Analysis Of Zadie Smith's Essay 'FYB'

In her narrative essay, “FYB”, Zadie Smith expresses her belief that if one gets out of their tunnel vision and redirects themselves to chase after happiness, one can arrive at their beach. The idea of a person’s “beach” being hard to discover may be observed through Smith’s personal background, as it is almost mythical for this English writer living in Soho, Manhattan to come by a beach.

What interested me in Smith’s text was the idea that when you finally arrive at your beach, “sooner or later you will be sitting on that beach wondering what comes next”. Overall, I interpreted one’s beach being defined as a person’s happiness. It is something we all have the potential to posses but at times is very hard to actually acquire. Once we

discover an activity, physical object or mental philosophy that satisfies us, we will eventually leave that particular beach and continue to explore and seek alternative ways to achieve enjoyment.

To find my beach, Smith says that it always has to be on my mind.

That everything irrelevant to achieving my goal should be “removed from the visual horizon”. In order to find my beach, I have to “pursue happiness actively” and find the mindset that will allow me to do this. To find my beach, Smith tells me to go out into New York City and obsess over how I can find a way to be happy. Be ruthless. Think you’re limitless. In “FYB”, Zadie Smith uses the beer ad as an analogy to the mindset of Manhattanites, claiming they all are ambitious to find their oasis in the Big

Apple.

In search of my beach, I went to the Highline with my cousin, Michelle. As I began to walk up the stairs of the the Gansevoort Street entrance, I gazed at my surroundings with the mindset of not necessarily finding a singular beach, but instead seeking out multiple small beaches. This would then create less stress over finding the one perfect beach and enforce the mindset I am trying to reach. Walking around the Highline I kept the thought of finding a beach constantly in my mind. In Smith’s narrative, she leaves the definition of paradise open to interpretation, allowing me as a reader to decide what our own nirvana looks like.

I roamed through Chelsea on the elevated railroad spur observing the people, billboards, paintings and the skyline, and was struck by the Sleepwalker sculpture. When Zadie Smith comes face-to-face with Corona’s “Find Your Beach” advertisement, she begins to analyze and find possible interpretations of the billboard sign. I then began to examine the Sleepwalker sculpture and discussed several potential inferences of the artwork with my cousin Michelle.

As I continued to aimlessly explore the highline, we came across the water feature.

There we saw people ranging from six months to sixty years old splashing around in the water, sinking their toes in the ripples and laughing in the peak of the day’s heat. I saw the potential that this two-avenue-long pool had in becoming a person’s beach for a glimpse of time. Smith’s concept of one’s beach always being in immediate reach resulted in Michelle and I taking off our shoes, sitting on a bench and enjoying the 88°F weather with our toes immersed in 70°F water. During these ten minutes where I sat on the bench, conversed with my friend and watched people play and walk through the park, I had found a beach for

myself.

The beer ad in “FYB” is Smith’s way of sharing a way in which Manhattanites can obtain a mindset which enables them to be content. Here, sitting on this bench, I found ten minutes of paradise, and like Smith says in her essay, I eventually began thinking about what comes next. What other beaches can I find? In my perspective, a beach can only last for a certain duration of time, and once you leave that environment, it will never be the beach that it was before, because ultimately, life is constantly changing. The number of opportunities to pursue happiness is infinite. This, in turn, enables people to go out and find multiple short-term beaches without the mindset of constantly being on the outlook for one perfect paradise.

My advice to friends who wants to find their beach would be to continue their life nonchalantly but for them to be more aware of their surroundings as the day goes by. Try to find a beach and use Smith’s mindset during their daily routine. And when they do something that skews from their regimen, take extra time to appreciate the change in scenery.