It has long been believed (to varying degrees of accuracy) that Conservatives have no creativity, passion for the arts, or appreciation for eccentric expressions of the human condition. Even today, as we experience the changing tides of a cultural revolution, where Conservatives venture to take back the arts once again, we are still often cast as not believing in the power of the imagination, “partly,” as Michael Feingold puts it directly, “because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the planet.”
As a fairly cultured Conservative, I still often find myself searching for a strict definition of “art” by which to evaluate pieces, and qualify or disqualify them as such. Characteristic of our strategies when debating the Left, we cannot simply accept the definition of art to be, simply “you’ll know it when you see it.” We need standards.
I still remain void of an answer to this dilemma, however, I believe I can contribute to the conversation, as a staunch Conservative, who was made so despite (maybe even because of) the Liberalism I have been surrounded by for all of my life.
I quickly learned that the only way to avoid the sin of wrath, I must learn to find the hidden beauty in my surroundings. In doing so in my school, neighborhood, and nearest city, I’ve discovered that part of art is the act of seeking beauty in rather inopportune places. In fact, the need to work so hard to find it often accentuates its value.
A composition of this length may seem unwarranted for one day’s worth of experiences in New York City (to tour colleges nonetheless), and you, my readers, may consider me no more than a visionary, or a starving artist when I publish such eidetic, often extemporaneous “revelations.” However my turbulent life has proven to me thus far that I have been gifted with the ability to see the best in the worst places, and that the fruits of this gift are important to share with anyone willing to listen.
“New York City is undoubtedly a heap of trash,” decry countless Americans who have both visited and not visited it, both lived in it and have not lived in it. The purpose of this piece is not to debunk this claim, as the mysteriously moist subway staircases and unique breed of humans that riddle the sidewalks almost vindicate the claim. However, on my excursion to Midtown and Harlem (of all places!), I was afforded the unique opportunity to observe the hidden beauty of Manhattan (my Aunt watching out for any potential hagglers, hobos, and hustlers was an added bonus).
And I found nothing short of an abundance of it.
Before we had even entered the tunnel the LIRR heads through before arriving at Grand Central station, we had already made a friend.
For any readers who may have never had the opportunity to interact with some of New York’s inhabitants, in the bounds of the city, the self-ambition is palpable. Not only is a greeting not expected as people walk by each other, but it will often lead to being mistaken for one of those hobos, hagglers, or hustlers. Which is why the statement “we made a friend in New York City (nonetheless by making small talk),” is a feat far beyond impressive.
“Excuse me?”
My aunt and I looked at each other to assure ourselves we had heard the intrusion, and were not becoming one of the people we would later pass on the streets. We had boarded the train only a few minutes prior, and were already being bothered by a city bum. We obeyed New Yorker’s eleventh commandment of “stranger, danger,” and ignored the plea for attention.
Only for it to happen again, minutes later:
“Excuse me?”
“Yes?” my aunt responded curtly, as not to show too much interest in whatever he was selling.
“Does this train transfer at Jamaica? I need to go to Grand Central.”
Entertaining his valid question, and realizing we needed the answer to the same question, my aunt, sitting up, answered: “I actually don’t know, but that’s a good question, because we need that too,” (we had been on a train to Penn Station).
After checking her app, my aunt reassured both herself and the man that it would stop at Jamaica, Queens, where another train would be waiting on its way to Grand Central. We got off the first train only to find a one-minute delay, and our second ride leaving before we could board.
My aunt and the man sympathized, agreeing that the second train should have waited for ours to come in. The man seemed extremely nervous, fidgeting with his faux leather folder in which I assumed he carried a resume.
Looking at the TV, my aunt reassured him about 15 times that the 9:17 train on Track 1 would take us all where we needed to go. He was definitely nervous.
Taking that as the end of our interaction, my aunt and I drifted away from him, and discreetly agreed that he was either on his way to the first day on the job, or headed for an interview.
The funny thing was that although we had only talked to him briefly, knew nothing about him, and found his jittery nature mildly annoying, we still felt an obligation to reconvene with him and tell him not to board when another train arrived seven minutes early.
“Oh, not this one? Ok, thank you!”
“Yep!”
A few seconds of silence, the 9:10 train rolling away in the distance…
“I have an interview today, so I’ve gotta make sure I’m in early,” he informed us. I felt my Aunt congratulating herself on her educated guess. “Oh, do you?”
“Yeah, finances, actually. Rockefeller Center!” the man nodded.
“Oh, good luck!”
We exchanged pleasantries and again, made the mistake of assuming our interaction was over.
We both realized we were wrong when he sat across from us on the train to Grand Central seven minutes later.
Now that I was eye-to-eye with him, I was able to get a better sense of the man. No more than 5’10’’, he wore a dark grey suit, light blue shirt, red tie, and leather shoes, looked to be about 55-60, and wore glossy tortoise shell glasses with an 80’s style bar across the top, helping the nose bridge connect the two lenses together. He looked like a Mark (to which my aunt later agreed emphatically).
