about/contact | cooking with marley | collections | library | dreams | free advice | random page
september 2023
october 2023
november 2023
december 2023
january 2024
february 2024
march 2024
april 2024
may 2024
june 2024
ive been wanting to make something like this for a while (a few weeks, to be more specific) and i suppose i just never got the time to. originally i was gonna make it on google docs but for whatever reason that just seemed wrong to me-- very glad i remembered this website exists instead
(originally i also had a channel dedicated to the same purpose and i still use it though with me moving into my college rez hall i'd just rather type than talk. don't know. i suppose i also like that this is quieter in ... vibes?)
in any case, this is a journal. i appreciate that it's in HTML.
i guess i'll write a bit about myself. my name's mark (i would've named myself marley if i could pull it off, unfortunately i look like a girl and "mark" does a good job of reminding people i'm a guy) and i like to use the computer.
figured this would be a fun thing to do over college so i'd have something to read later and cringe at, i suppose
not majoring in anything yet but i'm thinking about math or physics
another kid here just interviewed me for a project or something and it got me thinking about how much i dislike talking about myself (in person, that is) and how i wish we could just beam information to each other mentally-- got me thinking about how funny it'd be if they invented some sort of telepathic texting system but since everything happens in peoples' minds and we don't always remember the details about everything then forwarding messages or images would eventually deform them beyond comprehension like a psychic game of telephone
just woke up from a nap and had a fairly distressing dream. not sure why but my dreams have been getting worse
i also don't tend to feel too great waking up from naps either
had a moment a few hours ago where i just felt like i didn't have anything to live for. what was that called again? oh yes, depression
oddly enough i was happy as a lark just this morning when i went out to get brunch at carl's jr, thinking about how much i loved life and shit and then i remember i missed a survey and suddenly i'm a worthless piece of shit
i was diagnosed with depression around 5-6 years ago when i was just about to start highschool, and over the last 2 or so years it got severe enough where i pretty much had to be put on meds to survive. the meds ended up working quite well and my life shot up substantially, but just two weeks or so i ran out and still haven't gotten my refill (which definitely sucks). goes without saying but it's no fun being depressed. life would be a lot better (imo) if prozac was an over-the-counter drug, especially since it's honestly not that dangerous
i wish more people would treat depression as what it is-- a disease. it's not as prevalent now (at least from what i observed, but i could very much be wrong) but some time ago i remember there was this whole thing where people would associate depression with wisdom (or like the "deep, philosophical" shit if you get what i mean) and i think a lot of it is definitely misguided. i can sort of get where that association would come from-- i know that depression rates do tend to be higher in gifted children, especially those with special needs (guess who's both)-- and i can definitely understand the glory of accomplishing great things despite things like illnesses holding you back, but the thing is i feel like there is this stigma that depression is inherently philosophical... and to add, it isn't a condition like ADHD where it just makes you work a little differently than others... it is just a straight up disease! there's nothing badass about being sick... you will do so much better when you don't have depression anymore
i've also had this massive fear of relapsing into the state i was earlier before i started taking fluoxetine-- hopefully i can get an appointment booked soon and get back on my medication (yes i admit it, i need drugs to function) i was enjoying life for once!!! biggest worry atm is that i end up losing it and end up killing myself, they honestly need to keep that fucking window on the 7th floor kitchen closed because it is just big enough for-- oh whatever you know what i'm gonna write here
being happy is wonderful and i would like to feel more of it idk
it is way too many dumplings
sick of eating vegetables. call it a salady
just joking i'll never get sick of eating vegetables. my impulse control is so poor that every day i wake up and thank god for making me think salad is so delicious because otherwise i'd get heart disease at the age of 17
speaking of god... i've been thinking about the possibility for a deity figure for a while and while i did self-identify as an atheist for most of my life as of this year i think i'm more of an agnostic-- i'm just not sure if there's a god or not but i'm down to find out. i think i'm leaning more on the side that there IS something out there that could be considered a god... i have no idea who or what it would be but allow me to do a bit of Reductio Ad Absurdum here and just say that the alternative that there is absolutely nothing in all of existence that could be considered deific in comparison to us is a little ridiculous. in that case though whatever god(s) there might be probably don't give much of a shit about us/that or they're somehow too incomprehensible for their existence to really have any bearing on ours. did you know that you can't microwave ants because the ants are too small to be affected by the microwave? yeah that
i guess the biggest issue i have with the popular interpretation of god is that it's way too anthropocentric??? like god did all of this because god loves us... like geez i'm flattered but i don't think we're THAT important??? like we can have an important part of our body just randomly fail for fuck's sake like surely there are more important things in the universe for a god to care about but i've only been on one planet so i wouldn't really know
that being said though i do think there is a lot of moral merit to being religious. for example, my older brother said part of what makes being a christian so appealing to him is that it allows him to come to terms with the fact that he'll never know anything -- like he is fine putting things out of his control and accepting his duty as a human on earth and i think that's pretty damn respectable. i suppose another way you can look at it is that believing in god-- whether or not a god actually exists-- helps someone become a better person? it reminds me of the panopticon: a prison design where the guards have constant surveillance of the prisoners but the prisoners can't look back to see if the guards are watching so they have to act all the time as if they are being watched. there doesn't even need to be any guard present for the prisoners to be on their best behaviour since the prisoners have no idea when or if they're ever not under surveillance-- i sound a lot more critical than i mean to i swear this is all said in appreciation
anyhow yeah no salad is a godsend. it's crunchy... it's healthy... it tastes so good stir fried with olive oil
part of me loves having things to think about other part of me regrets taking that one philosophy course in grade 12 because now i'm left worrying about stupid shit like how many clothes on the ground constitute a pile and why
dude there's olive oil everywhere. anyway remind me to eventually write something pseudointellectual here because i probably am procrastinating on thinking
yeah sure maybe i never had sex but i've thought of a song and have it come up on shuffle all of a sudden so i might as well say i know how sex feels
i'm not a fan of how often introversion tends to be conflated with shyness-- people are always pretty shocked to hear i'm an introvert!
in their defense i suppose i do have a fair bit of stereotypically extroverted qualities (on a good day, that is)-- being the eccentric, outgoing showman i like presenting myself as-- i am not shy in the slightest-- but good lord if it isn't tiring to not have any time to myself!!
the odd thing is that i don't find putting up my public persona to be draining at all; in fact, i'd probably burn out a lot faster if i was forced to "be myself" in front of others. strange! usually you'd expect it to be the other way around, but i suppose the alter ego just distances myself comfortably from others i guess (aside: i know that putting on a different personality in front of others has a fairly negative connotation but trust me i find it pretty damn fun, you do not need to encourage me to be my "true self" whatever that means)
in the first week of my college semester there were constantly social events and around that time i became a bit of a celebrity in my class just due to me being a ridiculous fellow, and it was nice!! it sounds counterintuitive to me being introverted but i enjoyed that sort of attention, probably because it meant i didn't have to a) know anyone personally (gasp) nor b) put in emotional effort in social interactions (yuck!)
