Skip to main content

New York

Two summers ago, I spent the day alone in San Francisco, most of it at Golden Gate Park. It was supposed to be a preliminary step toward checking off an item on my bucket list (yes, I have a bucket list, even if it is a short one). I've noticed over my life that I'm not a very independent person. I have tended to shy away from taking risks alone, including the risk of being alone in an unfamiliar place. It awed me to learn that people around my age were traveling alone to foreign countries, or even cities here in the U.S. I couldn't put myself in that place because I didn't believe I could trust my own judgment enough to be safe in such circumstances. In short, I've been afraid to venture out on my own.

This leads to what I was able to experience last week. I traveled to New York City on Monday, and spent Tuesday and Wednesday there before meeting my aunt and uncle a little farther north outside the city. I was originally supposed to travel to New York with my brother and sister-in-law, but unforeseen events prevented them from going. Unexpectedly, then, I had the chance to be thousands of miles away from home on my own.

To the person accustomed to independence, this must seem unremarkable, but I didn't grow up having to take care of myself. I remember having to make a phone call to a parent one day as a kid to tell her that I couldn't make it to an event I was supposed to attend. I didn't have the courage to tell this parent myself, so I asked my mom if she would call for me. The sum of occasions like this one, moments of sheltering, may have taught me that risk-taking isn't necessary.

Whatever existential reason I may have had for being in the city alone, my true purpose for being there was to see my family. They welcomed me with incredibly warm arms, which made for a great Thanksgiving. Still, I learned from those two days in the city that I'm not the little boy I used to be, at least in regard to caring for myself. That doesn't mean I still don't like playing with cars. :-)

I was allowed to take this photo in a Ferrari store near Rockefeller Center.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...

Experiment

My social studies students and I are studying Islam right now. The other day, we were reading about one of the Five Pillars, zakat (charity in Islam that means "that which purifies"). Muslims believe that giving away money helps to purify it and also "safeguards [them] against miserliness" (1). I asked the class if this was true, that giving money away makes us less greedy. They generally agreed that it does. I wanted to test whether or not they really believed this, so I handed a volunteer a $10 bill. I told the class that I would ask for the bill back the next day. I said that they should pass the bill around among their classmates, and that as a result, there would be no way for me to know who had the bill. For that reason, whoever wanted to keep the money could keep it. Even if I did learn who kept it, I told them, I would not punish that person. I wanted them to be motivated by their own honesty. The next day, I asked for the bill, and a student handed it to me...