As we traveled, we got to know Mark better. He had been laid off from his previous job, due to his company offshoring labor to India where he worked for five years from home on the Island. He informed us that this was his last promising interview, and that if this one didn’t go well, business would be really slow for him for the next 6 months. He didn’t have much confidence, however, because he had messed up the last interview (through no fault of his own), and was afraid he’d do it again. We learned Mark had a son and a daughter, who both graduated from Hofstra University after they successfully negotiated their scholarship tuition (which was news to my Aunt). Mark grew up in a town close to mine, and in 1983, graduated from the same school district I will graduate from in a year. From that I did the math, and calculated his age to be 60.
We got off at Grand Central with Mark, and wished each other good luck. As we were parting ways, I realized that although we never even caught each other’s names, we each got a small glimpse into each others’ lives. Mark learned that I was interested in pursuing politics in college, and that my aunt works at a local bank on the Island upon leaving a name-brand one after 16 years (to which he reveled at her young looks), and we learned about the turmoil he had been through trying to support his son and daughter’s college tuition.
It was a beautiful experience.
It was an experience that would only happen in a city like New York.
In ancient times, a name was seen as a sacred window into a person’s true nature and deepest motives. It was not given out to everyone within 30 seconds of meeting them. This is why many observant Jews today still avoid thinking about, calling upon Him with, or writing His true name. They believe it is too holy for them to use, as they don’t understand His true nature and deepest motives.
When my aunt and I thought back to Mark at lunch, wondering if his interview had gone well, a sense of mystery reverberated in my mind. That moment is frozen in time. Now, whenever I think back to him, I will think of a man no more than 5’10’’, wearing a dark grey suit, light blue shirt, red tie, and leather shoes, looking about 60, and wearing glossy tortoise shell patterned glasses with an 80’s style bar across the top, helping the nose bridge connect the two lenses together, sitting on a 9:17 train to Grand Central station.
I know I don’t know his name, but I will think of that man as Mark, and I feel an obligation to pray for him and his wife, son, and daughter, and that he gets that job at Rockefeller Center.
Among that incident, I also observed many other demonstrations of beauty, and that it doesn’t just happen to idealistic, wide-eyed tourists like my aunt and I (although to an extent, we are not as touristy as those who come from another state, country, or continent), but that it happens among city dwellers as well.
On a subway excursion, I saw a mother and a father playing a simple game of throw and catch with their toddler, using an oversized teething toy. I heard the toddler’s occasional giggles, which brightened up the faces of not only the mother and the father, but the surrounding passengers as well. At one point, the mother leaned in and pinched her daughter's face, commenting on her utter cuteness. I saw a boy, maybe 6, sitting across from them, sleeping on his mother’s lap, looking happy and peaceful.
The subway stopped. The father got off with the toddler, and the woman waved goodbye. She was not the toddler’s mother, only a fellow New Yorker. She still looked sad to see the toddler go.
The subway continued. Another baby waved kindly at a girl that was obviously not related to her, given the large gap between where she and the baby’s father was sitting.
The subway stopped. The 6-year-old boy’s mother got off, yet instead of the boy leaving with her, he stumbled drowsily to the lady who the toddler had left. She was the boy’s mother.
The subway continued. The lady whose lap acted like a pillow had seemed merely that. A pillow. However, apparently to this boy, she was more. He began bawling, looking out the window until he could see the lady no longer. The two were left lamenting the bliss they enjoyed only minutes prior. But to me, their sorrow was filled with beauty and meaning.
Exiting the station, the memory, which too was frozen in time, distracted me from the stench of the mysteriously moist subway staircase.
Walking uptown, a notoriously hilly area, we passed another young boy who was falling behind his family. At least, that’s what I presumed when we heard him painfully declare in passing, “I can’t walk my little legs!” To which my definition of “unique breed of humans that riddle the sidewalks” was slightly expanded.
I understand that it is incredibly easy to look at a city like New York, with its filth, stench, hagglers, hobos, and hustlers, and condemn it as a hopeless heap of trash. It’s easy to focus on the city’s companies offshoring labor to India and putting our people out of jobs instead of appreciating a man like Mark’s grit and determination to rise above the setback. It’s easy to think of the father and the mother of the children on the subway and anticipate that they will never have enough children to reverse the downward rate of natural increase instead of realizing the connections they were able to make in one quick happenstance of being on the same train. It’s easy to see the little-legged boy’s parents as (more than likely) loyal Mamdani supporters instead of as parents that bore and raised a cute child.
Of course, all the things that are so obvious are obvious because they are big problems that merit our attention and energy. This does not mean we worry. This is not a relativistic stance on beauty. I still very much disagree that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” There is Beauty, and there is Ugliness. However we often forget that in a place plagued with Ugliness, there can still be Beauty as well. We can approach these issues with more grace if we recognize the inherent value of whatever amount of Beauty there remains.
It is easy to look at the bad and forget about the Beauty. But with this mistake, we begin to worry about the future of the world, and become obsessed with what we see in front of us. With this mistake, we also forget that Beauty will always prevail. Yet in finding Beauty, we find God, and remember that everything will be okay.
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