2017-10-27 - 7:16 p.m.
Everyone in America knows the right, healthy, perfect way to live. They aren't afraid to share. Being here has solidified what was hesitantly suspected all along: the South is better. Who cares, diary? I said it. Maybe it's the agricultural roots, the poverty and the necessary camaraderie, but the values are completely different. None of this intellectual, emotionless, robotic, paid-for-suffering bs. Instead, the downsides are just more of the same -- extreme forms of sentimentality and emotive spew. The dental hygienist, pontificating on her profound charity, her self-suspected righteous bravery. All this, with the fear of ever going past Natchez. Especially at night.
New York is amazing. Nowhere else does there exist such grit and will to persevere, despite the harshest circumstances. People abide each other, looking out for trouble, collectively suffering as a group. They have a keen sense of fairness and a good gut for bs. They compare hardships like badges, polishing them, protecting them from deplorable subway grime. But at times they are like captive dogs, subjected to cruel torture in the past but stay in their cages out of habit, when the door was opened long ago.
This stuck feeling is... not leaving. Stuck. It's the same day in and day out, things not done, plans not made, clothes not washed, papers not filed. Phone calls not made. Action not taken.
One step in a different direction. It's got to be now.
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