i also do like time to myself just to work on my own stuff! i tend not to work well in collaboration with others
despite all the fun i have as a loudmouthed superstar i will have to say i'm not as well adjusted as i come across. i lucked out and got a mini fridge in my dorm room (that's a story for another time, it's not interesting i'm just tired) so as a result i can get all my cooking done there. consequently, i have no real reason to leave my room! i've spent a few days in a row never even touching the doorknob, let alone see any other human face... it's a problem isn't it
speaking of problems... it's about time dir ne tk fk tk bed.... you cab temm ah fuck it it's time for me to go to bed and you can probably already tell
hi there yoyo o7
gonna start giving more specific dates to these btw
depression's been getting a little worse since going off my meds but surprisingly i'm self regulating just fine, i was expecting it to be a lot worse. by no means does it feel good though
been thinking a bit about stuff and remembered the whole time back when i was really into astronomy (despite knowing next-to-nothing about it) and kind of got dissed by a few people for having a "useless interest" since it didn't have anything to do with societal problems today (inequality, war, etc). that was a while ago and my interests have shifted ever since (i still like astronomy though! i'd love to study it if possible, i'm just not sure how feasible it'd be given my lack of any astronomy background) but even still i've been met with the same sort of reactions about me liking STEM in general (which is kinda funny, i always thought arts and humanities were those "stereotypically useless" majors, not to say that they're bad or whatever just observing)
now that i'm in university though (i keep calling it 'college' for some reason) they definitely seem to have this focus on "changing the world" or learning the skills necessary to do so... and here i'm wondering if i should feel a little guilty? i don't think i've ever had this dream of really solving the world's problems or changing it for the better (fontawesome thinking icon) like i know we've all got our goals and values buuut... yeah no i hope this doesn't become an issue or anything, especially with the growing sentiment that the world sucks and needs improving. it's absolutely not that i "don't care" about these issues at all, i just don't feel i want them to be the focus of my work in the future. mom once joked that i was an alien they sent to earth to rebuild it... sorry mom
more-or-less... i think i'm out here learning just for the sake of knowing more, honestly. as of now i'd like to act just as a compiler and distributer of knowledge, collecting information and storing it for later. for what? i don't know. i suppose it's a somewhat noble cause..? i'd also like to, y'know, share stuff around (hence this webpage, i suppose); some time ago i wanted to be a high-school teacher or a college professor, preferably the latter, though now i'd say i'd be cool with any sort of occupation that involves this "distribution of thought", be it through education, creative media, or hell even starting a goddamn podcast (to be fair, this webpage is pretty much my personal text-based podcast anyway). of course, part of my motivation for that is so i could help a lot of other people go on their journeys to change the world, since i don't feel like doing the dirty work myself :)
i remember the first time i went "damn, what if i just knew a lot of things" was when i heard this quote in science class-- forgot who said it but it went like, "you are the universe experiencing itself". i was like twelve at the time and to twelve-year-old mark, there was nothing cooler than being granted some sort of grand task of vaguely cosmic importance. naturally, i was thinking "hell yeah, i'm going to go out and experience so much so i can fulfill my purpose". i'm not really doing this to follow some sort of celestial destiny anymore, but the drive's still there. i'm a collector; i like amassing all sorts of stuff. sure does help that i've got a fairly wide range of interests (though as mentioned above, most of them do fall under the "useless" side of things).
i'm mostly a STEM fellow, but i've taken a liking to philosophy. more on that in a bit.
my head hurts, i'm nauseated and i'm ready to kill myself. i have no clue why i'm still here.
the school therapist isn't available until next week so i can't reschedule a meeting to be sooner-- sure sucks, doesn't it. i want to hold out until it feels better but i'm pretty fucking tired. i know it'll pass and eventually get better as a whole but right now i just want to vomit, go to bed, and never wake up.
god no, i hate myself.
so the reason behind last night's outburst was some extremely awful news i received-- fortunately, i've been getting updates and it seems like the situation's been improving. obviously i'm still a little teary about it but it's definitely getting better, which in turn makes me feel a lot better as well.
it's just unimaginably stressful to have something horrible happen and not being able to do anything about it. in any case, i'm feeling better and certainly stable enough to proceed.
i'm going to be going over this with my therapist.
there's some pleasant jazz music emanating from outside my room. anyway my dinner tonight looks disgusting lol i woke up too late to make a proper one
no i dont want to talk about it actually
bought a new MP3 player and the audio quality sucks and i'm not sure whether to be pissed about it or be glad its adding to the vaporwave experience
anyhow how is vaporwave simultaneously both such a diverse and repetitive genre like you have easy listening muzak with a little filter over it in the same category as incomprehensible chaotic noise but also i would like 1 weather channel jazz sample please
URAP URAP URAP URAP URAP URAP URAP
its that time of the year where i cycle back to my absolute earthbound obsession but this time im also thinking about all those quirky earthbound inspired rpgs as well (that i cant play because my dumbass owns a mac). like theres the good ones like yume nikki and omori and then theres pretentious insufferable dumpsters like yiik a postmodern rpg
anyway my favourite character is rory because both he and his sister kill themselves and the game handles it absolutely atrociously (and also because he's cute and i'd kiss him). also everything about this game is actually so bad
i also recently learned that the "this generation was the first to be raised online" pic that became a meme was traced from mother 3 fanart and im in shambles
to those "suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem" motherfuckers: i cast upon you an infinite spell of silence... no more shall such foolish words escape your maw
anyway i called a hotline for the first time like ever and it was legitimately refreshing to hear an actual human on the other end ! like no the advice wasn't all that helpful and yes i still do want to kill myself but it's not like every other time i tried to reach out only to be met with the most ikea ass responses ever :) i mean yes i know they kind of have to say all that since you don't want to accidentally say the wrong thing and send someone over the edge but like holy shit i'd rather talk to an algorithm at this point there would legitimately be no difference! "you are special don't kill yourself" special my ass you've copy pasted this response to about like three dozen people in the past five hours it's all washed-out platitudes most of the time so it was nice finally hearing a dude that sounded just as lost as i did for once
but no i'm not okay and no i don't want to talk about it with you
also i'll just be real and say that i don't really give a shit that it gets better! i've been there i know it does i just don't think i deserve being alive :)) if you ask about it i will leave without any explanation
it is not personal or anything and it's not because i hate people or whatever it's just that most people are really bad at consoling (again, simply a fact of life-- depression's notoriously hard to deal since you either give out super canned replies or risk making things worse) so i wouldn't get much out of it, not to mention that venting to someone personally about this stuff is really burdening on both myself and the recipient and i'd just rather... not
also i find it pretty funny how strong the human aversion to being proven wrong is. like you will tell me "no actually i think you do not deserve to die" and i will still try and argue against it
1 week until halloween !!! can you believe it!!
