Why do we get stuck, when we don't have to be?
Some reconciliations I've had, after moving from apartment to apartment in New York, on creating your own free market of choice
Location, location, location. It’s a phrase so sticky that it’s come all the way from pre-1926 business strategy jargon to today’s StreetEasy listings from which NYC realtors will, unfortunately, usually ghost me.
But location means both everything and nothing at the same time. When I lived in New York, it was the 20-minute work commute walk from Chelsea, then the coffeeshops and bars and warehouse raves in Bushwick, and finally the parks and proximity to friends in Williamsburg. Even in a 4 year timespan, my location priorities changed based on my needs. For my new-to-the-city colleague, it was having a cheaper Uber to the hot East Village nightlife while living in a “luxury” building in FiDi. For one of my most hustling, goal-oriented friends, it was based around saving for a strict FIRE-by-40 plan in Hell’s Kitchen.
So, in the end, that’s why this saying works so well when your borough, neighborhood, and community in this little big city quickly becomes a part of your identity. It’s because location is not only what environment we’re a product of, but also what we choose it to be.
Where do we have freedom of choice?
Of course, when many individuals are disproportionately affected by unjust systems that run our modern world, there’s less luxury of choice. But contrary to the be the system to beat the system mentality, opportunity that comes from social mobility isn’t simply just a product of capital-driven motives. As Marjanne Van Helvert says in the essay, Good Materialism: “Before mass-consumerism, there was mostly mass-poverty, and so we are tempted to believe that capitalism has caused both our wealth and well-being.”
Rather, it’s the inadequate approach of addressing socioeconomic inequality that exacerbates these wealth gaps. It’s the choice of last-minute buying, then complaining about slow-shipping packages and supply chain hiccups before the holidays, before questioning why the system is dependent on free labor fueled by our port truckers who deliver them. It’s indulging over Instagrammable spreads or clout chasing a reservation at the hottest restaurant in town, without paying mind to where the food comes from and how it’s grown, in the first place. It’s recognizing that our choices don’t have to fit a consumer identity linked to the stuff we buy, but are from individuals who have the ability to internalize how our actions scale. My point is: at multiple levels of even the simplest daily things we do, we each have the power to think critically about what inequalities exist in systems we’re not just a part of, but players in, as well.
Too often among the privileged—who are able to rethink systemic issues of which they are active participants—we let our locations, circumstances, and social norms define our existences, and as a result, the parameters we choose to self impose.
But those, too, are choices we have the freedom to make.
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👀 This week’s indulgences from: the parisian print & zine scene, galleries & the loire farm
📔 Offprint is, as their Instagram bio says, a walking tour of independent publishers hosted in art bookstores, studios and galleries in Paris that I was lucky enough to be in town for. Some of the places I stopped at were Quintal Atelier, Floréal Belleville (grace à Club Sandwich Magazine), Librarie Yvon Lambert (my favorite bookstore), and Le Consulat. Getting to see the beautiful work of and meeting so many passionate, talented artists has made for an incredibly inspiring weekend.
🎨 Here were some of my favorite artists I had the opportunity to see the work of this week:
🍠 When I was on the farm… my host prepared a cake just for me 🥺 that I’d never heard of or tried before. It’s a gâteau patate, a dessert from Réunion, which uses white patates douces (sweet potatoes) for its base and vanilla and rum for flavor. I’m ripping this off a Wikipedia entry because I prepped, baked, ate, and finished the entire cake I just made without taking a single photo, lol.
Note: Harvesting sweet potatoes is one of the most frustrating things ever. My farmhand colleague from Ireland cursed and complained each time he’d accidentally break one without digging deep enough, scrape the delicate purple skin off of the root, or spend several minutes tenderly moving the dirt from its surface just to realize it’d be too skinny to even peel and sell at the market. 😂
