In Defense of New York
One of the biggest consequences of living in a click-driven world is the premium put on extremes. Nothing just happens – it’s part of a larger trend, a scarier future.
As an aspiring writer, it’s easy to fall into this trap. If I want people to read me, I think, I need to have an opinion. But often I don’t feel confident enough in my opinion to ram it down my reader’s throat, as internet thinking dictates. I’m not an expert in anything, so there’s always room for nuance and someone else’s perspective.
But nuance isn’t appealing, particularly during the uncertainty of the pandemic. We’re on the brink of war with China, offices are obsolete and elections will never be fair again – or so the thinking goes. With everything up in the air, it seems the only natural thing to do is pick a side and dig in. This will happen exactly as I say it will.
Out of these ping pong matches has come one debate I am particularly interested in: The future of New York City. It’s important to me because it comes right at the peak of my feeling like I belong here. It’s also relevant because the primary actor in all the arguments is essentially me: a millennial professional with the disposable income to enjoy all the city has to offer, and the flexibility to leave on a whim.
I’m talking about two main articles, which I’ll link here:
NYC IS DEAD FOREVER. HERE’S WHY – James Altucher, LinkedIn
So You Think New York Is Dead? – Jerry Seinfeld, NYT
The arguments boil down to this: New York is magical and will always draw the young and ambitious (Seinfeld), and New York is just a place and has little to offer people in this new world (Altucher).
I happen to agree with Seinfeld (Great Saunterers will know why), but I have no interest in jumping into this particular fray. We won’t know whether New York is dead or thriving until enough time has passed to actually… know!
If this were just a thought exercise, I would have zero problem with the Twitter debates happening right now. It’s fun to argue, particularly when it’s over something with very little demonstrable evidence. But this is more than a thought exercise. There are very many people deciding right now whether New York is the place for them. For these people, words like Altucher’s are influential:
“There won’t be business opportunities for years. Businesses move on. People move on. It will be cheaper for businesses to function more remotely and bandwidth is only getting faster... The quality of restaurants will start to go up in all the second and then third tier cities as talent and skill flow to the places that can quickly make use of them... Ditto for cultural events.”
Like I said – I have no idea where New York is headed. Altucher makes a very logical case for why the city will never recover. But having lived in Baltimore for much of my life, I’ve seen the self-fulfilling nature of these things. You write about the rising crime rate, the terrible implications for the future, and BAM! Next thing you know, companies are hesitant to put down roots in the city and young professionals start to move out.
There are a ton of holes in what I just said – market forces play a big role here, and no one moves on the basis of a single article – but when all you see is extreme opinion, it is much harder to take a reasonable approach.
There have been some who feel Altucher’s dismissal of New York is elitist, and I agree. But so is Seinfeld’s imagining of the city. Ask a construction worker or teacher about the magic of New York and they will probably look you in the eyes and laugh. “Magic? This is just where I live!”
Ultimately, it comes down to what one New Yorker, quoted in The Atlantic, said about the debate: “People just like to hear themselves talk.”
The danger is that idle talk can end up shaping narratives. New York may become all of the things that Altucher says (I’m praying it won’t), but I doubt that will happen tomorrow, or six months from now. So in the meantime, maybe we should all just sit on our hands, put away our phones and feel it out.
Outrageous Optimism
I have been a proponent of what I would call the “media-lite” diet for as long as I’ve been writing this newsletter. I haven’t really formalized what that means, but in practice I try to avoid current event reporting. I do not go on Twitter, I read NYT and WSJ op-eds sparingly but not news articles, and I try as much as possible to stick to long-form analysis. That’s why I link pretty exclusively to The Atlantic, podcasts, and individual blogs, many of which focus more on concepts – freedom, injustice, retirement, happiness – than specific events.
With a “media-lite” diet, I find it easier to practice what Mr. Money Mustache (ignore the goofy name) calls Outrageous Optimism:
“Your life and my life are both going to continue to increase in awesomeness over time. We are likely to have exceptional fortune and health throughout our days, we’ll help to change some lives for the better, our kids are going to turn out loving and great, and we will die with a broad smile across our rugged and weather-worn faces somewhere around the age of a hundred and twenty two.”
I’ve gotten some slack for this approach, mainly because I’m “removing myself” from politics. I like to think the reality is far from removal – that instead, I spend much more time than average thinking about politics, and much less time reacting to politics – but everybody overestimates their own virtues, and I know that’s probably not the whole story.
