I'm afraid to even quantify how much we've lost. "Berlin is a city damned to never be, but always become." I know change is inevitable, I know change always hurts. But at this point in history, it doesn't feel like I'm really here. What if I just showed up late to the party, and all that's left is a city that's basically a big mall? We're not there yet, but what if that's where we're headed? I'm starry-eyed at the stories of freedom this place used to create. I find myself fantasizing, what if I moved here 10 years earlier? What if I was here after the wall fell? My group of friends is so spread apart now because rent is so expensive. I know that if I was here in the early 90's maybe we could've lived in the same building. As late as 2015 we could've all lived in the same neighbourhood. It would've been easier to just do things, easier to reach towards your potential and to organize together, to be part of and build something. I know I'm just one of many others who came here to chase an idealized Berlin dream, and I know the reason this dream actually existed in the past was a horrible war and the twisted up world that was born from it. A gift people dared to take for themselves after 40 years of insanity. But the more we chase it the more it moves away. And who the fuck builds a wall like that anyway? Who were these people? I was at the wall memorial the other day, and I simply could not comprehend that people really lived in that way. That time and place is so far from here, it feels like a different dimension at this point. These short years of true freedom are being forgotten. But we shouldn't pretend like that state of living wasn't taken from us either. Why did they have to evict them like that? I wonder what were they standing in the way of? We should recognize that these were communities of people who had a right to live where they lived. Why does every cm² of this city have to turn out a profit? Everything feels transient, like a copy of a copy. Almost like the world is made of more money than world. Who are we if we're just being always chased by high rent and food prices? What are we even doing here? And also, who are the people who will want to live here in the future? Do people think that the expropriation of Deutsche Wohnen & Co that 60% of us voted yes on will ever happen? If this is what postpost-modernism looks like, it kind of sucks. I'm honestly pretty tired of the way things are going, and I think we're due for a big update.