Seamless, Netflix And The Will To Wake Up For Work
“One of the mixed blessings of being twenty and twenty-one and even twenty-three is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened before.” ― Joan Didion
Sometimes, while rubbing elbows and thighs and everything else with strangers on the L train (why does OkCupid exist when we could all just be friendly on public transportation? Kidding, that sounds absolutely terrible), I look at hipsters with avocado tattoos, just searching for their soulmates, who inevitably have the other half (hopefully without the pit).
I can’t help but wonder if they’ll one day move back to their Midwest lives, covered in ironic “Rugrats” tattoos and dreaming of picklebacks and New York City nights. They’ll sell their perfectly portable IKEA cardboard wardrobes, say goodbye to their overpriced, artisanal kale and head back to suburbia, where malls still rule supreme.
Of course, I wonder if I’ll be one of them.
Everyone’s in New York because they’re hoping for something. After all, it’s far too expensive to live here without dreams — if you gave up on them, you might as well move to Cleveland.
Desire is a purposeful need for something more, but what if it means that enough is never quite enough? (Yes, just like the Manchester Orchestra song.)
Desire is forcing yourself to trudge through the snow, only to wind up downstairs in downtown bars, all in the name of networking.
Desire is getting close enough to be able to see your dreams, because they’re tangible, and they’re in front of you — right before they’re taken away.
It’s trying again. Again and again and again and again.
It’s pretending to be someone else entirely, when you’d much rather be in bed working on your night cheese, instead of fawning over strangers in an overcrowded LES walk-up that left you out of breath because you can’t really afford to go to the gym (or at least, that’s what you keep telling yourself).
It’s fake smiles and just another drink, because you’re sure that one more sip will make you charming enough to find everything you’re looking for.
We’re all endlessly hustling, and towards what, exactly? For every Joan Didion, how many of us will move back into our childhood bedrooms, left with a quarterlife crisis, memories of New York City and piles of debt?
Of course, we won’t remember the crowded L trains; instead, we’ll think about the sparkling rooftops and summer nights and the feeling that we were all going to be someone someday (because we’re all special snowflakes, at least according to our parents and that last BuzzFeed quiz).
What’s going to separate the weak from the strong? I’d like to think it’s desire — that people who want and need more out of their lives will go on to have a beautiful, epic existence. But what if it’s connections and fate, along with desire, that carve our paths, and what if some paths lead to suburban lives of settling, instead of realized dreams?
The dream might be free, but the hustle is exhausting.
But giving up is the easy way out, and if you don’t take chances in your twenties, when will you? I’m not saying it’s impossible to take the same chances later, but it’s certainly harder to move across the country, take a new job and try but fail again and again and again.
The truth is, Seamless-ing an overpriced dish you could easily make on your own and cozying up to someone else’s drama in the middle of winter is downright tempting, but it’s not really living. The desire to keep going, to keep trudging through the snow, dirty and yellow and covered in cigarette butts, is what keeps people from ending up settling and eventually giving up.
