For Richer or for poorer
After a brief break at home, New York is still just as crazy...and now it's snowing.
Four-score and one hundred and fifty-one years ago, this place, along with thirteen others declared that "All men are created equal."
Obviously, we don't stay that way. Despite all these founding principles, there will be those with more and those with less. This is what one would call a universal phenomenon, yet why for so many people, does it seem to be worse here?
In the city we have both Midtown and Wall Street, two financial centers, two foci for the rich. If you add to that the advent of the Upper East Side and you have three large chunks of Manhattan that base their identity solely on money. Then, compounding that, you have Harlem, Alphabet City, Williamsburg,the Bronx, and more that base their identity solely on not having money (though we're not so sure about Williamsburg). The problem here is not the amount of difference between Trump Towers and Project A, it's the amount of people in both places. We see each other on the subway, in the park, at the coffee cart. You can't avoid it and what you don't have (or others don't have) is always in your face.
Proximity isn't everything though. There's also fear. The poor (or here, even the middle-class) fear that they won't be able to pay the rent, buy the sandwich, afford the plane ticket. The rich fear that they will become poor. Fear leads to anger, and anger leads to hate, and suddenly the tension is far more than that.
I once knew a person who worked at an investment bank as a receptionist who hated all investment bankers.
Now this was not only a bad situation for them since they were constantly surrounded by those they hate, but it also raises the question, can you write off an entire profession simply because of their paycheck?
This person would answer yes, I would have to pause...
All of this is not a problem only for the have-nots. Guilt can be just as powerful as fear and hate.
I met a woman recently who had bought an apartment with her husband several years back but kept this fact from nearly all of her friends, fearing their reaction to her apparent prosperity.
The question is, is it worth it? Does it really make us feel better to hate those that we think have it easier than us? To force each other into isolation because we fear that hate? Life is far too complicated to reduce each other to a number, but still it is our favorite pass-time. New Yorkers compare the colors of their Amex's in the same way that adventurers show off their scars, it is a badge of honor and for some, it is enough.
But what about the rest of us?
And on that happy note, stay tuned for the next installation: Like a Charcoal Sketch
Four-score and one hundred and fifty-one years ago, this place, along with thirteen others declared that "All men are created equal."
Obviously, we don't stay that way. Despite all these founding principles, there will be those with more and those with less. This is what one would call a universal phenomenon, yet why for so many people, does it seem to be worse here?
In the city we have both Midtown and Wall Street, two financial centers, two foci for the rich. If you add to that the advent of the Upper East Side and you have three large chunks of Manhattan that base their identity solely on money. Then, compounding that, you have Harlem, Alphabet City, Williamsburg,the Bronx, and more that base their identity solely on not having money (though we're not so sure about Williamsburg). The problem here is not the amount of difference between Trump Towers and Project A, it's the amount of people in both places. We see each other on the subway, in the park, at the coffee cart. You can't avoid it and what you don't have (or others don't have) is always in your face.
Proximity isn't everything though. There's also fear. The poor (or here, even the middle-class) fear that they won't be able to pay the rent, buy the sandwich, afford the plane ticket. The rich fear that they will become poor. Fear leads to anger, and anger leads to hate, and suddenly the tension is far more than that.
I once knew a person who worked at an investment bank as a receptionist who hated all investment bankers.
Now this was not only a bad situation for them since they were constantly surrounded by those they hate, but it also raises the question, can you write off an entire profession simply because of their paycheck?
This person would answer yes, I would have to pause...
All of this is not a problem only for the have-nots. Guilt can be just as powerful as fear and hate.
I met a woman recently who had bought an apartment with her husband several years back but kept this fact from nearly all of her friends, fearing their reaction to her apparent prosperity.
The question is, is it worth it? Does it really make us feel better to hate those that we think have it easier than us? To force each other into isolation because we fear that hate? Life is far too complicated to reduce each other to a number, but still it is our favorite pass-time. New Yorkers compare the colors of their Amex's in the same way that adventurers show off their scars, it is a badge of honor and for some, it is enough.
But what about the rest of us?
And on that happy note, stay tuned for the next installation: Like a Charcoal Sketch