London: This is Spiral Tap
Am I a product of my environment, or is my environment a product of me?
This question, inspired by Jack Nicholson in The Departed, came to me as I was walking London’s sidewalk. And my answer, uttered by my subconscious, is becoming clear.
In Paris, I was literary. In Georgia, I was, well, kinda bored. In Romania, I was healthy and grounded yet under-stimulated.
And in London, I was ambitious.
The hard thing was, I had nothing to be ambitious about, or toward. It’s a dastardly feeling, like having this big harvester but nothing to feed it with. And on my last day in the grand royal city did I realize why it was happening.
I arrived in London two-and-a-half weeks ago. I’d just finished an eight-day road trip through Ireland with one of my best friends. I was exhausted and ready for a sense of routine.
I was staying in my friend’s friend’s apartment, right next to the big and beautiful Battersea Park. And so my first morning, I went for a walk.
Gorgeous women jogged past with AirPods and skinny sunglasses and hair tightly pulled back. Men jogged shirtless with ripped torsos and perfect bodies. Everyone was on a mission to do something, to be somewhere. Even those taking it easy on the grass, it felt like they had “leisure time” scheduled into their calendars.
My God, I thought. I’m back in New York.
And it felt kinda good.
I’d been in Eastern Europe a little too long. I wholeheartedly recommend both Romania and Georgia as travel destinations — but to hang and linger for over two months, at least for me, was entirely too much. And so when I landed in England, and had the glorious English language all around me, where I saw people reading books, modernized restaurants, even the guy who so snarkily quipped at me in the security line, I thought, I’m home.
Odd thing was, I rejected New York. I didn’t want to be there. Maybe that’s why London felt so good: It had the energy and momentum of New York, but with far less intensity. It felt greener, smarter, prettier. And for me, with my American accent, I felt like the cool new kid in class.
In those first few days, honest to God, I thought: I could live here.
It helped that I loved where I was staying.
It was a modern apartment on the tenth floor that overlooked the park. It had a large balcony, warm lighting, and a giant wall of books.
They weren’t just books, though. These were mostly, if not all, self-help books, and I’d never seen so many gathered together. If you ever wanted to: master small talk, enjoy play, learn tantra, start a business, grow a business, end a business, unblock your creativity, or do anything in your life optimally better, then this was the library for you.
This was a bit counter though to the life I’d been living. I was heavily enjoying going with the flow, the current. For a time, it felt marvelous to drop those questions of who I was or who I’d become. And while I loved being back in modern civilization — like, really loved it — I felt the disease of ambition coming back.
I’m an ambitious guy. I have something in me that wants to build something, to watch something grow. I felt it most heavily in New York, and the pattern followed as such: I’d search for ideas. Then one would catch. I’d get really excited about it as I dreamt up possibilities. And then when I thought about the practicality of it, I’d lose enthusiasm rather quickly. Then it was onto the next, and so on.
Also, I must admit, I was holding an intention. I was traveling with a free, open spirit, sure, but I had this deep-down hope that this period would count for something — in other words, I had this seven-month window to figure out what I’ll do next, and time was ticking.
So that wall of self-help books, with all of their promised answers, was quite enticing.
I picked up The $100 Startup. I started reading and felt myself light up. Yes, I thought, this is what I need. I should’ve been doing this months ago.
Those first few days, I was on fire. I was going to museums, reading about entrepreneurship, cooking healthy meals, exercising. I was daydreaming potential business ideas and felt like I was doing something productive. I had plans, the city felt new, and I had that glorious night with Wilco.
I also stayed one night at my friend Haneen’s place, just outside the city center, which was calming and restorative. Then, when I came back, I shared a night of conversation with Haneen’s friend, Georgie — who I was renting the room from — and felt lit up and marvelous by the connection.
Then, things started to crash.
It started on a Thursday. Georgie left for a trip, and the apartment suddenly felt empty. I had no plans coming up, and no one left to meet. I felt very alone.
It was also a lunar eclipse. An astrology friend said it was a day of demolition. “I hope it’s a controlled demolition,” he wrote.
I had my usual morning. I read, drank coffee, and wrote. But when I sat down to plan lessons for that day, nothing came out. I took a break and tried again, nothing. Then I started scrolling Instagram, which was when I caught myself and went for a walk. I called my Mom.
“I’m just not feeling it,” I told her. “But it’s not just today. It’s been happening for months, on and off. Today I’m just feeling it really badly.”
“Is it stimulating for you?”
Bang.
The right question is the most beautiful thing.
I need stimulation.
I’d been teaching online the last eight months. It’s been a small income, but I’ve really cherished the structure it’s provided, plus what I’ve been learning from my students. I had no intention of stopping, but my Mom’s question showed that I was craving something more, maybe on top of the teaching.
Because when I am under-stimulated, it’s a bad place to be.