find it funny how almost every single one of those "hustle class" advertisements criticizes society and calls them sheep by doing mundane activities like shopping or going to the club or eating at a restaurant... and then they show you "this is what you become if you take our classes!!! revolutionary!!!!" and it's literally just dudes doing the same fucking thing with expensive stuff.... like consuming Poor People Product is lame... take our revolutionary class so you can consume Rich Person Product instead!!!!! like yes being rich is undoubtedly nice because without monetary concerns you can start doing what matters to you like pursuing a hobby, developing skills, or helping people out.... nah fuck all that let's just shove some meaningless hedonism in their face but make it expensive yeah that'll show those thoughtless broke sheep. like i'm not going to stop you if you want to pursue a materialistic life but claiming to have reinvented the wheel by defining yourself by what pricey brands you have in your life is just pathetic imo. you didn't break out of the cage, you just found yourself a shinier one to dwell in
in general the entire culture of considering yourself superior by grading yourself by the shallowest metrics possible is just ridiculous how did this ever catch on. again nothing wrong with being rich i would love to have lots of money and have fun with it but holy shit it's okay! you can go to the mirror and tell yourself you're worthy of love and respect you don't need a multimillion dollar corporation to do it for you
anyway you can sign up for my Marley University for only $80 USD per unit of regurgitated information that i vaguely remember from when i took AP microeconomics
had a delicious meal. mmmm.... satisfactione
is it normal to be lonely but hate talking to people (it absolutely is but i couldn't think of a better opening line)
idk just wanted to drop by and say that hanging out with people you don't vibe with is just as bad (if not worse) than not having anyone to hang out with. i definitely don't feel like this is the case for everyone but personally it is super draining to be dragged into a conversation that... you just don't find all that interesting! it's fine if the topic is really silly so i can just go idiot mode and not expend much of my energy but other times i'd really just not like to be bothered unless it's something (i think) is worth bothering me over. not to diss anyone's interests or preferred topics of conversation since you could replace the lists of stuff that i am / am not interested in and it'd still work out the same
in any case i feel like i have to put on a persona to get by (a fairly extreme one at that) if i don't want to permanently just sit alone. don't get me wrong i really don't mind either (i consider myself the performer type idk) i just find it kind of sad? like in conversations if i'm not acting extremely ridiculous and boisterous i simply just am not seen! (you got two options....) i am never anything other than the comic relief... i am merely a two-dimensional character meant to drop funny one liners... my worth as a person and how funny my jokes are have a fucking one-to-one correlation i'm so sick of it holy fuck. you all say you like a funny guy until you actually have to treat him like he has thoughts and aspirations
i like having a sense of humour. i just wish it didn't come at the cost of my identity.
also i've got a doctor's appointment at like 1pm today. they're FORCING ME to TALK TO PEOPLE??? what has this world come to, society has fallen (i joke but i don't get why i can't just pick up the prozac myself! why do i have to get prescribed again! i got the prescription this summer in canada not a few eons ago at a young earth's local semi-cooled solid ground formation)
i have been recently informed that apparently people are reading this dumbass blog. i have put this ad here. if you don't want to see ads, please consider coming to room 714 (turk st res hall) to give a generous donation. money only. your support helps keep journalism alive
anyway im back on my meds
didn't do much for halloween other than put on a bunny suit and my signature ridiculous-looking aviators. school didn't organize anything but a few people went out for all sorts of festivities-- i've been harassed a few times too much to really want to leave the building at nighttime, but i still wanted to celebrate with someone-- didn't end up finding anyone. oh well. didn't do anything special other than open up a bottle of cherry coke but i still enjoyed my time alone. happy halloween, man. you've earned that bottle.
sometimes i start forgetting that i live in a communal building and that the outside world/other people exist and it's always a weird experience when i remember it again
in any case i'm in that weird transitional period in taking my meds that i'm still thinking like a depressed person but not really feeling depressed. it sure is an experience. anyway i'm back to listening to my loser music and i'm remembering some of the stuff i was thinking about back when the depression was really bad:
i remember talking to some girls near the end of my high school 12th grade year, y'know, the "popular" types, they were nice to me and all that and we just kind of talked about what we were up to lately, they mentioned all sorts of fun shit while i was stuck at home doing academics/being depressed. asked them what they were doing post graduation and they all got into pretty decent colleges. i know the difference between "decent college" and one i think is really suitable for me (and i do like my current school quite a lot) is a pretty big one (or at least my mother says...) but yeah it really left me wondering if what i was doing was really worth it
yknow back then it just felt really unfair that i was putting in a disproportionately large amount of time and effort for something others could achieve a passable result with by having fun and NOT ending up with severe life-threatening depression... i mean though. i felt like i never really had much of a life or a childhood just because of how much emphasis i placed on being "the one" i guess... appeasing people. if that makes any sense. i feel i didn't have the same experiences other kids had that guided their character or growth or ambition or whatever. you are what you eat is true in this case and i eat plain-ass oatmeal
so i guess the larger thing i wanted to get at is that i felt like (and honestly still do feel?) that the whole focus parents (especially those of gifted children) put on their kids to stand out is honestly pointless. there's a lot of disdain put towards normal, common people (and wanting to be one of those people too, i suppose) that i just don't think i'll be able to get my head around. like, the thought that you have to be of consequence to be worthwhile i suppose is harmful and untrue. not to mention that, ironically, their vision of what "stands out" always feels so monolithic and shallow... i don't know if i'm being pessimistic or optimistic here
sometimes i wonder if those "losers" engaging in egregiously hedonistic activities (of course, not talking about anyone in particular here) are really the ones who have it all figured out... live fast. die young. never have a dull moment in life. get out of here before they put us all in pods and make us eat bugs. if they do manage to survive i bet they'd have a hell of a story to tell every day. "so anyway the time i did coke lines off my cousin's asscrack and got his hairs stuck up my nose for days..." i don't see myself doing anything like that but i mean i respect it. have all the fun in the world and then die while you still can... who gives a shit what others think? do it
i had this career development workshop activity where i had to "design" my own future. someone said they were going to colonize mars. i said i'd help out around the house.
i'm sick as hell and i've been lying in bed the whole day and i think it's been fucking with my thinking. whatever. in any case i don't know what i'm really here for but the suicide hotline guy said that i didn't have to justify my existence so i guess there's that
was it weird i listened to "was it weird i listened to "i'm god" by clams casino when i lost my virginity" by sewerslvt when i was not losing my virginity. but yeah i can do another decade of not having sex if it means i get to cast cool wizard spells (how the fuck did that whole wizard thing start anyway some motherfucker really typed that up and said "yeah sounds plausible")
anyway's i'm dying. feeling happier but somehow the depression's getting worse
you're fucking kidding me. i go through that point in life where i'm the most emotionally disturbed (yet) and overall in severe distress and i'm listening to my old playlists and you're telling me i feel NOSTALGIC FOR THOSE TIMES? this is unreal. oh yeah "remember that time you wanted to kill yourself over dumb shit like getting a crappy chemistry quiz score" or "the time you did nothing for like 3 hours because you were too depressed to get up" be fucking for real. i joked about it when i still did these little diary entries in a video format that i was really going through a shitty time but because the human brain is the human brain i'd end up looking back on it with fond memories... ugh it's happening.... i guess it wasn't ALL bad...
