Back to NYC! / Inspiration

Back to NYC!

Copied from my personal notes on the night I arrived back to NYC:
I sit in my basement room in my final (for now???) residence in NYC. It is roughly six years since I moved to NYC and I realize now more than ever that TIME FLIES.

As I sat upstairs eating one of the best (better) chicken parms I’ve had in the city, watching The Orville after a long Uber from the airport contemplating the cold and the loneliness ahead of me, I felt a sense of delight to be living this life.

This journey I’ve been on with all its twists and turns, all its excitement and monotony, triumphs and disappointments. To one hour be at home in Oxnard with a truly loving family and the next be thrust back in NYC where—yes I am back alone in a basement unit—but also I am alive and healthy and anything could happen.

All these years that at times seemed to drag on endlessly (pandemic) now in the rear view and I am in (what might be) my final month in New York City.

A place I ended up based on the whim that I wanted an adventure. To have lived a life I’d be excited to live. To be in a place where I could discover myself.

And yes, there were so many lonely nights and some moments when I truly felt like the city had beaten me down. But I don’t think I ever for a second 1. regretted the move or 2. truly disliked being here. I knew it was a package deal and that every moment spent here was a moment getting closer to something.

Maybe I’m just being sentimental but it’s true. This city will always be a city that leads me closer to something. I might not always have the clearest idea of what that something is but it will almost definitely be worth pursuing.

At the same time though, did I want to spend too much of my time pursuing this? Absolutely not. I am a realist in that sense lmao. I miss family too much and maybe dislike being alone too much for that.

I think it’s a city where I got almost everything I wanted

  1. to be an artist

  2. to meet a whole variety of new and interesting people

  3. to date

    1. despite how things ended with Tara, I enjoyed that final hurrah of dating in NYC

I had so many opportunities to stretch myself, confront my fears, and grow as a result of that

  • sewing class

  • studio 40

  • improv

  • going to volleyball for the first time years ago in the Upper West Side. Walking down those steps feeling definitely nervous / anxious I’d somehow make a fool of myself

  • recording + releasing my album and hosting listening parties

I did so much of what I wanted to do and that makes me so grateful and happy for my time here. All the memories I made and all the people I met.

Inspiration

In present day:

I sit at Overflow Coffee on a peaceful lazy Sunday. It is lightly snowing outside. I’ve just finished reading a chapter of David Goggin’s Can't Hurt Me and it reinforces a thought I’ve had for a long time—people (I) are so much more capable of than who we (I) are in this moment. It’s so easy to live in a world where the bare minimum gets by. Even the bare minimum is often good enough. Which is a blessing and a curse.

But there’s a lingering curiosity of what you’re fully capable of. Every so often you come up for a breath and you wonder what life would be like if you actually tried. Then some distraction comes crashing down on you and you’re swept under again.

The best and worst part of this is that when you’re under, it’s not even a particularly bad life. I make good money, I have great friends, a great family. I’ve dated around. And I’m generally decently happy with how life has gone so far. But it’s hard to shake the thought that I could be doing better.

I’ve also read the Comfort Crisis recently so that theme is on my mind more lately. The idea that life is too easy, too comfortable. And I wonder if I’ll regret not having pushed myself a little bit more.

An interesting counterpoint is—as I read Can’t Hurt Me—I wonder how happy he actually is. He keeps reaching higher heights but doesn’t seem to settle into those accomplishments. He just keeps looking higher. I don’t want to live that way either. I want to continually progress while feeling joy at that progression. I think I feel that way now but I could also push myself a little bit more. I’m particularly happy about my unbroken chain of producing music. I also realize that I don’t have to (or maybe want to) become a superhuman athlete like David Goggins. But I do want to push myself in the areas that truly matter to me.

It’s hard to just pick something and declare that you want to excel in it. I’ve been doing music for a while now and even then it’s not easy for me to push all my chips into that corner and declare I want to be the best there is here. That’s part of the barrier. And on the other hand I’d be excited to see how well I could do with music when I really really try.

Maybe it’s the reading I’ve been doing but I generally feel excited about life. Just seeing how it all interacts with each other. How everyone in parallel has a journey of progress and sorrow and mistakes and accomplishments. How you can kind of doing anything you want with your life (though it’s pretty easy to forget this over time). Like today I could decide I want to become an ultra marathoner and fast forward to a couple months (year?) later—if I really really try and be consistent—I could do that. It’s just a matter of desire, consistency and discipline.

As I get older I see more first hand how things compound. Money and habits specifically. Set it up right early on and you reap it so well even a few years later.

Week Recap

Since I got back to NYC, I’ve mostly been settling back into the city and catching up with friends.

  • Got Dim Sum at House of Joy with David

  • Caught up with Alyssa at Takumen

  • Went to Go Nonna with Tim

  • Caught up with Mansoor at Yumpling

  • Did a spa day with David, Tim and Apollo and we got hotpot afterwards

    • We were all on the fence about going to World Spa (somewhat far from where we live and kind of expensive at $120) but I’m glad we went. Set up kind of like a Korean spa with different rooms and pools. It was all on one floor but felt sufficiently expansive. The food was underwhelming.

I wondered if I’d feel worse being back in NYC in the context of the break up, but I feel fine. There are moments where I’m reminded of her and I feel a sliver of sadness(?) (e.g. when I pass by her neighborhood on the Uber home or see a restaurant that we went to) but besides that I feel fine.