Joshua Yang
I’ve always considered journalism to be a form of addiction masquerading as a respectable career option or, even worse, a praiseworthy service to society. Some people with an addict’s mindset take up overworking; there are also those who prefer to take up drinking, and those who might even take up gambling — but the least fortunate of them all are those who decide to take up reporting. In truth, having tried my hand at all of the aforementioned activities, I’m sorry to say I nonetheless fall squarely into the last category.
Journalism as an addiction works like this. I stumble around a foreign environment — in this particular instance, the city of Berlin — not just as a clueless outsider, but (worse still!) as a clueless, American outsider. I chase leads, I email sources, I visit sites; I search for an elusive thread that, once tugged on with sufficient amounts of force, will unravel into a narrative worth publishing.
As the hours turn into days, and the days turn into empty notebooks and unresponsive contacts, the symptoms begin to take root. The fear of failure, the anxiety of underperformance, the throbs of ennui — all of these cloud my mind until I feel quite literally nauseous.
At some point, when I am on the verge of defeat (and perhaps on the verge of quitting journalism entirely), I manage to drag myself to one last interview. Of course, this is exactly the moment when a minor miracle occurs. I meet a source, I find a promising lead, I have a story — and I am euphoric. In a single instance, my faith in the reporting process returns in a dizzying rush; I wonder why I ever doubted myself, even though I know I’ll go back to doubting myself in a few more weeks’ time.
This happened to me today. After weeks of emailing, calling, and WhatsApp’ing my way into a thicket of dead ends, I decided to show up unannounced at Tempelhof, a former airport that once hosted the Berlin Airlift and now serves as a long-term shelter for refugees from the Middle East, Ukraine, and beyond. I was expecting to be turned away or ignored by residents, but to my surprise, I soon ran into groups of Ukrainian refugees who welcomed my presence. Over bowls of buckwheat porridge and vividly violet borscht, I asked meaningful questions and received meaningful responses — among the first I felt like I had gotten all trip long. I ended up staying for hours, and I left Tempelhof giddy and exhilarated.
I should mention here that today was notable for a different reason: This morning, I turned twenty years old. Around 6 p.m., as the day wrapped up, my mom asked me if I had celebrated my birthday. “No, I was just working,” I responded. “But today was really productive.”
Actually, this is one of the best birthdays I could have asked for. For most of my teenage years, I felt like I was hurtling toward a life I didn’t really want; I was just another kid growing up in the California suburbs, unhappily imagining following my parents into a soulless software engineering career. To be able to spend my first day as a twenty-year-old interviewing refugees in Berlin instead — to feel all the highs and lows of this addiction I’d chosen for myself, and to understand the value of my work with that much more certainty — feels like an incredible blessing.
And, in the end, my friends and I did manage to squeeze in time to celebrate. In lieu of a cake, my friends bought me a single donut; in lieu of a candle, they bought me a pack of cigarettes. We stumbled out of the bar shortly before 1 a.m., splashing in the puddles on the sidewalk outside and feeling our cheeks chapping in the frigid air. I stared out into Berlin, taking in the dark streets and the dull blue glow of the nearby U-Bahn sign.
When I turned thirteen, I couldn’t stomach the idea of life going on as it did. When I turned twenty, I wanted the rest of my life to be like it was today — unspooling in this direction, day after day, and into the years.
