The City Has No Soul

As I walked through the valleys and shadows, there was a pulse but not anything alive. 

It was the vibration of degradation, loss, disempowerment, and survival. 

From the addict shooting up in the subway to the weed tables set up on every corner with some level of the seller – from high as a kite to passed out – a front for the harder stuff – crack, smack, coke, meth – whatever you want.

Sitting on the sideway, eating a breakfast sandwich and drinking coffee while a homeless man twitches awake, barely knows he is in the world and I wonder what his story is and does it matter anyway. Am I so different than he is? Maybe my life is just as meaningless – our highs are different but highs and lows none the less. What makes his better or worse than mine? What makes mine so different? Don’t I chase the next high just like he does but mine are perhaps more socially acceptable.

A walk in the park, up to 5th, Park, Madison Avenue, with stoops, flowers, and well-dressed patrons, where even I stood out with my beet-red face and exhaustion from 3 days of drinking and walking… Even here what stood out was the lack of soul, of fresh air, of humanity as people averted their eyes…looked away as if everyone is less than the next or we’re just all trying to get through the day, not looking at tweaking people, stepping over homeless and admiring the wealthy.

But still, there is no soul. Its absence is notable, the vibration is of slums, darkness, loss and disempowerment not the vibration of a place of alive with light and energy but of a seediness that permeates everything. There is a constant threat of violence, a need to survive, a lack of caring that lives in everything.

Some people say the city has a soul but I don’t feel it, I feel the lack of soul, the desperate attempt at the need to mean something and to matter somewhere and yet falling short in the greatness and expansion of the capital and American dream. I wonder if it’s really a dream we’re all chasing or just a nightmare that we can’t wake up from.

The medicine chief of the Achuar Tribe says we are living the wrong dream. Collectively, the more of us that dream a new dream, a better world can be built. And maybe the sky rises is proof of what we can create when we dream, but perhaps we need to dream a place with soul, where we can live fully and be alive not merely existing in a shadow of what could be.

The desperation to fit in, to be discovered, to survive, the lack of empathy and caring… And then I wonder… what if the city does have a soul and I can’t feel it? What if it’s me that’s lost mine and not the city at all?

Maybe it’s me that not living, maybe it’s me that can’t feel a thing, maybe it’s me that is wandering aimlessly and not the city at all.

Tonya

PS… you can get a copy of my book here -> https://www.tonyawhittle.com/buy-unchained-book