The Three Things I Want Out of Life

(Thursday, May 5, 2011, 12:14 a.m.)

In many ways, I feel lost in life. But I suppose it cannot be said that I don't know, at the highest level, what I want out of my existence. Roughly in order, my desires are

• An intellectually stimulating career which compensates me adequately for my work and leaves time for friends, family, and leisure projects.
• A wife / significant other who is my best friend, soul-mate, and a tender, passionate lover and someone who brings out the same in me. (Children are not an explicit goal of mine, but I'm not ruling them out, either.) This wish is about to overtake my first one. (I'd rather be a slave on Earth than a prince in Hades, and all that.)
• Time and opportunity to pursue my creative activities, especially in writing and music. (I could hope also for success, but success in the arts requires some great measure of luck as well as talent, so I only ask for opportunities to create.)

And now, where do I find myself, but in one of the great world cities: New York. (I feel a Sinatra song coming on. If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere. It's up to you... etc. etc.) I think it is all here in this city. The question for me is how to find it, and how to afford living here. Currently, I'm in a not-great neighborhood in Brooklyn, but my overall sense of the city is favorable. I think I could live here and get around the city. I didn't see it in my first foray into Manhattan, but when I first walked in Times Square last Saturday, I felt the energy people have told me about, in the lights and the skyscrapers and the teeming crowd. Perhaps my future lies here: a haven, a place to settle and end this lonely nomadic, gypsy flight all over the face of the U.S. My soul requires a home. Could it be you, New York, New York?

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