The other day, someone asked me what I thought a “New Yorker” was. My first response was a New Yorker is not about what was, New Yorkers are about what is often before anyone realizes it.
Besides this though, the question seemed impossible to answer. That person could have asked me to count all the stars in the universe and compose them into a singular sum and I would have been no less perplexed. Often we confuse ourselves into believing there is an easy explanation for our lives and we simply must embrace the inexplicable, so I said, “A New Yorker is far too diverse for any singular description.”
Every personality trait in humanity and all those traits’ endless combinations are all found in this city. What more, as our species continues to integrate on a global scale, as this integration is occurring in New York City, so will it occur throughout the world. New York City is not simply inhabited by every culture on this planet, but the functional contributions made by every culture on this planet make New York City what it is.
Every way that human beings interact, they are interacting at this moment in New York City. Every living language of our species is being spoken. Every type of commercial exchange is occurring. Every currency is held. Somewhere in this city, at this very moment, people are reading ancient hieroglyphs. Somewhere in this city, people are studying ancient mathematical formulas recorded in cuneiform from ancient Mesopotamia. People are cordially greeting everyone with every custom and enjoying every cuisine and every blessing of that cuisine.
If you want to know anything about every culture of our species on this planet, then Ask a New Yorker.
If you want to know about Kabbalah, the oldest system of textual analysis known to humanity and still practiced to this day, then Ask a New Yorker.
If you want to know about String Theory in physics, then Ask a New Yorker.
If you want to know about the economic situation of any community in the world, then Ask a New Yorker.
If you want to know anything that is known to humanity, then all you need to do is Ask a New Yorker, because New York City is not simply composed of New Yorkers, New York City is composed of the entire world.
Garrett Buhl Robinson is a poet and novelist living in New York City. www.garrettrobinson.us
