Survival

I went to a show in Brooklyn by myself tonight to see two bands that I've come to really enjoy as of late: 'The Sidekicks' from Columbus, Ohio and 'Hop Along' from Philadelphia. Going to shows by  myself is always fairly awkward for me, but, depending on who I'm seeing, I can get over it almost immediately as soon as the band starts playing. Thankfully, that was the case tonight. 

Just as I have a romantic relationship with New York City, I have one even stronger with the concept of sinking my mind—my entire being, really—into a really good song or a live performance of a band with which I have a very personal, musical relationship. It's the auditory equivalent of a drug for me, and it's a feeling for which I so desperately yearn on an hourly basis. Fortunately for me and my precarious budgetary situation (I have no source of income and I live in a very expensive city), good songs are easily accessible and cheap. An awful platitude, to be sure, but I honestly don't know how I would deal with the world around me if I didn't have access to music. 

More specifically, I am referring to the kinds of songs that can completely overwhelm me and consume every ounce of attention I can pay in a single moment. Some people don't understand this concept, and I'll never understand that or support it. I can't. Have you not ever acquainted yourself with a song so powerful that it changed your entire state of being? A song that prevented the continuation of whatever you were doing, no matter what you were doing, until it ends? To be sure, with certain drugs this is much more easily observed, so maybe you aught to try that first, but, for me, many songs are powerful enough to need nothing else. For example, the song 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi' by Radiohead is so substantially captivating that my entire mind is consumed by it. It's not just the song; it's the lyrics and the emotionality. The honesty of the words is overwhelming while the guitars that pick up as the song progresses seem to have their own agenda, as if disconnected form the other instruments entirely, yet they piece together to suck up every ounce free worry I can muster. As it builds up, it devastates me, and, at the same time, it comforts me to know that something so simple (simple as the concept of a song is simple) can take my mind off of everything awful for five minutes.

  Five minutes might sound quite trivial, but it saves my life. I guarantee it. My mind is always trudging—I can't really explain why, but it is—and often the world around me is just too much for it to handle. With live music in particular, it's so much easier to have my worries sidelined in majestic transience. I can focus entirely on the music, letting my mind sink into my heart and be swallowed by it, and even let my body take a break by letting the crowd push me and pull me in whatever direction it wants. I don't brace myself; I let go in every sense of the phrase. 'The Sidekicks' have songs that are so genuinely honest and passionate that I got to embody them for thirty-five minutes. You could tell it meant a lot to them that the crowd had a good time, but it meant so much more to me just to experience it. Sometimes I feel like no one knows how much these things mean to me. Today was rough for me. The past week has been rough for me. I have no job, no prospects of employment, impeding rent-checks to be written that linger over my insufficient savings account, more homework to do than I've felt like I can handle, and the stresses of feeling like nothing is working out after a making a major change in my life. Tonight music got me through it. Tonight music allowed me to transcend every problem I have, even if only temporarily.

During Hop Along's set, some asshole tried to start a fight with someone that accidentally shoved him. When the accidental-shover committed the apparent atrocity, the asshole head-butted him in a way I've never seen off the big-screen. I was feeling too happily sedated to let a fight break out, so I put myself between them, smiled, and told them that we're all alright and that everyone's having a good time. They weren't cooled off, but I hate fighting, so I persisted. Eventually one of the asshole's friends got the asshole to leave, so I'm sure I played no part in alleviating the situation, but it was scary for me and it made me feel very, very alive. Nothing beats that. This excitement, derived from a (likely unwarranted) sense of bravery and genuine fear, paired with my alleviated worries from Hop Along's set, left me floating in satiated bliss.

After the show I walked a little less than a mile to the nearest subway station. It was about 15 minutes after midnight. I could see very closely to my right the Manhattan skyline. The Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, the Bank of America building each glimmered as airplanes blinked and flew by, tracing the city overhead. They looked stunning and I felt inspired. To my left I saw the peaceful, yet awake, well-lit Greenpoint street that guided me to my station. It was about 70 degrees with a heavenly breeze, and I put my earbuds in and listened to some comfort music. I started off with 'The Last Lie I Told' by Saves the Day. Although I knew things wouldn't be shortly after I got home, everything was alright, and I couldn't have asked for anything more than that. 

Addendum: Listen to 'Young and Happy!' by Hop Along and '1940's Fighter Jet' by The Sidekicks.

