Hedonic Greed

At 23 years old, living in New York City, I’m presented at every turn with the opportunity to become someone else. In the modern era, an enjoyable life is increasingly unlikely to happen by accident; it demands deep introspection, an alignment of core values among those you surround yourself with, and a worldview that isn’t suffocating or hopeless. I take great interest in discovering who I truly am and who I plan to become. But when I look around this city, I see thoughtless forward marches in nearly every direction. The last person I’d like to be is another victim of its underlying groupthink: taking a job that demands my soul in return, dating only those who validate me through what my job gives them, and competing viciously with my closest “friends” over who can showcase their winnings at the highest level. This mentality is just as philosophically void on paper as in practice. There is no greater threat to a rewarding life than the desire to use materialism as the means to win a social competition — especially when this pursuit is mixed with the burning feeling inside of I need this. I call this idea Hedonic Greed. And I see it everywhere. But in spite of it, here, I also see the strongest resistance to hive-minded behavior in the entire world: skyscraping museums filled with artistic expressions of self, chess parks defined by intellectual curiosity and out-of-box thinking, and entrepreneurial hubs that blend the goals of financial freedom with the development of emotional intelligence and leadership skills. In an interesting way, New York City is both the heart and the Achilles’ heel of mass-conformist culture. Hedonic Greed is my catalog of what self-discovery here is like.