i do feel more nostalgic for a much better time in my life though! :) namely the summer where i started my prozac! it felt great to finally be able to experience joy like a normal person. biking with my family was so much fun... i'm still in a bit of a depressive slump right now, hope the prozac starts kicking in soon but not going to lie i definitely think getting regular exercise was a big part of why i was feeling so good, but of course biking isn't feasible here (i don't have a bike anymore) so i'll have to find something equally fun to do
i wonder how people measure improvement? like in some aspects i feel i've definitely gotten better, like maybe 3 months ago a life where i was weaned off of my family was completely unimaginable and now i'm here chilling cooking for myself doing my own laundry (i was a little spoiled, perhaps) like it's no big fucking deal. hygiene wise i'm more-or-less the same, messy as fuck but not dirty. managing homework just fine although i am disappointed in myself and feel i can do better (as i always am, let's be real). made some good friends! haven't really been feeling my own progress though for whatever reason, at least not to the same extent as i felt the difference between me pre-prozac and post. i've been off of it for like 2 months before starting again (it was because i ran out) though so i'd imagine it hasn't taken effect yet. it needs to work right the fuck now oh my god
did the math and i consume approximately 990.19 cubic centimetres of oatmeal for breakfast daily
got off a call with my mom. apparently i'm not eating enough because i've been losing weight despite sitting on my ass daily not doing anything. anyway i ordered another shaqaroni
yeahhhh this is the life
im so cold
can't help but think that "quirky and relatable" is an oxymoron because like. quirky things are different and unusual and relatable things are, well, relatable, but for some reason i feel like those words are just meant to be together
anyway it still baffles me that people find this website interesting? like i'd call you a loser for reading it but i don't know if i'm just in the wrong here. i know negativity draws in people like shit attracts flies, but that's for the juicy gossip sort of shit i think, not shit an asocial nerd mumbles to himself on the internet (not to mention that this website's design is super fucking ugly)... if i were anyone else reading this i'd just think "wow this shit's so boring who's it for?" and that was my mindset starting this site anyway like nobody's going to be reading it anyway just write for yourself. dunno. i, for one, am rarely ever interested in other people, but you know what i think? i think it's time for a nap
so i have a habit of facing away from the door or towards the corners when i ride elevators. it's freaked a few people out. i'll tell you why i do it:
when i was in 4th grade or so i read a book that said if you started facing the corners in elevator rides, eventually other people would start doing the same. so i'd do it every time i got into an elevator because i thought it would be funny. it never worked -- not once. i still kept doing it and what do you know it became a habit for me
meeting
sometimes your plan to go to bed at 9 and wake up at 6 just fails. 饿了
the streets are alive with the sound of douchebags
(i'm not happy about being woken up at 3 am)
hey guys i guess it's been a while huh (5 days)
you ever get so nihilistic it warps back and makes you a happier person? i have a fond-ish memory of writing an essay about how i learned to give not much of a shit and the person reviewing it criticized it for being too negative i thought it was a good thing but oh well
what i mean to say is that if things are awful and meaningless why do anything but accept that they are awful and meaningless and try and have fun with it despite it all like. i sort of reflected on this idea in my novel (don't read it though it sucks) but if i were to make a shitty analogy (that i also used in the novel) if you were trapped in a town where it rained every day with absolutely no way out of the town why would you start wishing for sunny days when you can just learn to live with the rain instead like if that makes any sense?????
rain's a random thing to compare it to but i was thinking like. i'm pretty sure humanity is unimportant in the grand scheme of the universe and we may go completely extinct as a species and become nothing but dust yadda yadda like i honestly do not give a shit what am i expected to do about it????? exist harder?? no, i will simply accept my fate as a mere pinprick of something that once was, i will not try and change it because i cannot! it isn't the ideal outcome but like what else is there to do but to be happy with it. i go very gentle into that good night actually, i got my blankets and plushes on the fucking ready for a nice rest
i don't wanna come across as completely unambitious or anything more or less what i mean is like... "your life is meaningless you will be forgotten in time" lol i know but i exist right now and what are you gonna do about it huh. i dont believe in the "indominable human spirit" or whatever the fuck either i just believe in chilling the fuck out
hm. been thinking about something (rare occurrence, I know)
i feel like the good thing about going your path is that you don't get any competition. like for example. i wore a goofy ass maid dress to highschool prom since i knew i wouldn't be as good-looking as the other people if i wore the typical prom stuff so i might as well do something else, i guess? it's a silly example to bring up especially as it's so inconsequential but i guess it illustrates the idea
more generally i guess part of my decision-making is just to avoid conformity as if i were to be compared to others by a typical metric i know i would never go far. like. there is someone beating me at like pretty much everything. but there is nobody beating me at being myself because i am by definition the golden standard. if that makes sense? i know it sounds self absorbed AF but like think of it this way... yeah it's self absorbed af
if what was trending in literature was romance for example and i a) didn't want to write and b) was really fucking shit at writing romance then like. why would i write it when id get outshined by everyone else anyway. why not just write what i want. i guess that's a better way of putting it???
on one hand i feel this way but on the other i'm trying to balance it with my idea that being a contrarian for the sole purpose of being different is cringe (awful word but it was the first one that came to mind...) like that just feels disingenous and idk feels superficial? because in a way you are letting what other people think and do dictate your actions as well like if you think about it. idk. i know nothing. i made a motto that i like that goes like "don't try to be different just try to be good" and idk am i contradicting myself here or not. who knows
categorizing things is fun but tiring (thinking about all those vaporwave subgenres there's like a million of them in an already niche music genre)
anyway i guess some time ago i was thinking about "aesthetics" and shit (i know it's an internet phenomenon but i suppose i can see its merit as a concept; i guess the word "aesthetic" can mean "a set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement" which i copy pasted from google lmfao) and... it got me thinking. on one hand having words (or in this case, i guess labels) that mean a certain thing could be helpful in bringing out more ideas ? the way i put it was very weird but i mean like the way 1984's society tried to cut down on the english language to limit the citizens' thought? it's nice to know what's what i guess
on the other hand i can see how it is ... y'know. limiting. which yeah i think contradicts the first hand a little.. as in people may try and modify their art in order to "fit" in a certain aesthetic. i suppose like. is it descriptive or prescriptive ? i guess a better way of asking it is is this whole concept of an "aesthetic" helpful in giving artists a new lens to consider their work and audiences to understand it better or does it just result in an overall commodification and homogenization of artwork within a certain aesthetic or what i don't know. it's my bedtime (9:30 pm) i'm really tired that didn't come out right either
writing is thinking (my eng prof says)
had a dream where posting the phrase "cum produced per year" with a completely unrelated image was the peak of comedy. if i truly am to change the world then humour is doomed
i want to laugh! i want to cry!
been a whole year since my first rabbit passed away. i still miss him.
