Hi!
Hello! I’m still in New York. It’s still good. It’s also made me have some Big Thoughts about online discourse, because I can’t not think about the internet at all times. I’m in the process of developing two tentative theories on why yanks, no offence to them, are the way they are.
One theory is for everyone and one theory is for paying subscribers only. This strikes me as a reasonable deal.
Oh also, before I get into it: if you’re looking for a fun sitcom to watch you should get into Girls5Eva! The name is so bad it put me off for many months but I finally gave it a try last week and it’s so good, so funny and silly, and it’s on Netflix so here we are.
A thesis in progress (1)
I think I speak for all Europeans on the internet here when I say these two things:
Americans who endlessly go on about going to therapy and loving therapy and not wanting to date anyone who hasn’t done therapy and therapy therapy therapy are baffling.
Americans who talk about their need to order comfort food and groceries to their house like it’s an inalienable human right even if they live in big cities are not only baffling, but actively bewildering.
I have spent the past few years online seeing endless versions of these takes and they have always annoyed and confused me, because I never quite got the strength of feeling behind them.
I have done therapy before and will probably do therapy again: it has helped me in the past, and I have often recommended it to people. That doesn’t mean I see it as a panacea, or something absolutely everyone ought to do if they want to be seen as a real, mature adult.
Similarly, I do judge people who order everything in but I am very aware of the fact that I have my own sets of selfish habits which reflect poorly on me. I’m sure I’ve discussed some of them before. What I cannot wrap my head around is the refusal to see these acts for what they are: not as things which one must simply do to survive, but as treats which they could definitely do without, but enjoy having regardless. The odd, guiltless puritanism rankles.
I was thinking about it the other day as I was walking to my subway station - did you know I’m living in New York for five weeks? - and a few things suddenly hit me. The first is that the area I live in, which is by all means gentrifying and very hipster-friendly, is chock full of people with mental health issues.
Some may be homeless, others not. What they have in common is that they are clearly mentally unwell and in dire need of help, and they are not getting any. It is something you can sometimes see in Britain but it is everywhere here: people who blatantly fell between the cracks at some point, and have no way of coming back.
I’m sure there’s a point at which you stop noticing them and just go about your life, but I’m not convinced that they can ever fully leave your consciousness. More than that, I think they can act, even subconsciously, as a constant, gnawing reminder that there is little to no safety net in the US, and things can go very wrong very fast. It is unlikely to happen to you but you know what? It might. There’s no way of knowing for certain.
This may be a bit of a stretch and, let’s face it, I may just be wrong, but I wonder if that’s part of the reason why so many middle class Americans have become obsessed with their mental health, and making sure that their brain is the best possible version of itself at any given moment.
It just feels like too much of a coincidence, this rise in prominent homelessness and drug abuse in big cities and the unstoppable, growing obsession with therapy. People are building these fortresses of bubble wrap around themselves because they know that if they break, they may not ever get to rebuild themselves properly.
It’s not the most rational reaction but it feels understandable. Walking around my neighbourhood here makes me feel ever so slightly on edge at all times, in a way that walking around the mean streets of south London rarely ever does.
Similarly, I wonder if this lack of safety net may explain all this self-infantilisation, especially around deliveries. Unless you have a wealthy and supportive family nearby or friends and a partner you can truly count on, no-one will be there to catch you if you fall. There is no NHS here, and minimal social services. Benefits are barely existent, and the state just doesn’t feel present in the way that it does even in post-austerity Britain.
In this context, it would make sense for people feeling vulnerable to reflexively rely on the next best thing. You may not be able to afford thorough, top-of-the-range medical insurance but you can always get a vat of mac and cheese delivered to your home in under half an hour. You lost your job with no heads up and little severance money and you feel crushed and scared but at least you don’t have to go all the way to the store to buy cookies and chicken tenders.
If you squint, it just about looks like you’re not entirely going at it alone, and you can get help if you need it, even if it’s minimal and not necessarily what you actually require. That’s why we find it so confusing on the other side of the pond; our material circumstances are just too different, in ways we rarely stop to think about.
Or maybe I’m just being too kind and they’re massive babies! There’s definitely a streak of stringent individualism hiding in there somewhere as well - I doubt they often stop to think about the working conditions and mental health state of all these delivery drivers. Still, I suppose that’s only the flipside of living in a society where you do feel you’re more or less on your own.
Here endeth my thesis in progress (1).
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