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Author Hartmann: "At 30 you don't immediately turn into a sack full of illnesses"
Photo:
Lenny Rothenberg
SPIEGEL:
Ms. Hartmann, your new novel "Klarkommen" is about an 18-year-old who moves with two friends from the small city to the big city and doesn't initially lead the exciting life that she previously dreamed of . You also grew up in a small town. How did you imagine life after moving out of your parents' house?
Hartmann:
My hometown always seemed smaller to me than it actually is. As a teenager, I was at home a lot and looked at things on the Internet that we didn't have. Back then, I imagined my future like “Sex and the City.” I now know that a columnist like Carrie from the show would never have been able to afford such a large apartment in real life. It wasn't so clear to me at the time. I thought I would live like a 30-year-old in New York as soon as I left home - or at the latest as soon as I got my first job.
SPIEGEL:
What did the reality look like?
Hartmann:
After graduating from high school, I studied cultural studies in Leipzig. Fortunately, I was able to afford my own small apartment there. Even though Leipzig is not New York, I liked the city. I traveled a lot and saw everything, even the lesser-known neighborhoods. The size of everything fascinated me. The course, on the other hand, seemed so big that I had respect for it. I come from a non-academic household and had no role models in that respect. Sometimes I avoided studying or attending seminars and instead found myself on Twitter. However, it wasn't all that bad for my career.
SPIEGEL:
"Getting Clear" is not an exaggerated adventure that you can escape into while reading; the plot is rather unspectacular, ordinary, almost boring. Why is this needed?
Hartmann:
Because there are already a lot of super exciting films, series and books about this time in life. Many stories have a very high amplitude, they tell of the highest highs and the lowest lows. This can be really cool if you want to see or read something that has nothing to do with you. But looking back, I realized that that was all I had in mind as a teenager. Of course I was aware that these were fictional stories. Nevertheless, it subconsciously shaped my expectations.
SPIEGEL:
So you wrote the book that you would have liked to read yourself?
Hartmann:
It would have helped me if I had had something that showed me a different, more real side. I am now trying to compensate for this disparity with my book.
SPIEGEL:
At 18, you move from a boring small town to an adventurous metropolis - and are initially disappointed there. A very Berlin-typical story, right?
Hartmann:
I deliberately left the metropolis nameless in my book. Whether I move from Backnang to Berlin or from Rosenheim to London – I think the experiences are similar. The jump from supposedly very little to supposedly very much carries a great risk of being disappointed. “Getting Clear” tells the story of young people who don't check how good they actually have it. Your disappointment is not a Berlin-specific feeling.
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Ilona Hartmann
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Publisher: park x ullstein
Number of pages: 192
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Number of pages: 192
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SPIEGEL:
Let's still stick with Berlin as a metropolis. You now live there yourself. Are you sometimes afraid of missing something? Many people who live in Berlin for the first time talk about this feeling.
Hartmann:
Definitely more in the past than today. Then I realized that this constant fear is not a state in which I want to live for the next thirty years. I learned that in life you always miss more than you can experience. In this second alone, I miss all the other things I'm not doing. You just have to accept that.
SPIEGEL:
With “Fear of missing out,” this fear of missing something has been given its own term. Is Fomo
a Gen Z problem?
Hartmann:
This feeling is not a new phenomenon. Maybe it's an old problem in new clothes.
SPIEGEL:
You have to explain that.
Hartmann:
Before big cities were a thing and there was always something to miss, I think people had more of a longing. This feeling is for me with Fomo
closely related. Longing is more aimed at something unattainable and Fomo
the desire is to know where you belong right now.
SPIEGEL:
What role does social media play in this?
Hartmann:
They increase this feeling enormously. We all know that real life is different from what is shown on Instagram. But I think the brain still only stores the cool images.
SPIEGEL:
You became known not through novels, but through your posts on X, formerly Twitter. Around 75,000 people now follow you on Instagram. How real is social media for you?
Hartmann:
Social media plays a big role in my life. However, for me Instagram and X are more channels for sending than for consuming. What I share doesn't have much to do with my private life. They are some thoughts or aestheticized excerpts. That's why I never had the feeling that I couldn't do without it.
SPIEGEL:
You are now 33 years old, so your teenage years are definitely over. Are your thirties a better time to be young?
Hartmann:
As a person who doesn't have children, I want to answer this cautiously. Personally, I find many things easier today than they were in my twenties. If I had known when I was 20 that everything would get better, I would definitely have struggled less. But I grew up with this thought: life is over at 30. That put a lot of pressure on me; I tried to fit everything I wanted to experience in advance. Today I know: At 30 you don't immediately turn into a sack full of illnesses. Life is not over. And if it gets boring, that doesn't mean it can't get exciting again. Patiently waiting out dry spells is just part of it.
SPIEGEL:
What do you do during these “dry spells”?
Hartmann:
Extremely complaining
.
It helps me to articulate: Things aren't going well right now. I think it's important to take your own dissatisfaction seriously and reflect on your own well-being. These are all such unsexy things that no one teaches you, but they are an important basis for changing something.
SPIEGEL:
You write on Instagram that “Getting Clear” is about “getting used to reality.” How can this be achieved?
Hartmann:
“Reality checks” literally help me to put myself – figuratively speaking – in the middle of things and ask myself: Where do I stand? Who am I? What I want? What do I no longer want? This also means sometimes realizing that reality is not always what I would like it to be.
SPIEGEL:
The book is for those who couldn't be as easy, free and stubborn as they would have liked, including writing on Instagram. Do you include yourself in this?
Hartmann:
Yes, definitely. I think writing the book also made me reconcile a little bit with my own disappointment. For a long time I was angry about my youth and thought that nothing really happened back then. Then I realized that my youth was probably very average - in a good way. Of course there were moments of sadness or disappointment, but these are also experiences, very valuable ones. That's how I see it today.
Editor's note: An earlier version mentioned Bachheim. In fact, Backnang was meant. We have corrected the information.