anyway as i was showering i was thinking about art and shit and wanted to write it down but right as i got out i realized i was too tired for this dumb pretentious fuckery (i still wanna write something anyway though it's just a bit too late for me) so if you're reading this, remind me (update dec 17 i wrote it)
it's been a minute hello
was kinda absent and forgot to update this website since i flew back home for the holidays. crazy how much can change in the household in just 3 months... for example, we are now using white bowls instead of green ones
anyway my mom told me i fell from heaven and hit my head several times along the way but she talks a lot of shit for someone who sounds like she's farting when she snores
its birthday tomorrow and i am dreading it. i want to go to the hospital.... i want to spend the rest of my life hooked up to tubes and wires. i no longer wish to be human
it's the last hour of my childhood (11pm as i am writing this) so i figured i would get my last childish thought out before i am instantly replaced by a machine that only talks about mortgage and taxes: yes, the art thing
the reason i have never considered myself a musician or visual artist so much as i consider myself a writer is that i feel like my compositions and drawings lack any sort of merit to them. like up until like maybe november 26 or so i only ever drew or composed because i wanted to produce something that sounded or looked pretty or cute. nothing is really deliberate i just do whatever comes to mind because i'm honestly not that talented and i'm starved for inspiration... i thought itd be unfair to consider it "art" since i never had anything to say with it (which is also why i get really pissed when people say 'wow you're such a good artist/musician' like not to be that guy (but totally to be that guy) you are only saying that because you know nothing about art!!!!!!!!!!)... whereas when i write i do like nothing but talk, so
i was talking with my therapist about this the other day and she brought up some concept of art as product vs art as process.... i like her way of thinking about it but like ugh i am totally just watering astroturf here; millions of philosophers have asked "what is art" and have gotten nowhere why would i bring anything new to the table. i just wanted to rant about it i guess
something i wanted to bring up is that with the invention of generative ai technology we'd probably see another side of that debate?? aristotle definitely did not know what dall-e was lol... i used to be really scared of the idea of being "replaced" but i figured itd replace human art just as much as cars would replace bikes. like yeah i feel human creation would become obsolete in the realm of commercial use but it would be kept alive as an activity, either for fun or for... i don't know mental stimulation or whatever. yes it is definitely going to put a lot of people out of jobs but i do not think it will kill art. though this does raise some questions
ai art (i know some people don't consider it art/i'm not sure if it counts either but i'll just use that term for the sake of clarity) certainly is art as product... there is kind of no way around that (and no reason for it to ever be art as process either; that undermines the whole point of generative algorithms in the first place) i do fear this will lead to some sort of accelerated commercialization of creative media where literally everything will become a soulless cashgrab (though i think people can argue that it's already like this right now) but when i told mom about it she raised a pretty good point: if all the soulless shit is made by ai now that means that human people are free to just make shit thats true to them without any regards to whether it'll sell or not because they no longer need to give a damn and a half. not a fan of mom's techbro attitude sometimes but that is genuinely a really good point
one point of concern: we run a hostel; we once had an old couple come in and they didn't know how to use a phone GPS so they got around town with a paper map instead which was completely unthinkable to us; we don't need to learn that skill since we've got an easier alternative. should ai stuff really become the norm i wonder what kind of skills we'll lose, but more importantly what kind of skills we'll gain?
anyway i used to lean really heavily into the "art as product" thing since i commercialized my own works a lot (sold commissions and shit) so i'd become pretty distressed if i couldn't draw up to standard... then i decided "fuck that" and now i draw really shitty drawings but at least they've got some emotion behind them that isn't "i want money"; coincidentally i also have paid less attention to stuff like anatomy, shading, detail and stuff and more on symbolism, composition, and atmosphere (i know those aren't mutually exclusive, but i just wanted to note that back then it was entirely the other way around) now the question is: is this improvement or no. though i feel like less of an artist every day and more like just a dude who happens to draw
my winrate on hwei (league of legends) is also fucking 15% so who am i kidding
also this is still art-related but it is a different topic so i'll make a break here
personally. i do not think emotions should be considered "beautiful".,,,,, anime stuff does this a lot i think. like whats pretty about a girl having a mental breakdown or what like why are you drawing her like this,,,,,,,, i know people will disagree with me but it's just not how i'd portray it personally (but what do i know !!!! if you think that works for you then it works i just wanted to share my pov)
i know that beauty (in the conventional sense) can be used ironically to add to the message but if something's meant to be raw then make it feel raw, i think; numbness or a lack of obvious emotion could also be quite powerful, i think
anyway yea what am i saying but in a nutshell if something's meant to be messy then making it polished undercuts the meaning unless it's a deliberate choice. dunno but i think more things should be deliberately ugly, especially things that are just kind of ugly by nature though i guess you can debate with me on whether that applies to anything at all
also if i hear "art/beauty is subjective" one more time i will lose a few hours of my lifespan; i don't even disagree with the statement i've just heard it so many times like oh my god holy shit just give me a new opinion please. though i'm a bit of a hypocrite since if you asked me what i think art is i don't think i'd give you a clear answer, though the closest i ever got to answering that for myself was when i said "well if i could just tell you what i was thinking i wouldn't have to write or draw about it". conversational communication tends to be direct and literal, i think, and there is a lot of stuff you can convey through the process of realizing what a painting or story means that just isn't as effective if it were explained upfront, i believe. ps: i feel like a douchebag every time i talk about art
ah! turn 18! on the 18th! how charming
i was thinking about releasing an album that contained all the compositions i wrote before i was 18 and titling it "music that a child wrote" but that would mean having to record good versions of each song so it may take me a while. i do really wanna do it, though
for my birthday i got lost at a costco
a really funny thought i had is that the advent of ai generated art would mean human artists would start calling their pieces "organic" or some shit
like mom i know i paid half this week's paycheck for a drawing of a massive squirrel vacuuming cars through its penis but it was organic
im going to write something deep tomorrow mark my fucking words but tonight i'm too busy having a laugh
for some reason i've been fantasizing about joining the military... will probably do air force or navy; seems more impersonal to shoot down a plane/sink a ship compared to like. firing at someone outside of a vehicle. even though it does the same thing functionally... i am a coward
in any case i don't know i just feel pretty stupid about being depressed. i have it a lot easier than a lot of other people on the account that i've got a supportive family, a college i like, friends hobbies etc... so i kind of feel like i have no reason to be depressed? like why am i not okay? i should be... so like what if i purposefully made myself suffer so my moodiness wouldn't be this unfounded idk? it's a shallow and somewhat romantacized view of the situation i know but like i really just want to assign some meaning to it
i know it's pretty out of character for me to want to give myself up for a greater cause but sometimes i just don't feel like i am "enough" as a person myself... i am a softie who hates violence though so let's see how long that fantasy lasts OTL
discord's removing the ability to host files on it so this may be the end of the songs/images i like pages... not that i posted much on them anyway; collections/library sort of played a similar role
coughign blood
my rabbit turns 6!!! anyway rabbits are proof god exists but rabbits being skittish prey animals is proof god doesn't love us
i just think the world would be a better place if the little guys were apex predators
something's confusing me a little? i am not knowledged though so feel free to let me know what i'm missing, but it feels strange that we don't know whether any odd weird numbers exist... math feels like the most theoretical shit ever so like. is it not possible to prove that it can/can't exist through number theory or something? i do know nothing though so maybe i'll update you on this when i learn more. it could also be that theoretically they could exist but we haven't found one yet. hmm...
