It’s the Job of Young People to Ignore Old People

The first thing I noticed when I moved to New York to become a writer was how far I was already behind all the other people who had moved to New York to become a writer. First off, it was impossible to miss how much more experienced they were than I was. They’d gone to fancy East Coast schools, they’d traveled abroad, they had parents who were writers or academics or lawyers, they’d planned on moving to New York City their entire lives, this was a place they were always going to end up; it had only recently occurred to me that I’d be allowed in New York City, a city I’d never even visited and knew absolutely nothing about. They also, because they’d gone to those fancy schools, had friends and contacts everywhere; it blew me away how often they’d just randomly run into people from college on the subway. But more than anything else, it was clear, from the very first second I started meeting people, that everyone was so smart. I’d always thought of myself as a pretty smart guy, but I was blown away. They had deeper conversations about a far wider range of topics than I could possibly keep up with, and they could go on for hours. Anytime we floated too far away from Cardinals baseball, Nirvana songs or Woody Allen movies, I was hopelessly lost. I had moved to New York thinking I was special, that I had to test myself on the most difficult stage possible. It was obvious, immediately, that…