JANUARY 3RD, 2021.
I initially wanted to write an article on what I believed to be the true essence of living in New York. I recently moved from NYC to Toronto, and I was inspired by this amazing write-up by Krystal Bick: what I’ve learned after 4 years in new york. It’s surreal how you could be so different from someone else but have the exact same lived experiences because everything in her journal entry down to the length of time we were New Yorkers, the scammy umbrellas from CVS and Walgreens, and the unreasonable annoyance I get from walking behind a slow walker on a city street, I relate to. So instead I decided to write about the question that I have pondered on since moving four months ago.
FEBRUARY 19TH, 2025.
“The erotic is the antidote to death.”
If you googled what the solution to the feeling that you are dying was, psychotherapist Esther Perel’s quote above comes up. And she goes beyond sexuality in that eroticism brings about a “quality of aliveness, of vibrancy, of vitality, of renewal.” All of which are antonyms of death. But how does one develop this erotic intelligence amidst social isolation in a new city. It’s not an innate feeling, it would fall much closer to nurture than nature in a Sociology 101 classroom. So I kept digging.
A few minutes into the pilot episode of Park Chan-wook’s critically acclaimed television miniseries, The Little Drummer Girl, the character Charlie, played by Florence Pugh, answers my question by professing “pleasure is the antidote to death.” Three episodes later she corrects this statement saying, “I changed my mind, it’s love. Love is the antidote to death.” Now this I agreed with, love is entirely natural. Interstellar calls it the one thing humans are capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Yet I kept digging.
The philosopher would claim “when you stop growing, you start dying.” The socialist would offer creativity as the solution and the capitalist would argue innovation is the solution. While both the realist and the communist would scoff at all these conversations and simply state, “life is the antidote to death.” Boring. The first recorded answer to the question came from God directly when He proclaimed His own son was The Way, The Truth, The Life. All you had to do was believe in Him and you would not die. But even that came with the caveat if you read the fine print in John 11:25 — though he may die, he shall live in Me. So the feeling of hopelessness and dying was not entirely off the table either.
Since moving to Toronto, I have felt like I was not exactly living, but also was not exactly dying. I have simply been existing and letting life happen to me. And I think part of what makes New York truly the greatest city in the world is the ‘anythingness’ of the city. In a city of over 8 million people, when someone says “anything can happen here,” there really are no limits to that statement. Regardless of what your quirks are and what your desires are, there is always someone else at any point in time living through the exact same experience as you. So it becomes almost nearly impossible to feel like you are dying in a city that is so alive. I realized the reason I never thought about the question before was because in so many ways, New York was my antidote to death.
Me withering away has been noticeable to friends and family alike, some of who have genuine skepticisms about me actually surviving the year. I have not been eating or sleeping well, and the things that once brought me joy such as football and the movie theater now feel chore-y. A girl that once liked me and I recently reconnected with simply said, “you look tired.” My performance slipped at work and some changes had to be made. The worst part has been the unintentional lackadaisical attitude towards life seeping into my friendships resulting in me losing some of the people I held most dear. Textbook traits of a depression.
But I am writing this because I feel lighter now. I gave it some more thought, and I came up with what I believe to be the answer to the eternal question. Nothing. There is no antidote to death because death in itself is a yin to the yang of life. We are all destined to die, it is the singular thing that has always been true for every human to ever live from the very first men. And I have to stop looking for solutions in psychotherapy or TV shows or socio-political ideologies or even the Bible, and just accept that. Becoming less scared of the inevitable has allowed me come to terms with accepting that I am no longer in New York and I cannot change that for the foreseeable future. I now have to create my own anythingness.
I do miss New York terribly, I miss it so much it hurts. It has been said many times but to quote Ashlea Wheeler, “The City is addictive. Once you get a taste of NYC, you just keep wanting more.” And even though I cannot help but make comparisons to the city whenever I step out of my apartment in Downtown Toronto, I am finally acknowledging that I am now a part of Toronto. In the way that New York will always be a part of me. And I have to let go of the now-false antidote to death that is New York.