i wanna write something cool here but it's been a while since i trimmed my nails so typing is honestly really fucking annoying
there's a lot of bandcamp tabs open on my computer for little to no reason
so i'm starting to think that i may be happier if i didn't identify with my depression as much as i did. hm. just wondering if it's becoming a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy... i know that's not how it really works because depression is a disease like the flu or whatever that you can't just will yourself out of, but i'm thinking it may help if i try not to think about it as much?? (thinking about being depressed doesn't make me very happy anyway) just a thought i'll update you on how that goes
thinking back to that one time my mom told me nobody in her poor chinese village was depressed (shoutout to all the parents that grew up in poor chinese villages because it seems like that's everyone's backstory) because every day you had to work your ass off in the fields until you were sweating up a monsoon otherwise you'd starve to death... i don't want to conflate correlation with causation but i do have some thoughts:
these are just guesses so i'm not sure about any of them. i do remember some ancient greek philosopher saying that you would achieve happiness by just pursuing the basic needs as well as companionship, and that going after big stuff leads to unhappiness.... western media does tend to glorify stuff like power, wealth, and fame so i can see that though i don't have the evidence to make any claims
fulfilling my daily sodium intake with my instant noodle addiction
chocolate is good for the soul
i get harassed on the streets quite often and i have devised a motto to help myself resist taking psychic damage: "nothing can hurt me because nothing is real"
think of it this way: i can close my eyes (or ears) and pretend this person just never said anything. their words mean nothing to me. it does not affect my life whatsoever. they might as well have said nothing at all. if you think about it hard enough the only thing that you can be sure exists is your mind so for all intents and purposes you can just delete this person out of your perception if you feel it is necessary
disclaimer: this method is not foolproof. disclaimer 2: this method will not work if things start getting physical
i've started to befriend the little mice in my room. i find they make a good point of conversation
i once mentioned that ants were not microwaveable but i never elaborated on what that means. i had a chat about it with a friend so i figured i'd talk about it here too
when you put ants in a microwave, they will not be affected because the waves are too big and the ants are too small. it just won't hit the ants. in other words, the presence of the microwaves does not affect the ants whatsoever (i know it might have other effects but for my analogy just assume it's that simple ok). whether the microwaves are present does not make any difference to them. i feel the same way about a lot of things in life
it sounds nihilistic (i think because it is) and i've talked about my nihilism before but yeah pretty much: if something does not affect me i can pretend it does not exist
it comes across as extremely ignorant and self-centred but i don't mean it in a way that "i don't care about anyone but myself", because i do care about a lot of people; i'd count things that have interactions with my values to be things that affect me as well (eg. someone facing injustice somewhere goes against my ideal of fairness, therefore it does affect me). bringing back the ant-nalogy: if a bunch of ants were in a microwave and suddenly a fight between two ants breaks out, the other ants would pay attention to it because it is perceptible to them and introduces a real idea of danger and harm
to illustrate a situation where i WOULD go "ok idc"... free will. i don't believe in it but its presence/absence does not scare me at all. why should it? if the universe is deterministic, i'd either have no way of knowing, or if i did have a way of knowing, i'd still act according to what i think is the right thing to do. i'd have lived my whole life in a deterministic world; knowing about it wouldn't change anything i'd keep on trucking the way i am
my gender identity's also somewhat related to this idea and i'd like to explain more about why i don't believe in free will but i've got class in like 10 minutes so i gotta get my nap in gotta run cya
today i learned that the lamp on my desk that i've been neglecting is actually really fucking cool and i'm mad at myself for not using it earlier
look at my aesthetic dinner
so a strategy i came up with while trying to get the best deal on anime figurines on ebay auctions (may not work well if you don't like participating in random-ass internet auctions for used anime figurines with low starting prices): find the thing's market value and place your max bid + the shipping fee as 70% of that market value (the percentage can go up or down depending on how much you care about the product's condition; personally i like buying second-hand because i like feeling like i'm giving stuff a second wind because i feel bad for the things, but keep in mind there is rarely any point to setting the percentage above 90% since it won't be much of a deal anymore)
the way ebay does it is that you can set the maximum bid you want to put and you'll put down a reasonable bid from what it's currently at, and if people try to outbid you it'll bid automatically for you until it reaches the value you set. this way you guarantee yourself a win-win situation, pretty much: if you win the bid you get the item at a good price, if you don't win then you can amuse yourself with the info that someone is ripping themselves off (or not if you're a nice person or if your percentage was just really low)
i find bidding stressful af but i do love me a good deal so this is the way to do it. best part about it is that you don't have to worry about it or keep an eye on the bid because either way, the outcome will be favourable
so apparently you're supposed to wash your bedsheets every so often
try an authentic marley-styled dish today. rich in culture and various starches
so in the past few days i've come to realize how simple life really is. i'm in some dinky ass college dorm with a mini fridge and $20 electric cooker and i feel like i can live the rest of my life like this (i did some guesstimation; the room is about 2.5 marleys long and one marley is 160cm; total of approximately 16 square metres). not counting bills, just need 500 bucks a month for food and shit like anime figurines and i am a perfectly happy man. have fantasized for a long time about having a big luxury house all to myself but come to think of it i don't think that's even necessary
went home for the holidays and i don't think any extra joy was caused by the improved living conditions (housing and food) but rather stuff like getting to pet my animals and hug my mom (though to be fair, it is hard to have animals or moms in a tiny apartment). weird thing to say but right now i feel quite at home where i am right now. i think this epicurus guy got it all right bro like i think i'll try to convince all my friends and family to be floor-mates with me in some cheap apartment and we can all be happy together. now the hard part is finding housing for a reasonable price and a job that won't make me want to send god my two weeks notice in life
anyway i went to the exploratorium and i got some cool rocks
took an embarassingly long time for me to realize that i didn't have to suffer through having no data or phone number, and i could actually renew my plan in like 5 minutes. whatever it is man just do it right now
i really didn't want to eat today but reluctantly did so anyway
bandcamp artists and the random-ass shit they tag their releases with
noticed artwise im regressing to mass-producing things that kinda look pretty but dont have much personal value. someone stop me before i turn into a shittier version of bing ai
nothing wrong with it if you draw just to make things that look good tho like no shame at all but personally i feel miserable doing it but its easier than coming up with ideas so
coming out of my shell to tell you that today i watched an online music show and actually had a great time
oh mama it's been a while. so
i've noticeably been getting worse as of late - i'll spare you the details but it was bad enough that i'd consider my state dangerous to be in. about that one thought experiment (????) in january - i did end up feeling much better and more like a person when i characterized my depression as a disease instead of a part of me, but sometimes you can do everything right and still end up feeling like shit because luck hit you with the wrong stick, i guess. i've been trying to tell myself that there's no real reason for me to be mopey and gloomy and suicidal and shitty all the time because if there was then it wouldn't be called depression it'd just be called being sad. the world is just stupid like that. it's been helping (sort of) but it's still there - it's not exactly ignorable if it's coming from your head
at the very least i'm not feeling violent? like when i think "i don't want to live" i mean more like "i'm so tired of everything so i will just lie in bed and do nothing all day" instead of "i'm going to jump out the window" or something like that. but i mean if i haven't left my room or eaten properly in a long time then................... um. yeah. i showered tonight though and it was nice
beauty standards are such a weird concept to me... or at least features necessarily considered "attractive"???? i mean. it implies that there is one "most beautiful" person and your beauty depends on how much you look like that hypothetical person. that's weird as fuck. it's like saying slaughterhouse five is the platonic form of a book and how good a book is depends on how much it resembles s5. don't get me wrong, i fucking LOVE s5 and it's just objectively a great book but there are plenty of books that read NOTHING like s5 but are still. y'know. considered objectively good books. or whatever
