Train Symposium

Deciding to sit down doesn’t require an entire symposium in our head. Neither does sneezing, nor yawning. Reaching out to scratch an itch is just a reflex. Why is it then that taking a seat on the train becomes a marathon, and I don't mean the battle between the Athenians and Persians, but rather a complex decision that troubles you internally. It's a marathon between the two parts of you that want to either sit in order to rest, or stay standing to avoid sitting next to the person where you found the open seat.

Every action we make is based on a prior decision that we took. Why is it then that something as simple as taking a seat on the train becomes a Socratic cross examination of the personal opinions you developed of the individual next to the empty seat in less than a second. We’re all guilty of it, making assumptions or being scared of the assumptions that will be made of you.

The philosophy classes you've taken make you a little more critical of the cynics. You feel inclined to question the simplistic things because as a post-generation, new millennial, fluorescent adolescent it's the typical thing to do. You have an internal soliloquy and go, "'to be or not to be' comfortable? That is the question. For it is nobler for me to give up this orange colored seat and let the person have leg space, or to take pride and sit next to them." So you worry that you might take up too much space, or that you will be sexualized by the person you sit next to, or that they'll complain about how loud your music is through your headphones, or that someone will get upset with they wanted that seat .

The train stops come and go, the empty seats become not so empty. The sound of the train doors closing and the people shuffling play a sober bass note to the symphony of what is otherwise known as subway chaos. The New York Times is shoved in your face, the lady's bag behind you hits you at the waist and the homeless man asking for change forces you to shift so that he can get passed, but you still contemplate, "should I take this empty seat."

Your stop is approaching and your knees are buckling. You shift from one leg to the other, shift which hand holds the pole. You crinkle your nose as one small bead of sweat trickles down your forehead because the train is so crowded but you still don't know if you should sit because your stop is the next one and you don't want to be "that person."

Your stop comes and the door opens. Realizing that you should have sat down resembles Ivan Ilyich's epiphany about the good life on his death bed. You subjugate your essence of life and come across the realization of the wrong doings you have done to your legs and your back. You thought you would be praised by society by leaving that empty seat open for someone else. You've gotten to your stop and you didn't have time to fix your decision, but now you appreciate your revelation and know that next time you will take that seat and not be scared to be the one to sit there even if no one else will.

How to Succeed in Poverty Without Really Trying (published in CONTRARIWISE)

Why would anyone choose to work and pay for an apartment, especially in larger cities like New York. You can lead a middle-class lifestyle just as easily if you’re dirt poor. You know, the kind of poor where your mattress is a bench on Central Park and your salad consists of the fallen leaves from the trees with their own special salad dressing: dog pee and dirt in place of poppy seeds, vinegar and oil.

Why do poor people struggle so much when they literally get things handed to them? Granted, they are handed to them not on a silver platter, but rather on a tray of pity and reluctance (or compassion). Poor people have the world in their hands! No, literally, they have the planet Earth in their hands as they desperately grab onto the grass.

In this piece I offer you a concise, to-the-point explanation of how to succeed in poverty without really trying, a sequel to Broadway’s How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. (Mind you, that reference eludes me, as I don’t even know what the musical is about, but the title is relevant, so let’s just be one of those people, you know, the ones who use stark references to seem like they know what they’re talking about).