Touch Grass in fake Disneyland
When my daughter was born, I bought a massive journal. My intellectual life lives much more here than anything online.
My initial draft for “touch grass” for the Symposium was hand written here, reflecting on living in NYC after someone referred to it as a “fake Disneyland” I should leave eventually if not immediately:
The question I think about in New York City from time to time is whether it is better to be in the world deeply like this, or if I were better off living more in isolation or in nature. Would I be a stronger, more peaceful person if I pursued answers in cloistered halls closer to natural surroundings?
On one hand, it is an easy yes. Removing distractions and desires, dodging the opportunities to go down the wrong path. Even now, I strive to simplify as much as I can. Living in New York means death by a thousand superfluities to sometimes enjoy the embellishments of an epicurean lifestyle. There is a lot of ugly to endure, and a bottomless appetite eager to justify it all through honoring our egos, stomachs and sensations.
“If only I had my garden, a library, and a trail to hike! Maybe an antique boat to fix up, then I would know peace.” I will indulge these thoughts walking my dog past garbage heaps, sweating through an ironed shirt on a crowded subway, or feeling the pull out to the city when a more intellectual home life may better suit me.
To move away would be a potential shock to the system on simplifying my life.
And yet, the other way, deep in the world, feels right. The quiet can be found internally, fostered and cultivated despite the noise…or even reinforced from it. Peace on a remote beach is nice; peace amid chaos is earned.
Wowza, that really is a massive journal! It’s so tricky to strike the right balance with these things (such is the challenge of life), but you’re absolutely right—pinning your sense of peace on some imagined future or ideal setting is a sure path to melancholy, much better to find whatever peace you can in the here and now. If you can find peace and simplicity in NYC you have trained yourself to find it anywhere.
Immersion, "or if I were better off..." is just a killer question and something I find myself constantly returning to! I have options to do either and yet stay psychically rooted to urban chaos -- and, more, I seek it out on "vacation" LOL. what is going on with that? while my heart wants the 70's back to nature dreams I grew up with. Great piece! Thanks.