Into the Wild, Within the Urban

My second impression of New York wasn't as pompous as the first, but I'd rather experience things as near to the ground as my mind allows me. So everything was sort of new this time, but seen through a different veil and through somewhat older eyes.

Have you ever wandered through foreign streets on your own? Seldom have I tasted anything that can be compared to that: you see complete strangers on their way to work, jumping on buses, eating bananas, walking their daughters to school, doing what is most natural to them (but not to you). You become this involuntary voyeur to an endless play; infinite wonder showers your psyche while you wiggle along invented brush strokes that become your official pathway; you flow though organically urban veins that conform this other place, feeling as if someone just popped you into existence and randomly placed you on that very spot. Everything is there only for you to visually digest. It is your sole objective, for there's nothing more and there never will.

WITHIN AND WITHOUT.

If this adventure proves fatal and you don't ever hear from me again I want you to know you're a great man.

I now walk into the wild.

-Chris McCandless

I must confess that I was a little (naturally) hesitant when it came to crashing a complete stranger's house for the night. But since I've been preaching bravery as my motto when facing-the-unknown/other-and-making-it-your-brother (ha) I had to (wo)man up. Thank you, Kapuscinski, thank you Doris Lessing.

When studying Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit in school I came across the following thought:

*ANY production of identity has to go through the recognition/reconnaissance of the Other.*

This is it, guys! This is the key to facing your fears and becoming more fluid in terms of purging yourself from empirical stigmata. Hello toilet and goodbye constipation of the soul!

So I dragged what remained of my hopes and dreams, mustered enough strength to carry my load across the street (metaphorically AND literally, Gosh those friggin' bags were heavy) and finally rung the bell.

After a few minutes Iv opened the door wearing his pj's, which made me realize how late it was. We shook hands for the first time, slowly and steadily, and entered his Ridgewood flat. I was doused in a combination of my own corporal fluids, and exhausted from the trip (feeling like a living contemporary art piece), but I was finally somewhere safe.

Water. Toilet. Yammies. Toothpaste. Couch. Sleep.

The next day I woke up only to have one of the most fascinating conversations in my life over wheaty cereal and soy milk. My host was originally from the Balkans (I shan't reveal too much of my people, you know, 'cos life is tricky sometimes) and he had just gone to Alaska for a long and very revealing hiking trip.

We talked about the life of Chris McCandless (the guy from "Into the Wild") and how Alaskans would spit at his apparent suicidal recklessness. We shared our thought on how much we hate being stuck in routine, and how awful it is to (unwillingly and sometimes unknowingly) contribute to all the shit that's going on in the world whenever buying stuff from the supermarket. We talked about consumerism and how it brings us down to hear people we care about utter horribly ignorant remarks which regurgitate only what they hear on the news. There was a poster on the wall of Andreas Gursky's "99 Cent II" Diptychon that he bought from MoMA (which elevated the tone of our discussion to a perfect pitch, visually and audibly, since it is one of the most expensive photographs ever sold up to now, and what it shows just blows my mind to bits).

I told him I lived in Fairbanks when I was little. He said it's a desolated town with nothing to offer, but I'm nevertheless keen on going back to my old school and playground one day. It's one of the many things I've yet to do before I'm too wrinkly to function (fingers crossed). I don't mind the quiet, quite to the contrary! For only when the land is seemingly untouched is one able to project his/her own visions of life on the screen of the Real and therefore experience the Sublime (Kant's Sublime, as I imagine it). That, and to enjoy a good book/graphic novel over sweltering mugs of Ovaltine. Yummsters!