Do Better, PLS.

Two concepts I have never liked regarding passive racism and insensitivity toward the gay community  have been on my mind a lot lately. The first is when my non-black peers feel the need to refer to black people as "this black guy" or "some black girl". There is no need. I cannot count the number of times in which a peer of mine has recalled some trivial banality of a story in which one of the persons involved happened to be of color and the person telling the story felt compelled to point it out.

To be sure, this often happens when the story-teller is trying to convey that the person at hand was either thug-like or intimidating in some way, but these are simply ludicrous, hyperbolic stereotypes that do nothing but perpetuate said stereotypes and influence peoples' reasons to falsely acknowledge and declare these absurd racial distinctions. Even if you think it adds flavor to your story, leave it out because you are, in every way, part of the problem if you don't. It's some form of passive racism in which people have no idea of the implications of their statements. Go ahead and refer to the person as "thug-like" or "gangster" or "reminiscent of U-turn from Showtime's 'Weeds'" for all I care, as these terms could have white-non-hispanic representations as well, but don't suggest that the color of ones skin need be suggestive of any of these qualities. I used to think this awful phenomenon was defensible because people just did it out of ignorance. That perhaps it wasn't intentional racism but just a cultural component, but I cannot abide by it any longer.

(Addendum to the first half:

I recently found out that Queens County in New York City is the only large county in the United States in which black incomes are higher than white incomes. The fact that this is the case for Queens is great. I love Queens. But the fact that this is the only large county in the entire country to boast such a statistic is quite troubling for me, to say the least.

During my orientation at the NSSR, one of the speakers mentioned a recent study that showed the effect of making students declare their race (as well as sex) on standardized testing. It found that black students fared worse on math and science subjects on tests in which stating race was required, while it found that black students fared equally to white students on tests in which there was no question about race. I thought this was amazing, and also very disconcerting. It shows how much the labeling of the black community (perhaps not of itself to itself, but of itself to the rest of the word) affects its well-being. Making awful implications out of bullshit generalizations perpetuates this labeling and this separation, so, please, think about that next time you're about to do it.)

The second concept which yields great contempt from me is when people defend gay marriage or gay-anything by arguing that people do not decide to be gay. Don't get me wrong, the likelihood of deciding to be gay has got to be very low given the moronic nature of mankind and its propensity to loathe everything one might deem "weird", but whether people choose to be gay or not should be irrelevant. So what if someone chooses to be gay? If that person is happy doing so, so fucking be it. Why does it need to be about excuses? Would you argue the same about ethnicity? I would hope not. The overlying issue of morality here is that people should be able to do as they please as long as they aren't harming anyone else in the process. Some might argue (and many do) that same-sex marriage has the capability to harm someone psychologically (e.g. the sanctity of one's marriage is threatened by the sinful nature of another's same-sex marriage), but these are simply terrible, atrocious people to whom you should not afford any attention. For the record, if you would like some analogous social-libertarian (the good kind of libertarian) literature on the matter, read the superb John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty' and his "harm principle". He doesn't talk about same-sex marriage per se, but his remarks on polygamy can easily be extrapolated to make the same point.

Embrace and celebrate homosexuality for all that it is: unadulterated beauty. If you don't, you're just an asshole and you're furthering the idea that heterosexuality is right and normal while homosexuality is wrong and weird. I've reached the point where I can't accept any defense of gay-marriage simply because it's a defense. Do the right thing. Be a good person. I love living in New York City for a myriad of heartfelt reasons, but one of the most prominent is how comfortable they gay community is here.

Addendum: the Yankees won tonight in comeback fashion (ignited by Derek Jeter) and I had a great group-iMessage conversation with my parents during it while I was drinking too much at a bar. It has left me feeling cozy and spirited in a way only my family can achieve.