Where the criticism holds some merit is in the idea of a “privileged removal” from politics. I don’t read about abortion legislation because I’m a man. I ignore child separation at the border because I’m white. There is 100% validity to that. There’s a reason why people who champion causes typically have a visceral, personal connection to the issue. It is a very strong motivator, and without it, suffering becomes far easier to ignore. There’s no better representation of this than in my early opinion of Donald Trump, which amounted to: “Let’s just feel this out.”
But any honest reader of this newsletter will know that I don’t ignore what is happening in the country. I spend a lot of time reading and listening to new information, thinking about it critically, and discussing with friends and family. And I know many others who do the same. “Media-lite” does not equal ignorant.
The challenge is that optimism feels incongruous with the climate we see in the news. It feels crazy to be optimistic when the news cycle is a revolving door of police shootings, riots, COVID deaths and constitutional abuses. And this now has a term – gaslighting – which is manipulating someone into questioning their own sanity. Republican leadership certainly does this with their blatant misrepresentation of fact. But I believe we do it to ourselves as well, with the help of click-driven headlines and social media feedback loops.
Here’s a controversial statement: Do not let anyone – not the media, not your friends – paint your optimism as crazy. If you take today’s issues seriously, then great – be optimistic about the future, identify tangible places in your life where you can make changes, and focus your attention there. An upper class, college-educated white kid who takes no action has the same impact on racial justice whether they are positive or negative. And only one of those mindsets is healthy for them or the people around them.
I will concede that I live in an extremely nice part of Brooklyn. But I’ve spent time in other parts of the city, I teach English to mostly lower- and middle class immigrants, and I have yet to see evidence, with my own two eyes, that this country is on a downward spiral. If I was in the center of the melee in Kenosha this past week? Maybe. But I’m not there, and neither is 99.99% of the country.
Instead, this is what I see:
- A Democratic ticket with far more progressive policies than Obama had in 2012 or Hillary had in 2016. Progressive means “happening or developing gradually or in stages; proceeding step by step” and that’s exactly what these policies represent
- A workplace that is 100x more comfortable talking about race and inequality than it was in January
- A country that has accepted the narrative that a police shooting can be unjustified and that policing needs reform
- A terrible President who did not have the country’s mandate in 2020 and does not have it now
- A population that on the whole is caring and respectful of one another, even during a six month span in which we’ve been hit by a global pandemic
Optimism like this is a practice. This week a video went around of protesters shouting at a woman for not raising her fist in support of the BLM cause. It’s an ugly video and a bad representation of our country. But more importantly, it’s an inaccurate representation of our country. I have never been yelled at for something like that. I have never seen anyone yelled at for something like that, or heard of any cases anecdotally. So what should I choose to believe about the country? That video or my lived reality?
It all comes down to what one friend said: “Be the change you want to see.” If economic inequality is your poison, then choose an amount of money you can afford and donate it to those in need. Unless you sit on the board of a major charity, or work as a lobbyist, anything else does nothing to change the world around you. If racial inequality makes you sick, then march in protests, spread the word of police reform, and reflect on ways you could do things differently. And if polarization drives you insane, as it does to so many of us, then reach out to someone and just listen.
I’ll end with a quote. If you’ve never browsed Goodreads quotes, then check them out here. There is a reason why searching for both “optimism” and “pessimism” brings up only quotes about the former.
Attitude is a choice.
Happiness is a choice.
Optimism is a choice.
Kindness is a choice.
Giving is a choice.
Respect is a choice.
Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.
– Roy T. Bennett
If you are looking to tune out some of the noise, this post from June has a list of some of my favorite podcast interviews.
And as always, if you have anything to say, I would love to hear it. One brief email reply energizes me like few other things in life.
– Emmett
Recent Posts:
The Truth Is In the Data – Looking back over three years of building a habit
Photos: Portland International Rose Test Garden – Some flowers from the Portland Rose Garden
What I’m Reading:
Reach Your Goals By Living a More Intentional Life – Kyle Spearin
“People spend several hours per month perusing Netflix for new shows to watch, but hardly ever sit down to think about what an ideal life would look like.“
Predictably Irrational – Mr. Money Mustache
“The reason we suck at running our own lives is that we are evolved and programmed for a completely different set of surroundings”
What I’m Listening To:
The Guitar Speaks – Chad Vermillion (Spotify, Youtube)
Jon Arnold: The most prolific philanthropist you may not have heard of – Peter Atia Podcast