what i'm trying to say is that it's more of a .......... gestalt thing?? like how the whole thing comes together?? like for example. a certain narrative style might work very well for one story but be a terrible choice for another. like seriously it just seems so stupid like there's so many different kinds of good books and there's so many different kinds of good looking people and having one of them be the "gold standard" is WEIRD
whats good crew im currently listening to boards of canada and eating carrots right out of the bag
my bathtub faucets kinda shitty so it made a cool beat with the dripping water/clicking sounds that sounded a bit like a 2-3 polyrhythm but not really and i'm wondering if i can compose a song out of that
hi sorry ive been quiet ive been busy wanting to kms
anyway. was hearing my classmates sing pop music outside my dorm... decided "oh god i need my selected ambient works 85-92 i cant take it anymore" and at that moment i felt like the most pretentious no-life ass loser ever and, oh god because that's what i am,
also i usually just power through and turn in barebones work for my assignments and shit because i'm tired but for this one art analysis assignment i went all out,,,, could've BSed through the whole thing but i took 4 extra days to make sure it was great and if i don't get a good grade i will actually be a little sad
"music listeners today are such sheep," he thought to himself as he overheard people who have friends listen to pop music, "nobody appreciates real art anymore. they just follow what's popular and never try to find anything of their own." his internet cuts out, the rateyourmusic page on some album doesn't load, he freaks out because he doesn't know if he's allowed to listen the album until he sees those ratings (this post is about me)
i keep calling the calculator the "clackalator" in my head and i want it to stop so so badly
it's getting really. really bad. find no joy in almost anything anymore. talking to my friends and gaming with them is nice but that's about all + prefer hanging out with family over friends and my siblings are busy so
also this is league of legends related but. switching from playing an actual champ to playing yuumi is like those dads who used to play baseball when they were young but now only watch and sometimes play casually to bond with their kid
date night idea: we go through bandcamp name your price albums with only like 2 supporters and see which ones are worthy to be downloaded
i feel less like myself every day
most scientific papers would be so much better at conveying information if they hired graphic designers to work on them. stop making the grpahs so fucking ugly. give them little hearts or bows or something. make them nice to look at
my rabbit really likes watching my family use the washroom
"you're all thoughtless sheep," he uttered to himself after looking through his friends' spotify activity. "my taste in music is better than all of yours. unlike you, i don't let 'popular' bullshit define me. i don't even use spotify half the time." he grumbled, opening up a tab of rateyourmusic. his favourite album got a score lower than 3.5, he was devastated, his night was ruined
(this is about me)
update i realized i made the exact same joke like a few days ago and just forgot i already made it. this is embarassing
EVERYONE SHUT UP MY RABBIT IS LOAFING
really stupid question but what is the least round shape? is length inversely correlated with rotundity? i will find out right now
congrats suicidal person! we care about you. this is why we've provided the following resources for you to seek help:
such options
i'm a huge fan of how ergonomic this bottle is
leafblowers seem inefficient. why blow the leaves? they're just gonna go somewhere else. i propose a leafsucker instead. like a vacuum, but designed to only be strong enough to suck up leaves. sounds like a much better way to remove dead leaves and you can even keep them in the compartment if you find them necessary
i find so many people in my life really stupid that i'm starting to wonder if i'm the common denominator
happy easter! did you know that rabbits can snore? guess which fuzzy little asshole woke me up today
art sucks art sucks art sucks art sucks
make some generic sellout boring ass factory farmed pop song/ anime picture/ novel whatever is piss easy and there's no point in doing it if it's been completely automated by AI anyway and doesnt have a shred of personality whatsoever but making ACTUAL ART IS BALLS HARD and i cant do it for shit i swear i CANT like at this point might as well just tell dalle or something to do my job for me bc it will do it 10 times better i wanna be like rdj or shigesato itoi or something and actually do something with creativity and individuality not just wikihow to make some mainstream filler i swear theres NO POINT IN ART ANYMORE BANGS HEAD ON WALL BANGS HEAD ON WALL
like i KNOW i shouldnt try and be different on purpose but like in this generation of AI and shit i feel like you kinda have to stir some shit up if you wanna be worthwhile because this shit is justKJADSHJAFKSDHFOUSDHAFIDS IM GOING TO GO INSANE AND KILL SOMEONE,,,,,?????????
the thing is that i dont think ive ever made ART so much as ive just been making generic filler content so like im not even an artist or a musician or something its just too easy to do the shit i do i am NOTHING i am a fraud i am a talentless hack
rice is best consumed scooped directly out of cooker with your hands and eaten like an apple
boards of canada should let me join their group because im canadian and i like music
you know what happens tomorrow
happy avril 14th my aphex twinks
torturing the duolingo bird by keeping the app on my phone and never using it and watching the icon wither away
just moved to my own room yesterday! was sharing a space with my mom and my sister before since we didn't have enough rooms for our own use (we set out a good portion of the house to do airbnb and shit) but we decided to just wall off a space and make another room. we tossed in a random bed from the garage and voila a room. the house modding community is insane. i haven't been here for too long, but i did observe that having your own space does really make a difference - of course i love my family and shit but i feel having that private place to call yours really does boost productivity and overall mood i think... i feel a lot more free. it's a very nice room! having to share a washroom was a lot less annoying than i expected honestly (but that's probably because i'm only sharing it with a few family members, i imagine it'd be much worse if it was a whole floor of strangers or whatever). in some ways it reminds me of my dorm (it's right next to the dining room and kitchen AND THE LIVING ROOM so therefore it is usually kinda noisy, like how my dorm was right next to the floor kitchen and stairwell) but honestly i do enjoy the vibe. i guess i enjoy the feeling of being independent? eh it'd be nice if i could get my minifridge and electric cooker back. then i'd REALLY be living it up (but the kitchen is literally right there so i guess there's no point). anyhow, i do feel more content after this change, like i'm in charge of my time or something, even if we still have group meal times. i guess that bit of independence really made a difference? your environment does have a non-negligible impact soooo........
read a stupid online argument. got a headache. put on some autechre. headache got worse
i mean this in all respect and love for the band by the way i love you ae
changed my sitename as i linked this page too many places . oops. i felt naked and exposed and that was sort-of impacting me um. authenticity. anyway its back to its original name but with a 4 instead of a "for" because 4 is my favourite number
its 5am as im writing this and i have a job to do tomorrow but the thought was straight up eating me alive so i had to get it out. tamnsgender
like i wonder whether theres a philosophical reasoning behind being trans or like its just . it just is. some people are just inherently misaligned. which is what a lotta articles ive read seem to point towards????? but im a batshit insane conspiracy theory guy i dont trust the news. its all psyops to me. i’m just busting your balls but even still i really dislike relying on outside sources because what if theyre wrong then ill look like a buffoon
when i first started questioning my gender like seriously i was around 12 or 13 i think, and it was something more or less along the lines of “man trans people are so stinky and dumb haha comment about genital mutilation. but like. what if i was a boy. what if” (i had a phase where i was piss-ass transphobic. like unreasonably so.) i was also disgusted with my female body, even before i knew wtf what a gender dysphoria was. like - i was totally planning to get my breasts and reproductive organs removed as soon as i gained independence because they freaked me out so much. imagine a small goblin creature. in a flesh sac. and hes clawing and clawing at the sac trying to get out but he does not succeed. i know i’m not helping with the stereotype but that’s how i felt okay
the ridiculous thing is once i realized i kinda fit the bill of being trans i was STILL like. kinda prejudiced - not violently so as i was before but still. i was thinking “oh yeah being trans is for people who just want attention i hate those guys but what if i’m one of them?? what if?” but i think overall the idea was that i was very unhappy with my identity as it was. i had a history of telling people i was a guy online and originally i said it was “for safety reasons” (which was totally bullshit by the way. i only ever went on art sites, which was predominantly full of kids, plus most people there were female so idk what good pretending to be a guy would do) but i realized i kinda liked being called a dude. at around age 14 i realized “oh fk ok yeah i’m trans what do i do?”