The Vast Spoils of Losing Your Mind

I'm sweating through both my clothes and my mind at the Laundromat on Nostrand and Willoughby (I'll have you know that I've already googled two questions and asked the laundromat attendant and a random woman folding clothes three questions about general washer/dryer operations) and all I can think about is the prescience of the impending change in season. The transition of the summer into the fall means two things for me. The first is that I am going to become a lame, shitty friend. The second is that I'm going to become more and more independent as fall wanes to winter in a way that is both spiritually enlightening and socially devastating.
The summer to fall transition means that school is beginning. Indeed, it already has and I've already acquainted myself with a few friends and, in some cases, I've already met quite a few friendly acquaintances. This has happened because I'm quite sociable, amiable (I try to be, rather), and I have a good time in most any situation. Furthermore, most of the people in my program seem to be of the same temperament. I've already had several memorable, indeed drunken, days with my peers and I've only been here for two weeks. I can't help but think about how different my experience would be so far had I not this affable, quasi-confident disposition–especially since it will be all for naught come the fall. During the summer I am as care-free as I can be, which isn't all that care-free, but it's a remarkable difference relative to my frame of mind during the school term. I am intimidated and overwhelmed during school–I normally feel like I'm trudging through each semester. This year I am, just as I presumed, at a cognitive disadvantage relative to my peers in my program (I know this already before having a full week of classes), so I know I'll need to work harder than the rest. I do this simply (yet it isn't simple) by sacrificing camaraderie almost entirely.
Based off of a myriad of previous experiences, this is what's going to happen: I'll get behind in school because I'm not very smart, people with whom I've become quite close will ask me to hang out, I'll want to hang out, I'll decline the invitation, and I'll spend half of the time studying while the other half will be spent feeling lonely, being obnoxious on Twitter and Snapchat, finding some form of pornography, and drinking beer. Once this happens, I'll feel narcissistically accomplished, as if I nobly overcame some form of impossible adversity (having fun), which it clearly is not. Shortly after, though, I'll establish a feeling of isolation that I will maintain is worth it, for even if I only worked half the time, it would still, one would hope, help me approach a more favorable position within the class.
Sometimes it will make me go moderately crazy; I'll talk to myself, laugh at myself, entertain myself, and vehemently vex myself for a lack of focus and intelligence, a surplus of sexual frustration (for the record, any amount of sexual frustration is to be considered a surplus), missing out on a good time (as shown on several Instagram photos or tweets), or general restlessness as a result of idling for too long while consuming endless amounts of caffeine. Sometimes I'll get so caught up in reassuring myself that abstaining from fun is the right choice that I'll begin to embrace my loneliness and sadness. Indeed, I think, oddly, there can be value in such things. When I'm sad I write better, I feel more passionately about most everything, I think a whole lot more, and I'm more grounded. It's like when Chris Conley was young, singing for Saves the Day at age 16 (or something absurd like that), writing:

"Every day seems the same to me

I sit around and think about how alone I feel

Then I wind up rather enjoying loneliness 

Because it's the comfort of being sad—sometimes it feels so right

And sometimes I'd like to be around no one for ten straight years"

To be sure, he does add after those lines, "...but I know this feeling can't bring me places, and I know I'm losing lots of ground," but in way that idea can almost strengthen the lines before it when one is feeling like that. 

Anyway, it's not as if I abstain completely from fun. I don't have excuses to drink in bars by myself after baseball season, so I'll agree to a minimal amount of outings. The only problem with that idea is the fact that I'll so desperately yearn for an amazing time that it's hard to have anything but incredibly high expectations. Fortunately for me I have fun doing most anything–even linear algebra or, more realistically, staring at the ceiling. Right now I'm sitting on a windowsill inside the laundromat, trading rain-soaked skin for sweat-soaked skin, and I am genuinely in love with this place; the diversity is astounding and brilliant, mischievous children are everywhere, and most everyone is spectacularly kind, albeit the emphasis on "most" should be quite strong. If I can have a good time doing this, why can't I have a good time shutting myself in?

New York City

Living in New York City, as I have since the 17th of August, is quite spectacular. As someone who has loved this city in a rather romantic fashion since he first visited when he was 14, my level of awe and excitement has yet to decrease even marginally. Essentially, I am Kevin McCallister living it up by himself in the world's greatest city, seeing pigeon ladies, running away from Tim Curry, fucking up Marv's nose repeatedly, receiving large cheese pizzas that are just for me, and having one of those little refrigerators you have to open with a key, et cetera. It is actually not like that at all, but it is still pretty rad. However, the size of this city can be quite overwhelming. Not in a too-many-people-and-cars-and too-many-loud-noises kind of way, but in an isolating kind of way. For example, if I wanted to get out of this city–to experience the vast spoils of quiet suburbia, I would essentially have to travel sixteen miles to find some pompous Long Island neighborhood, or I would have to go to New Jersey. To be sure, both options would be far from simple and would require substantial timing and planning. In Boston, I could hop on the train or simply walk a couple miles and be in a more suburban atmosphere–far from the case here. Regardless of its incessantly overwhelming nature, there is something very uplifting about living here. New York City has its own heartbeat and, if you do not feel it, you are not paying attention. This city is ceaseless, grand, frightening, humbling, inspiring, intimidating, loud, obnoxious, and, above all, perfect.  

