Fitting In

Yesterday evening my friend Tony came over to have some drinks on the deck. He did show up with half a bottle of Gin. Tony and my roommate Kristian are on a constant mission to make me drunk and both of them succeed constantly. We had a good time talking. Tony had and has a very exciting life and amazing stories to share. After a while his girlfriend came by. We had to move inside since it started to rain. We kept on talking and suddenly it was 2 AM and we were all very hungry.

We went downstairs to find something to eat but realized that the restaurants in the neighborhood all had closed already. Tony hailed a cab and off we went to the West Side to the Meet Packing District. What was a run down area 10 years ago hosts now most of the city’s nightclubs. We stopped at this Indian place to get something to eat then it was club time.

Going out in New York City is very expensive and there is nothing I hate more then to have to give somebody $ 20.-- before I can walk into a place. The second thing that annoys me is that most of the time you have to wait forever in line until you can get into a club. All this of course does not happen when you are a friend of Tony.

Tony is one of the most social human beings I know. Himself in the restaurant business he knows about 100 times more people then I do. In fact at the gym where we used to work out before we barely got to lift weights because Tony spent 70% of the time saying hello to people and 29% of the time checking out girls. He knows everybody and everybody seemed to know him. We went to three different clubs last night, it never took us more then 3 minuets to get in and we did not have to pay a dime.

It was interesting to see different places last night. Our last stop was the Marquee one of New York’s hottest nightclubs. One thing that I recognized the moment we got there is that everybody tries to fit in. People dress the same and act the same. I do not even think that most of them have really fun because they are so concerned how they are perceived by others. It is very stressful when during every move you make you are concerned about what somebody else might think about you. But why do we want to fit in? Why is it so important for us human beings to be part of a group?

We seem to always want to fit in. In New York City you can divide the groups by areas they live in. There is the conservative uptown crowed, the suit and tie Midtown crowd and then the artistic Downton crowed. Then there are separations by interests and profession. There are the gym people, the yoga people, artists, blue color people, corporate America, middle class people, upper class people, spiritual people and so on. When we decide to belong to one of these groups we try to fit in. Williamsburg is a great example for that. It is full of hipsters or pod people (referring to carrying an ipod). The basic idea of being cool and hip is to defrenciate yourself from others.

It is hard to find a place in New York City where people look more similar then in Williamsburg. There is a hipster uniform. A certain way of dressing, a track bike, a haircut that looks like you never got one and if you are a guy you have to have a beard. It amazes me that we always wear a uniform. Even the people who want to break out like the yogis, the punks and the hippies of the end up with a new uniform and a new accepted way of behavior within the group.

But why do we do this? Do we want to be accepted? Do we want to be looked up to? Does it go back to the root of all things, wanting to be loved? Are not 100% self-confident about ourselves? Do we feel just being ourselves is not enough to get the love that we need to survive? Are we looking for love from the outside and forget to look for it on the inside? Do wee feel that if we behave and look the same way as the rest of our group we will be loved? Is it original? Does it express who we really are or what makes us different?

After freeing our minds fitting in is not of our concern any more. We just are. There are not interested to be accepted and we do not belong to any group. In every moment we are what the universe wants to express through us and what we are is constantly changing. We say what we feel like saying, act according to our inner impulse and wear what feel good to us without being concerned about being accepted. We are free to be who we are.

"Fitting In" Mannhattan/New York City/25th Street and Park Avenue 04-26-08 at 05:37 PM

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