that’s a bold quote.
it’s important to keep in mind that it can be done. it’s a matter of mastering your chi , saving a lot of money and embracing the imminent unknown.
whether one admits that this is what has to happen is neither here nor there, in my case, this is what has to occur. most likely in that order.
ben popken at consumerist.com wrote a fantastically honest, blunt and helpful article containing his experiences and his advice on doing just this. anybody moving to any large city riding on the fuel of big dreams, the fumes of uncertainty and the support of a wing and a prayer ought to give this piece some consideration. (the comments that follow are also worth the time taken to read.)
his first comment poses a self-reflective inquisition on the reader:
DO I REALLY NEED TO MOVE TO NEW YORK?
“Answering no to this is the easiest way to avoid the inevitable hassle and heartache of. New York City is a glittering emerald slut, full of potential and promise, but it can also be a total bitch. Nightlife is down ever since they enacted that cabaret law. The city’s conduits of power are increasingly rusty and incestuous. Parts of the city are becoming, or already are, Disney versions of themselves, like the Lower East Side and Times Square, respectively. There’s lots of other great cities in the world. The Bay Area has nicer weather. Philadelphia has dirt cheap rents. Even so, New York is awesome and is still the capital of the world for many a human endeavor. Let’s move!”
to address this admonition personally, i asked myself this- and honestly, the most prudent and sagacious answer is “no”. not so much an emphatic “no”, just an honest one. ostensibly my music is the main reason i’d want to move, and since that’s slowly becoming an enormous part of my everyday life, my reasons for wanting to move are actually quite weighty. that being said, with the right management of time and resource, i could probably do most of it from the lap of philadelphia and spend far less money in rent.
but i hate the commute. 2 hours is easier spoken than traveled, at least for me. furthermore, i hate leaving. many of my closest musical comrades are seated firmly in that concrete paradise, and frankly, i became infatuated with the city 6 years ago and haven’t lost that fire yet.
so, ABAAP is very necessary. following mr. popken’s veritably awesome advice, we should consider loosely the Maslow hierarchy principling as it relates to survival on foreign soil. (i hate to make this process appear so necessarily scientific, but for posterity’s sake, we’ll get all studious)
in this system, each level is essentially funded by the levels below it, the bottom-most level being our primitive needs like food, shelter, sex (debateable and some how detached from the love & belongingness level)
- gotta have enough money to get there.
- gotta have a reason to be there.
- gotta have a place to live.
- gotta have a formula to generate income at a reasonable clip once there.
- gotta budget that income properly.
after that bottom rung is worked out, the subsequent levels will invariably work themselves out.
so yeah, i’m giving it a shot again. above all my practical reasons for doing this sits an umbrella that is ultimately me challenging myself to be better at life than i have allowed myself to be in the past. whether the move would disprove that notion is up for debate, but i’d definitely be debating on the Pro side.
this blog is not about moving to new york city, so i may not update regarding this process with any regularity, but i will consider it in writing from time to time, and there will be some sort of culmination by august 31st, 2007.
let us hope for everything but disappointment.
signing off,
d*mcNAsty.
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