> After [I was an] undergrad at Yale, New York was a natural place to go, but I never worked there. It just felt like a place that was externally very pressuriz

> After [I was an] undergrad at Yale, New York was a natural place to go, but I never worked there. It just felt like a place that was externally very pressurized. You had to conform to the external pressures that dictated your daily life. Your rent was $4,000 to $6,000 a month for craziness for like a walk-up in Hell’s Kitchen. Social structures were fairly set, like, you had to go to the Hamptons in the summer or something. There were these weird things that felt very dictated and you had to fit and you had to climb the pyramid schemes that people had established for you. Otherwise, you were out. I feel this has more to do with being an undergrad at Yale (estimated living alumni ~170,000) than New York (population approaching 9 million at the heart of densely-populated region approaching the population of the whole of Australia). I live in New York. I recognise the folks he describes. But I don't have to live in the same New York as they do or he feared doing. This isn't a small town where it is literally physically impossible to avoid encountering the same people every week. New York gives you an endless canvas, but it's up to you to work out what kind of paint you are.