I’ve been feeling sick a lot lately. Its not a typical sickness either. Its poisonous in nature — slowly breaking down inside of your cells. I don’t feel like a valuable part of my society or country. I find myself looking abroad to places like Japan where even the fast food employees are smiling and happy. Not just for advertising purposes, but because they actually value and enjoy their work.

I keep arguing with the why of it. Why do I feel a looming sense of helplessness as I clock in, pay bills and plan my work week. Why does it feel that I am readjusting my expectations to comfort myself? I find myself dreading Sundays nights. I get upset that I don’t feel like going to work the next day, which makes me feel weak and ungrateful, which in turn makes me defensive and angry, then I get tired from repressing my anger and helplessness seeps in, and it all starts over again in a cyclical fashion. I’m exhausted by 8:30pm and only interested in ruining my evening.

Arguably, therapy is a wonderful method of addressing and processing these types of thoughts and feelings. But I wanted to do it myself. I’m not sure if running to a therapist for every little thing is helpful in the long run. Anywho, back to Nihilism vs NYC, I am beginning to feel that my hometown is toxic. Thanks to my partner I have been viewing the city from a different lens. One that doesn’t shrug at the casual racism pervading the streets and office spaces; one that wouldn’t make fun of people who turn green at the sight a smelly hobo on the train; one that gets confused when people don’t exchange basic niceties that is labelled “small talk” and is dispensed with.

People are just plain rude in NYC. I once gave some girls from Tennessee directions and they also thought I was a tourist because I was “nice”. How bad is it here that an angry looking black chick gets labeled nice just for giving directions? I was born here, and love almost every bit of this city. I have lived in every borough that matters (sorry Staten Island readers) and am a product of a public school education.

But I have had to fight for myself every step of my development. Its a system that failed my parents, and one that I believe is just plain classiest. They build more condos than affordable housing for people who actually live here, and have borne the brunt of NYC rent for 30+ years. Public programs that do good are halted, underfunded or just plain overlooked. You can’t even feed the homeless without lining the city’s pockets with a permit. (It’s not just NYC https://www.cbsnews.com/news/90-year-old-man-2-pastors-charged-with-feeding-homeless-in-florida/, but all over the U.S.) If you were not already born with help, getting any marks you for life.

Life here makes me so jaded, that you begin to concoct stories about the various panhandlers on the train. Wondering if its another scam or someone who actually needs aide. So you grapple with whether to give or not, and in my case becoming so frustrated by the mental energy expended that you give nothing at — then resent the person for making me think so hard about it.

I can get pretty nihilistic, wondering What’s the point? Of working, struggling, even caring about my fellow human beings? I am sick of it, and literally become ill when I let these thoughts take up space in my head. So it is being nihilistic or just living in New York that’s making me crazy? I think its a bit of both.

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TBG