Getting your narrative fix

Ryan wrote about this today:

Another way to get your narrative fix: Riding in the back of a cab or a towncar on the way into Manhattan. You come over the Williamsburg or the Brooklyn Bridge and you see the whole island laid on your right. If you lay back in the seat just perfect and stare out the window, the city, it seems, awaits your arrival.

A few hours earlier you were somewhere else – in another state, on a plane, over the middle of the ocean – but now you’re here and the timing, well, it couldn’t have been any better. You could broke or paid on business and the feeling is the same. That the epicenter of the world is open to you, that you matter there.

What’s important to remember is this sensation is meaningless. Or rather, it projects no new meaning onto you as a person. You should enjoy it. It is, no doubt, a rare and special feeling. Yet it is one of these agnostic narrative events into which you personally figure at such a minuscule percentage that is essentially exactly the same for everyone else.

So take it for what it is but don’t take it to heart.

Years ago, I used to get this exact feeling living in Chicago, driving into the city via Lake Shore Drive. You’d have the water on one side, the monolithic Hancock center towering over everything, and you’d get this feeling like it was all yours for the taking.

That feeling quickly evaporated upon reaching my cubicle, so take it for what it’s actually worth. These days, though the drive into downtown LA isn’t quite as scenic, the destination is infinitely more rewarding.