It’s almost a form of malnourishment. And the number one thing I’ve turned to, my drug of choice, has been women.
Or rather: the attention of women.
In New York, I’d be bored at the gym and scan the room, searching for eye contact. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I just wanted that thrill and tension of being seen. Even with dating apps: Part of me wanted partnership, but another part enjoyed the dopamine of matching, which is why I’d open the apps often on boring afternoons or lonely evenings. Eventually, I rarely even messaged.
I stopped using dating apps though when I left the States. So instead, I was walking the streets of London and making eye contact with attractive women, hoping one might look back and give me that shudder of satisfaction. And the universe, true to itself, never gave me what I wanted in those moments.
One afternoon, I felt particularly bored and decided to take a long walk through Chelsea, a more upscale area. Beautiful red-brick townhomes lined the streets, with black taxis and iron light fixtures. It felt like Peter Pan.
I put on one of Oprah’s podcasts. Her guest was an addiction expert. They invited three addicts: shopping, video games, and sports betting. Each person had a gap — either a lack of fulfillment or a collapse of identity — and in that gap, their respective vice crept in.
I realized, as I looked so desperately for eye contact, it’s not a woman that I truly crave. I do want connection and partnership, sincerely. But what I want most of all is excitement. And in my mind, the thrill of new romance was the exact chemical mix to satisfy that gap.
I wish I could say that that realization ended things. But it didn’t.
That ambitious energy still had to go somewhere. The machine was still churning. And with nothing to feed it with, I started feeding on myself.
It started with a horrible spiral about Istanbul, my next destination. I saw the news story about flooding in Nepal, and immediately, I thought of a friend’s comment about earthquakes in Turkey, and my mind went wild. I looked up the topography of the city and where I’d be staying. I read Reddit forums. I texted a friend who’d lived there before. None of it was assuring.
I also had no social plans. I knew a few people who lived here, but at this point, they were out of town, unavailable, or had ghosted.
I was on my own. For days, I kept scribbling about business ideas or things I’d do in the future. I was closely monitoring blog stats and analytics. I was posting more often on Instagram, constantly checking likes and views.
I’d take long walks alone, in Battersea Park, obsessing about the questions that I long ago put down:
-What’s my purpose?
-Why haven’t I done anything with my life?
-When is life going to start?
-Why does nothing ever seem to work out?
It wasn’t the questions, though, that haunted me the most; it was the fact that they came back at all. I thought I relinquished all of this — the need to be someone, etc. But clearly, they just laid dormant, until the right environment woke them up.
My last day, I was in London’s Stansted Airport, getting ready to go to Istanbul. My flight got delayed, so I had a good two hours of waiting. Haneen asked about my experience and I shared with her: London was a lovely, wonderful city, but I had all this energy and nothing to direct it towards, and it kinda felt like torture.
“I resonate one hundred percent,” she said. “That apartment, that neighborhood, London overall, is built for that hyper-productive energy. If you love that go-go lifestyle, then you will thrive. But if not, it’s completely exhausting.”
Oof. Lightbulb.
I thought back to my night at her place the week before. She lives a good 45 minutes outside central London, far from the hustle and bustle.
At golden hour, I took a solo walk around the area. There was a stone clocktower. Rows of shops and restaurants, a pub here and there. It felt like I was in a town. And everything in me relaxed.
Haneen’s home, mind you, is a sanctuary. It has a garden and wonderful golden light that pours through and beams across her big wooden kitchen table, like a farmhouse in Vermont. She has two warm roommates who cook healthy, delicious-smelling meals and communicate fabulously with one another. Staying there, I didn’t worry about building my empire or solving my future. I flipped through a book by Sebastião Salgado. I wanted, more than anything, to just go outside and play with my camera, to create an image 1/10th as beautiful as his.
It wasn’t an answer, but it was a compass: a place with warm company, easy activity, friendly vibes.
London and New York are magical, magnificent places, but they are not that.
If you have a project, a vocation, a startup or a calling, these cities are the catalysts to make it happen, and surprisingly fast. But without an outlet, it’s easy for that energy to turn inward, which is why I so desperately craved dating apps, or big ambitious projects.
It’s also why, even after two weeks of doing not that much, I was utterly exhausted. I felt like I never fully recharged, even though I slept for eight or more hours each night.
The spiral got bad because I was blaming myself. Why couldn’t I figure this out? Why am I always in this position?
But maybe the onus isn’t as much on me as I suspected.
People ask why I left New York, and I usually say I didn’t felt like me, or I wasn’t my best self. But now I have a clearer answer: I’m a product of my environment, and that environment wasn’t for me.
Feeling relieved, it was time to go to my gate. I was looking forward to a new city, a new environment, curious to see what impact it would have on me.
It is one perk of being a nomad. It’s like going to sleep. When you have a bad city, you’re one move away from starting all over again.