Still a beautiful sunset
I have lived in Berlin for more than six years now, and have always resisted writing about the place. When I first moved here in 2018, I was though extremely keen to do so. I wanted to write about the bureaucracy, the perverse slowness (amazingly, Peter Thiel called it ‘that place where people in their twenties go to retire’) and my enduring struggles with the German language. Struck by the desolate beauty of Tempelhofer Feld and my relief at arriving in a comparatively cheap city that protects renters, and where everyone is not obsessed with work, I wanted to get it all down. It was only later that I learned that mine were not especially original or compelling insights.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that I didn’t write about all of these things at some point. Those first couple of years were full of writing; by and large, badly-paid art criticism that barely kept me afloat. However, self-censure kicked in, and I decided not to pursue more personal takes. Either my instinct or low self-esteem won out. I remember reading a dating profile that first summer; ‘Berlin utopia girls can swipe left,’ it said. I internally cringed in recognition and indeed swiped left, telling myself that it was not because I was a Berlin utopia girl, but because that person was clearly insufferable. Both couldn’t be true.
Despite significant changes, many people still move to Berlin on the back of a promise, an idea, centred on freedom. I definitely did, even though I painted the decision as nonchalant and arbitrary; ‘Well, you have to live somewhere,’ I’d say. Utter nonsense: I moved to Berlin because I wanted to be another person and have a different kind of life from the one I’d have in Ireland. For the most part, I have been able to do this. But this is not to say that I don’t also hate the place sometimes. Still, it would be dishonest for me to imply that I see it as a city like any other; even after more than six years, it is impossible for me to disentangle my perception of the city from the hope – and frankly, desperation – that brought me here.
Now, it seems to me that it is almost a hobby among long-term residents to lampoon the bright-eyed enthusiasm – in their view, naivety – of the newly arrived. Every once in a while the Guardian or some other newspaper prints a first-hand account of some person finding themselves in Berlin and it is met with incredulous subtweets and almost universal eye-rolls. I find myself falling into the same pattern, sometimes, when a newly arrived person starts telling me how much they appreciate the freedom or the change of pace. Let’s see how you get on in winter, I think, gleefully – very much despite myself.
One of the conclusions I can draw from this is that there is something extremely pleasurable about shitting on other people’s desires. Something almost life-giving about being in the position of knowing more, knowing better, and as a consequence, being impressed by very little. Of course, these articles and books are annoying; they ignore many of the city’s significant problems and are largely written by privileged white people, like myself, who can spend time ‘between’ here and somewhere else. Still, naivety shouldn’t really be so maddening. I say this for myself as much as anyone else.
Though it’s not just about the pleasure of being right. From what I can see, and maybe I’m just projecting here, the people doing the scolding are rarely people from Berlin. Instead, it’s some Californian or English guy who's been here ten, maybe even twenty years. Someone who has been here long enough to see the city change. By scolding the newcomer, it seems to me that they want to distinguish themselves from the newly arrived, and, most importantly, distinguish themself from the change that is happening right now (by and large, negative). I had no hand in this, they seem to imply. Through this, the current situation becomes an unprecedented event, rather than an ineluctable part of a process which they have, in their small way, catalysed.
I’m thinking about this because I’ve been reading back over some of the unpublished things that I’ve written over the past few years, and I am struck by so many familiar themes. Also present is an undeniable naivety, which often leaves me embarrassed. But at the same time, there’s also some good stuff there. I’m thinking publicly about all of this now because six years is a solid chunk of time and I feel justified to speak about where I live at this point. I can trust my judgment. But this itself is founded on a fallacy. Time is not the only marker of value, not at all; pretty sure some insights can only happen when you’re new in a place and open to noticing the differences between it and wherever you’ve come from. That these differences are clearest when you’re new, makes perfect, uncomfortable sense.