I cannot help but think, though, that the last three years of my life have simply been me saying goodbye to people about whom I care a great deal. When I moved to Boston, I said goodbye to my girlfriend since high school, my best friends of eight years, and my two brothers whom I have missed so painfully much that I often feel like I am missing a limb or a part of my mind when I acknowledge our separation. In Boston I made some great friends, friends whom I grew to admire more and more the longer I knew them. To be honest, I grew to like them more than I posited was possible upon my settling in the city. Just as I was becoming incredibly close with some of them, I moved away. I have already met a few friends here, but it always feels wrong—or adulterated?

Moving to New York has been particularly difficult because, even though the difference in distance is quite marginal, it feels like I am moving even farther away from my Iowa friends and my brothers. Additionally, this time I moved away from my parents. They are only four hours away, but it hurts. My parents may not have represented the paragon of parenting by most standards, but they represented nothing short of perfection by mine. They raised three boys who care about each other more than they care about themselves. They have supported me and encouraged me to do anything I have ever wanted to do, regardless of how ludicrous or stupid. Living with them for two and a half years was an amazing experience, and I say that as an absolute understatement. 

I am currently in a situation in which I have a one-year lease, a precariously modest savings account, no job, and a masters degree to attain. Undoubtedly, I am in over my head. I trudged through my advanced mathematics courses during my undergraduate studies and thought of myself as nothing more than "the little mathematician who could" from Calculus I through Linear Algebra; I am not very smart, but I would like to believe that I worked harder than anyone else in those classes to just barely succeed. But I worked harder out of necessity, and I am not sure if I carry with me the temerity or willpower to work as hard as will be required of me come this fall.

That is where New York City comes into play. New York is so intimidating and humbling that there will always be a myriad of people substantially more successful than you. For some people that might be a source of great disparagement, but for me it establishes an incessant (I hope) urge for me to work as hard as I possibly can in order to gain some ground. My main hope is to stay positive and motivated even during times, like right now, when it is 86 degrees in my bedroom, three unanswered job applications are lingering about my head, I am somehow still hungover from an entire day of binge drinking (and very little eating) and presenting myself as a drunken piece of shit in front of several very cultured peers from my department at NSSR, and I am already struggling with the math in one of my courses. 

There are two things helping me right now: my dear friend Chris Byrd told me about a record called 'I'm Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams' by a band called Diarrhea Planet (despite the discordant name, you will like it or you're a monster—start of with the song "Kids" when you're drunk or high or both or neither). The second thing is that, if I look out my window right now, it's New York City out there. And, to me, that is still really fucking rad. Over and out. 

(Also Derek Jeter is playing again, and that's rad. (Even though he's batting .170 and the Yankees worked as a team to blow a 3-0 lead in the 7th.))

I have recently decided, for the sake of cultivating and refining my writing skills (to an extent further than economics graduate school alone will afford me), to start a blog. I plan on writing with regard to a variety of topics: economics–mainly in attempt to present it as a science much less boring than my general peer group would believe, morality, the perils and consternation derived from a lack of wealth whilst attending graduate studies in a field too advanced for my own intellectual capacity in the intimidating and humbling City of New York, and personal issues–to be sure, issues too personal–that I endure on a daily basis. 

My goal for this is not to earn any sort of following; my thoughts are modest at best and, likely, will not be very well formed or articulated, but the only way to improve one's writing is for one to write as much as one can. Indeed, I could simply keep a journal, but the polishing of my own prose is always more effective when I present it to the my peers and the general public (even if no one actually ends up caring to read a single post). I implore anyone who, out of sympathy, curiosity, or a welcomed love for proofreading, decides to read any of my entries, to provide any feedback or corrections. That being said, it is time for me to talk about how much I fucking despise Ayn Rand. I have to run to class right now, so I'll leave with just my introduction and write about the dastardly philosophy of economic libertarianism tonight. Who's excited? (Me. Just me tbh.)