This is the country we live in...and I am ashamed of a story like this.

It's not stupid, it's a life experience that you can't possibly understand until you've done it. I've lived in other large cities, but my three years in Manhattan were radically different. I remember just before I moved there, I told someone that I thought I could do it for two years and then it would be either the burbs or some other part of the country for me. I wish neither to repeat the experience nor erase it from my memory.

There are things I learned from living there -- about the world, about me -- that I don't think I'd have learned any other way. A native New Yorker, trying to prepare me, said life is just harder there. I would say that my first six months or so, I felt like a ball inside a pinball machine, driven not by my own power but by external forces while a sensory overload of dings, clangs, buzzes and flashes overwhelmed me. You can't quite get that from visiting, and at some point you must make your peace with the insanity around you or go insane yourself.

I've likened those years, too, to having a Hoover nozzle sucking bills out of my wallet continuously. The notion of spending $100 per week on cabs is probably preposterous to most people who haven't lived there.

Living there is plain stupid? No, it's not. Absurd maybe, but not stupid. Your logic is like saying why should I pay $50,000 per year to go to Harvard when I can pay $10,000 to go to small-town state college? Well, because not all of the experiences you pay for are contained in the textbooks, that's why. Along with that $3,000 monthly rent, you become a certified member of the world's largest asylum, and it is entirely up to you whether you want to become McMurphy, Billy or Chief Broom. It is a challenge, and the game is only as real as you let it be.

 

I've never lived there, Frank, but I get the idea behind what you wrote.

 

On the topic, I'm with Ragu. It is simple supply and demand. If you live in the City, you don't always need a car. Get yourself a cart, take the subway down, fill it up and ride the subway home.

All this talk about money... well, by not owning a car, you aren't spending money on a depreciating asset or adding to that cost by insuring it, nevermind the gas prices. If a need for a car ever came up, you can always rent one. Zipcar is a fine service.

When I drive a BMW I recognize it to be a vastly superior experience to driving a Dodge. So, yes, some find that spending more will actually get you more.

Your theory that a $200 bottle tastes the same as a $20 bottle is absurd. While it may be true that there are $200 bottles that aren't very good, it isn't a default. Sometimes you spend more because you can taste a difference.

 

Culture snobbery? Oh, please.

Let's not play the lumpenproletariat card. You make yourself look foolish.

 

Junkie, if you don't understand that a Harvard degree is worth more than one from West Virginia, I would have to think that you are just being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.

Sometimes "the rich" have things because they are better.

As to life being harder, well, some people thrive on a challenge. Some people welcome a challenge. Other people sit at home and claim victory for never trying.

 

So a filet mignon is the same as a gumball because they both come out as shit??

 

"Expensive things are just more expensive" is a tautology.

And "expensive" is entirely a relative term. It doesn't have any meaning in and of itself.

Some things are "good value" --others, not so much.

I'd consider finding an Armani suit on sale for $700.00 to be a pretty good damn value.

You might not, but comparing it in quality to a $200.00 off the rack job from Ed's House of Fashion is plain silly.

 

That's okay. You can live in your little utopia.

I'm content living in the cultural capital of the world.

 

It's harder because Manhattan doesn't offer one-stop shopping. There are no default settings. When convenience is removed as an option, you learn what's really important to you and what you'll sacrifice to get it.

And it's harder because unless you live alone in a penthouse, independently wealthy, with everything delivered to your door, you are forced to interact with the outside world in ways that often are not your choice, in situations you'd rather avoid, with the thought in the back of your mind that at any moment, something could get completely out of hand. It is stressful.

I didn't go to Harvard, but geez -- do you really think it's no different from a generic college except for the expense? My God. Don't you think that being in a hyper-competitive environment, you learn some survival skills you wouldn't learn in a less pressurized school?

 

Junkie on his way to work

 

Fine, change "gumball" to "carrot stick." You damn well knew what I meant.

 

With your obvious dodging of the point, I'll assume victory in this matter. By your logic, Jeffrey Dahmer is as good as Martin Luther King because they both ended up maggot fodder.