4/5/2023- New York- The Hungry City

 I recently went to New York for a family trip. One should expect that New York City, having an enormously high population density and is the East Coast’s hub for “culture” would be an incredible place.. If all one knew of New York City was the songs and movies about it, they might imagine it as a place right out of a fantasy novel. Granted, it was incredible. But while some might look up at the lights and impossibly tall skyscrapers of Times Square and feel “in it”, I looked up and felt alone. Though thousands of unfamiliar faces brushed by me like sediments of sand on the ocean floor, it felt as if I was trapped in a neon prison of lights, sounds, and smells. The billboards, blazing with every color under the sun, demanded my attention, insisting that the product they were selling was exactly what I needed to fill the void. If I bought this car, then I’d be happy.

Upon reflecting on this, I could not see the city for its beauty, but only as a place which voraciously consumed all who entered. It draws in people from all over the world, promising opportunity, status, and fun, but ultimately takes more than it gives. The neon signs became the lure of the angler-fish, which attracted the light-starved denizens of the ocean floor to their untimely doom. The reason that those billboards are so effective is because we are starving. We hunger for something which we do not know, all we know is that the void must be filled. And like a man, stranded on a desert island, dying of thirst, drinking the cool ocean water will only satisfy for a moment, but then make the unquenchable thirst even worse. The glowing advertisements offer nothing of substance.