doomerism vs. new york
a city of hope
There is no hope. Everything is in an endless crisis. The world is in decline, this is obvious. People are turning away from each other. People are no longer reading books and no one is talking to strangers and movie theaters are dying and the music industry is dying and shared community doesn’t exist anymore. To interact with another person is a burden, every person is seeking ways to avoid it. We’re giving up on each other. There is no hope.
I look up from my phone with a knot in my stomach. It’s the same knot in my stomach that I’ve grown used to, as my free time is filled with more and more of the same — constant reports of decline, ones that I can’t stop clicking on, anxious to discover all of the different ways the world is in a state of collapse. I feel myself turning into a doomer: someone deeply pessimistic, even fatalistic about the future of the world.
The problems of the world are specific and nonspecific: individual industries are facing varying challenges, but the core point is that human civilization is in shambles, everyone is becoming antisocial, and that technology is replacing everything human. This reporting sometimes has nuance, but among the deluge of these pieces, it barely registers. My flawed brain exaggerates statistics: a majority means everyone, every downward trend will continue until zero, the future is shrouded in an ominous fog.
I tell myself that reading all of these headlines makes me better informed or better connected to reality, so I continue to gorge myself on the rot. These narratives solidify and congeal in my mind, seeping into my overall worldview. When I leave my desk to enter the world, I expect to discover firsthand evidence of everything in decline.
I board the subway, thinking of the Reddit comments with thousands of upvotes of people complaining about how unsafe it is. Apparently things have changed — the people have changed — and it feels too dangerous to use these days. When my train arrives, I cautiously watch everyone around me. A couple of friends in their thirties give up their seats for an older gay couple. A few people exit the car, and a little boy waves goodbye and yells “bye!” to each of them. Everyone smiles, at least a little bit. The knot in my stomach relaxes.
Thinking more clearly, I return to Neil Postman’s classic Amusing Ourselves to Death, knowing he would have something relevant to say. I re-read his reflections on Lewis Mumford’s investigations into the impacts of the clock on our lives:
the clock made us into time-keepers, and then time-savers, and now time-servers. In the process, we have learned irreverence toward the sun and the seasons, for in a world made up of seconds and minutes, the authority of nature is superseded.
Is the news just like a clock for me, something that turns reality into trends and crises? Where does my view of the world come from? Have I ceded my own engagement with the real world, become irreverent toward the world it was meant to represent? Do I still watch people and understand the nature of human behavior, or do I just trend-serve? Have my attempts to gain a wider perspective of the world stymied my ability to see what was in front of me?
In the face of such thoughts, I try to spend more time noticing, hoping to regain agency in my own understanding of the world. I don’t want to live with this knot in my chest. I don’t want to lose sight of reality. I want to be able to see beyond the narratives that surround me. I think about the different crises that I have been entertaining in my mind, try to see how it lines up with what’s real. I force myself to keep my eyes on what’s in front of me, rather than what’s on my phone.
If no one is reading anymore and there’s a literacy crisis, why is it impossible to find a library empty, or a bookstore that doesn’t have a line? Why does every subway car have a few people reading a book or e-reader? Why do my holds for every book at the BPL take forever to come through, and why am I always 25th in line?
If people have given up on film and art, why are the museums always so crowded, why does the Metrograph never have enough tickets, even on a weeknight? Why do I overhear conversations about what films have newly landed on the Criterion collection, and a bartender talking at length about obscure horror films that she watched throughout October?
When I look with my own eyes, experience what surrounds me, it becomes clear that however dire the crises in art are, they aren’t as all-consuming as I had once thought. Artistic appreciation hasn’t yet faded away, to my relief.
However, even if the humanistic impulses of New York are alive, larger problems theoretically afflict our society. What proof do I have of the nature of community? Haven’t we all become deeply individualized and atomized? No one knows their neighbors, most people in the city speed-walk past each other, separated by headphones and sunglasses. What if the communal nature of New York is simply a relic of the past?
One Sunday in November, the morning is brighter than usual. The sky is a deep blue, completely clear. It’s the day of the New York City marathon. I had heard people say that Marathon Day was their favorite day of the year, but having lived in other cities that hosted marathons, I couldn’t imagine why. In other cities, the marathons finished before I left my apartment in the morning, and as a non-runner, they barely registered as something to consider. In search of answers, I take a short walk to the route of the race, only a few minutes away from my sleepy corner of the city.
I hear it before I see it. As I walk towards the course, a wave of sound washes over me. People scream and clap, bands play in some sections, while DJs spin in others. A normally quiet street has been turned into an endless block party, filled with an infectious, animated energy. Runners fly down the asphalt, flanked by raucous fans holding motivational signs on the sidelines. Fans are of all ages, races. Signs range from embarrassing photos of individual runners to jokes about the G train to simple phrases of encouragement for anyone to take to heart.
Despite the fact that most of the people don’t know most of the other people around them, it doesn’t feel like we’re among strangers; there’s an indisputable collective spirit to the crowd. Everyone shares in the excitement of the day. I had planned only to take photos and observe, but I quickly lose the impulse to reach into my pocket, to be anywhere but here. Soon, my claps and screams blend with those of my neighbors, my joy blends with theirs. I stand taller in this crowd, and I swear that the runners do too. “New York Loves You,” declares a massive, hand-drawn banner hanging from a nearby building, and it feels true.
This experience — the sounds, the energy — brings to mind sociologist Émile Durkheim’s concept of collective effervescence:
The very fact of congregating is an exceptionally powerful stimulant. Once the individuals are gathered together, a sort of electricity is generated from their closeness and that quickly launches them to an extraordinary height of exaltation.
It’s joyous, an experience nearly divine. In this blissful state, with tears in the corners of my eyes, I wonder how we could ever live without one another, without congregating into something greater.
There is hope. We haven’t given up on each other. Not yet.
Special thanks to Catherine, Jasmine, and Zoë for offering some great feedback on this one!
Programming note: after 8+ years of publishing mostly weekly, I’m switching to a biweekly cadence to better support the type of essays I want to be publishing. Stay tuned!
💧 Drops of the Week 💧
ALBUM - Time by Hiroshi Sato - city pop and jazz fusion~
POEM - “Earth-Like” by Megan Pinto - At home, we keep my father from the news. / The news addles his mind.
splash gives me hope!!! this one really resonates