the American Dream.
The artists who come to dream and the bankers who come to succeed all have their place here, and they all depend on each other. From the masterpiece hanging on the wall of a CEO, to the taxi driver, to the construction worker, the interconnectiveness of the various and diverse walks of life is nowhere in more obvious display. Somehow, through the efficient functioning of New York, with its violent urge for success, it cannot help but neglect certain values that we tend to cherish.
Whether too busy or too worn out from being busy, everyone, despite their rank, has an excuse to be cold in New York. Muggings, shoves in the subway and the angry disputes at sidewalk vendors are manifestations of the burden of this town. In general, selfishness and superficiality prevail, but this makes all the more profound any moment where these trademark characteristics are rejected. A small diner owner came running after me once to return a wallet containing what was probably for him a couple days' wages. After a stressful day of work, a businessman struck up a conversation with me about the book I was reading on the subway. A starving artist, self-named Sir Shadow, paused to hear my remarks about his work. These extensions of kindness seem to be forced through a blanket of malaise and distrust. In doing so, they seem to reveal the modest but persistent will of the human spirit.
So despite its objective direction toward progress, there is a warmth in New York City. The kind of warmth that one finds only after a desperate struggle, after all pretense has been exhausted. The people here seem just as willing to share their life story as they are to cast their gaze to the sidewalk as they walk by. The rich diversity of experience, from the wealthiest stockbroker to the most indigent beggar, speaks of a conglomerate story that is in itself everything that our age has to tell.
Also, there is a glory in New York City that is found amid its skyscrapers and billboards. These iron and electric displays of materialism and commercialism can be disturbing. If progress leads to this, perhaps it is time to reevaluate our direction. But in the gaudy flashing lights of Time Square and the monstrous towers of downtown, there are people screaming to live.
They are looking for something more, something beyond them, something that is beyond god and nature that they can call their own. At first glance, what this desire has produced may be troubling to someone raised to prize the rural, but the passionate desire itself is what warrants the most attention and veneration.
So maybe there's room to romanticize a city that seems to invite little appreciation from anyone uninterested in wealth and power or Broadway plays. In this city of extremes there are casualties, rich and poor, and their history is recorded in the sublime ramblings of each crazy zealot you pass along the street. But the city endures and prevails. There are victors, those not defeated by its harsh realities; those who, amid the pressures and stresses that accompany residence in the capital of the world, are able to maintain their humanity.