Interesting how we lie to ourselves to feel better about who we are—being human it’s only natural. However, we all have varying realities.
At a party in East Hampton, I met woman we’ll call Kathy, to respect her anonymity, even though she had little respect for others. She was from Brooklyn and believed it to be the universe center. As a child, I recall Brooklyn not being such a garden spot, (perhaps my reality), but fact was many who could, were leaving to raise families in the Burbs.
Granted Brooklyn went through a rebirth but it’s no Manhattan. Yet that didn’t stop Kathy from using the two interchangeably, punctuated with the declaration, “Being from the city, I never set foot on Long Island.” …Huh, geographically Brooklyn is on Long Island unlike Manhattan or “the Borough” as locals call it, which is a separate island.
Far be it from me to take issue with Kathy’s perception but she indirectly dissed the rest of the country! Within minutes of meeting me she blabbered. “I hate that phrase, as big as Texas, don’t you? What does that really mean anyway?”
She had similar opinions about other cool American places like Silicon Valley, Chicago and Washington D.C., which I wouldn’t repeat even in bad company. Nonetheless it was clear to my new acquaintance that, “there was no place like New York.”
Her sense of self-importance is not uncommon to New Yorkers, to which I plead guilty at times, but her assumption that everywhere else has less worth, was flat wrong.
Since I was occupied with a second scotch and she was a buzz kill, I opted for some entertainment.
“Where else have you lived Kathy besides Brookline?” I asked.
“New York born and breed. Why would I go anywhere else?”
“Well maybe because in 1983 something called the internet made New York’s cutting-edge info on fashion, art and so on, accessible worldwide, which is why they call it the world wide web.”
My laughter quelled the rising temperature that was putting her chilled martini at risk.
“Then in 1997 a company called Amazon went public and you could effortlessly buy anything sold in New York, anywhere in the country.” A sinker right over the plate for strike two. She gripped the glass stem dumfounded that a homeboy could disrespect The City.
Fortunately, at that perfect moment, a waitress brought two fresh drinks and either Kathy felt obliged to stay or was too drunk to move. I of course, used the opportunity to enlighten her on history. “During the pandemic I understand there were city people who never left their apartments. Where I live, no hay problema.”
I continued with a whisk of, was cooler than you in high school. “Ya, golf courses put enough social distance between people so there was no need for masks.”
Then I tapped the breaks for a five-mile slide. “For someone who lived in the same place for so long you may have missed how the rest of the country lives. Seem your thinking very 20th century.”
She grimaced before the words left my mouth, tightened her grip on that poor martin glass stem and said. “There’re too many damn immigrants in New York, that’s the problem!”
Squinting my Popeye eye I pointed, “See the beautiful blond over there talking to the bartender? That’s my wife and she’s an immigrant.”
Kathy turned to look, then leaned into me and whispered. “She’s adorable and it’s so hard to tell —from where?”
“England. Her family came over on the Mayflower. They are documented too, as the first to buy and pay for, land from Native Americans.” My Cheshire Cat grin turned to Cherokee stealth, “likely Native Americans feel the same as you do about too many damn immigrants.”
Mocking her white race card, would have been enough but for all those who suffer her conceit, I twisted the knife. “My wife was from Wyoming and her first time meeting my family in New York she asked why, “everybody in New York City looks so pasty.”
“Never noticed it myself but since that day, can’t get the image of weakling aliens starved for adequate sunlight roaming the streets of a once mighty city.”
Perhaps at that point I should have asked Kathy how long her people were there but I got the distinct sense she wanted to spill her drink on me before she walked away.
Don’t get me wrong, I love New York!
I just don’t buy Kathy’s self-indulgent hype. People come to New York to make it, like “Inventing Anna” and make it or not, many stay, caught up in the wonderful charm of all that city action. The unavoidable result though is overcrowding. That many people living so close becomes a rat race extraordinaire.
Services can never keep ahead of the crowd curve which spawns systemic corruption, way too high taxes for too few services and crime by those desperately on the bottom trying to survive.
History shows us complex systems, inevitably succumb to diminishing returns. Even if other things remain equal, the costs of running and defending an empire eventually grow burdensome.
Maybe as a shield against that reality attitude becomes all pervasive. Notwithstanding there’s nothing you get living in New York that you can’t get anywhere else in the country—except maybe for agita.
Until now, all so called “get rich experts” tout their own style of one-size-fits-all techniques. Their opinions are based on a single idea created through a personal filter, the very subjectivity of which decreases the odds of success for others. The truth is, no single formula for obtaining financial prosperity works. The only “expert” capable of determining how to create wealth is the person themselves and that makes options for succeeding infinite.
In Reawakening an American Dream, hundreds of personalities were examined. The conclusion: all people share external traits but what separates success and failure is an applied divine difference that link behaviors on an individual basis. It illuminates behavioral thinking that paves a way to wealth, by unlocking personal power permitting individual outcomes to naturally unfold–retooling the mind for individual best use. Actual success techniques were woven into the stories, making change virtually effortless, in much the same way children learn new behaviors because they are cognitively predisposed. Within Reawakening an American Dream, each story is enlightening and offers instruction that can open doors to readers’ own riches.
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Jul 02, 2018 · Kevin Palmer has spent 32 years in the securities industry and was most recently registered with First Allied Securities in Scottsdale, Arizona (2008-2018). Previous registrations include First Montauk in Scottsdale, Arizona (2001-2008); Merrill Lynch in New York, New York (1994-2001); and PaineWebber in Weehawken, New Jersey (1985-1994). http://KevinJPalmer.com