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This morning a man gave an eloquent speech on the subway, while the train was still in the Flatbush neighborhood, where I depart from, about the re-zoning of neighborhoods. ‘This is the last affordable neighborhood in Brooklyn,” the man said, which is right. ‘If you’re not careful,’ he added, ‘white kids will start moving in and you won’t be able to afford to live here.’
At this point, I was the only white person on the train. But I also recognized the man was right: young white people are the symptom of re-zoning, gentrification, displacement; there’s no way around it.
Whether or not I like it, I’m a sign that my neighborhood is changing; I’m the vanguard (if by accident) of the destruction of my (currently fantastic) neighborhood.
I also read this morning about two Millennial trends, closely related: devotion to the Meyers-Briggs test and astrology, in general. Both articles made me a little existentially ill. Is my generation — which is giving up things like reading books and stuff — really just diving headfirst into bullshit? Are people in their 30’s — adults — really just willing to call themselves an ENTJ/Virgo and call it a day? Is that what knowing-thyself is nowadays? Actually — the answer is yes. It is. No need to go further.
We have no shame about it.
If I have one goal as a writer — whether here, or in my plays, or my novels, or whatever — is to foster that sense of shame. We simply shouldn’t be so stupid, so deluded; reduce life to such easy terms.
