Anais Nin returns to New York in January, 1936 in response to letters from her analysis patients asking her to return. She views this as playing God, saving people ("cripples") from lives of misery, which tires her, drains her. She feels a burden when she gives all her strength away. Even so, she is excited for the return to the activity in New York; Paris seems tame by comparison. She also looks forward to earning her own money to ease some of the money restrictions she feels in her life. She yearns to listen to the jazz in Harlem again. She is determined to live her own life as a woman in New York instead of her role as "mother" to many in Paris. Analysis means money; New York means adventure; money means publication; all of this is what Anais wants.
On the other hand, she believes New Yorkers (and Americans in general) fear relationships and intimacy, which leads to loneliness and isolation. They don't talk; they drink so that feelings and senses can be blurred, muted, squelched. Drinking is her enemy. Anais says Americans are victims of the ideal of survival of the fittest and let the weak fall by the wayside, which leads to loss of individuality and self-respect. Drinking and drugs give them short-term pleasure because they seem unable to find long-term happiness in this world.
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