Week of March 26, Things I've Noticed

1) Dudes, have you noticed...
...that every time there is some altercation on a flight, like a person goes crazy and insults a crew member, there's an off-duty deputy-like-being that just so happens to be there to restrain the crazy person? How lucky is that?


2) Facebook Behavior
I've noticed that the biggest impetus for changed Facebook behavior is a life-changing event. For instance, when I start seeing someone who usually posts seldomly, post like, a lot, especially photos of themselves, I know something's up. They're going through somethin', I don't know what it is, but it ain't good. Conversely, when someone has been truly humbled by an event, that person disappears. In both cases, it ain't good.


3) Have you noticed that there is always an overturned tractor trailer in traffic reports?
Isn't that kind of a big deal?


4) New York
New York as a character has been covered ad nauseum in films and books, songs and documentaries. Not that I'm complaining. Except when it's bad. But I have the good fortune of walking through Central Park everyday to work, and on occasion I think of stuff. The way people perceive New York City with all its frenetic energy and diversity is true but I wonder why is New York the way it is? Why is it that special of a city? And so I came up with some musings on that subject.


First and foremost, this city runs at the pace it does thanks to the sweat of immigrant labor. This has been the case since the Dutch settled here and through the various subsequent immigrant waves. If you go to a third world city, the pace is even more overwhelming than here, that's the pace of survival, strife and striving. It's because you can get a manicure at midnight that you do get a manicure at midnight. It's because you can ride the subway late that you actually do it, it's because Mexican cooks work fast and well that you expect it from them, etc. Not the other way around. We've been conditioned by strivers, it doesn't necessarily mean that we ourselves are strivers, it just means that we benefit from the ambition and survival tactics of others. 


Secondly, and this is a little out of date, but still relevant is Wall Street. Wall Street funds our fun, our service culture and our real estate. Without the money of Wall Street you wouldn't have people flocking here to serve them. Wall Street underwrites New York City, and inflates its real estate prices. It attracts people from all different parts of the world and (attempts) to employ them. We have "sophisticated diversity" here. Let's face it, we don't live in America, we live in New York City, The Singapore of the United States.


And third, Central Park. It's a forrest in the middle of a city. Most people want to live downtown and for that, I thank them, because they don't realize how special Central Park makes this place. True New Yorkers who know a good thing live uptown, whilst taking advantage of downtown. Lucky me.