i definitely WAS thinking about a medical transition but some background information: i am so piss afraid of surgery i;m a little weeniebaby
over time though i kind of developed the idea that ... nothing is real. who gives a fuck what my body looks like. if someone doesnt like me i will pretend they do not exist, and for all that will affect me they do not. it’s sort of a utilitarianism-absurdism-solipsism combo meal. to put it in a slightly more intelligent way, i know that living as male will bring me more happiness (utility goes up). it’s not something that hurts people. now my utility would go down should i go under the knife, but as we established earlier nothing is real, therefore physically looking female does not mean anything because it is not real. now if someone wants to accuse me of being a fake man? you’re fake too yeah fuck you you don’t even exist. for all i know, everything in the material world is a figment of my imagination. things only exist if you believe them to be true, and acknowledgement of their truth is useful. how to say “life is meaningless and we’re all gonna die” in chinese
i don’t know if i came up with this narrative just to cope?? like my strongest desire deep down really is just to have a male body, idc how it looks it can be ugly as fuck, so long as its male. but surgery ooooooo scary. but part of me does feel like this is some sort of self-actualization? like the peak of my existence is male and i will not let my body stop me. billionaire grindset work hard become the man you want to be the flesh of humanity is no obstacle. affirmations for spiritual success and wealth whatever
(i took so long writing this that the notes app on my laptop turned into day mode)
so in summary i’m kind of dealing with this dichotomy between the visceral desire to just be male, both in mind and matter, but also this lofty philosophical idea that i am in complete control of reality and therefore my flesh matters not at all so it’s fine if the prospect of getting operated on actually makes me want to shit my own guts out
to note is that my interests and general sense of style lean like. HYPER feminine. im chilling in a pink little room, surrounded by dolls, cuddling a big stuffed bunny, and wearing fluffy socks and an eyemask with a huge ribbon bow on it. theres an inherent trade i have to make between staying true to the things i like and being perceived the way i want to be. personally i see no issue with men liking cute girly things and wearing cute girly clothes but i know that is widely considered to be somewhat unusual, which i mean. fair enough. but with that trade i mentioned earlier, i guess right now i’m just sticking with the former? fuck the haters, i guess. ill vamoose them from reality with my mind
the people in my college all recognize me as a man, which is great since right now they are the people that matter the most to me, aside from family of course. but i don’t know if my little fantasy world will last forever. with the way i worded it, probably not. i got lucky that most of my classmates are accepting and didn’t really press me about it. even still though i’ve got 3 years left, i’ll probably have to make a decision eventually. despite all this i cannot deny that i DO care about others’ opinions, as much as i wish i didn’t, and most of all i DO wish, completely internally, that my body was that of a man. when i was 5 i threw a temper tantrum at my mom and told her to put me back in the belly so she could birth me again with dick and ballz. at age 18 i’m sort of doing the same thing
css is pretty fucking legendary. i've made my links pink. anyway my brother taught me how to play magic the gathering and it's over for my social life
"give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt." i think about this every so often
usually i just wonder what we're really working towards, y'know, earthlings as a whole? we have the very real threat of climate change occurring and meanwhile we're making advances in AI which most definitely doesn't help, especially with how resource-intensive the machinery for it is. i'm not saying that innovation that may have negative consequences on other global issues is necessarily bad, but i do think it is kind of stupid to keep making things with the promise of it changing the world without knowing what kind of world we're trying to change into IMO. we've solved a lot of problems, which is nice, but in the process we're making a lot more - eg. social media has helped connect people and it's pretty ingrained into western culture, i guess, but at the same time it causes shit like depression, addiction, blah blah blah most people who use social media even tell you to use it a lot less since it's not healthy. yeah. i'm wondering if we're just prioritizing some sort of short-term gratification instead of examining long term effects? like i don't want to be the no-fun guy but what does the trajectory of the future look like? "AI will change the world" yes i agree but how? what do we plan to do with it?
i guess for a start i've seen AI used as learning aids which is very nice, i do think it is beneficial to increase the general education level of humanity. that's good! what's not good is the whole uprising of AI "partners" which i cannot begin to describe how unhealthy and parasitic it is. yes it grants temporary alleviation from loneliness but in the end it'll only make things worse, as it is ultimately a product - maybe things will be different if they decide to make conscious AI in the future, but i will be sorely disappointed (but not at all surprised) if they end up using it for realistic artificial lovers or whatever. i guess what i'm trying to say here is that it just looks like we're trying to jerk ourselves off with our new innovations instead of using it to improve ourselves and therefore the world
more or less i'm just thinking humanity has no end goal, since there probably wasn't a reason we were created, which is fine! i totally get exploring just for the sake of exploring. i'm that kind of person after all. fuck around, find out. but it's all bread and circus now i fear. new technology is developing much faster than practices to responsibly use it. what i'm seeing is really just people using the new stuff to alleviate their baser desires and making new problems for little to no reason. eh. i'm probably tinting the whole thing really negative but my point is it's kind of stupid to market yourself as changing the world and shaping the future while releasing behemoths that nobody knows how to properly use upon the world. a more concrete example would be apple shitting new phone models out their machine gun ass with new features that nobody fucking needs. it's just the novelty that gets them going, but in a few years that will get old too and they'll want to look for their next hit. i guess in other words just slow down. think about what we're actually doing??
ideally i would like to see a world where technology helps people achieve self-actualization and transcend biological limitations, for example it is thanks to modern science that many people are able to survive diseases that would've killed them back in history. this is good! and i won't say that this is straight up not happening now, because it most definitely is, maybe just not to the degree that i'd like to see it. but the widgets and doohickeys of the today world have the power to be used for self and societal improvement in a way that i do not see happening on a large scale. maybe i am wrong though. feel free to prove me wrong i'd love to be wrong here actually
to end on a positive note though i do want to remain optimistic as i do feel some sort of rude awakening may be in progress sooner or later. not going to hold my breath though, so in other news i do want to appreciate the progress that the world has made. i do not think the world is going to shit. for example, it is nice that gender and racial equality is improving, even if it has a long way to go, and i definitely appreciate that they will not lobotomize me for saying i am trans :thumbsup: but yes the industrial revolution and its consequences
following the google streetview car with my kiddy bike and silly purple helmet
saw a bit of a discussion on this online and it reminded me that i wanted to write something and forgot as i do
there's a bit of discourse here and there about what constitutes a "mistake" (if anything) compared to a stylistic choice in art (specifically gonna be talking about visual art but maybe this is applicable to other types? i don't know) aaaannd i do think a lot of it does boil down to intention and self-awareness, i guess. sure art is subjective but it is a method of communication, so if anything i think art should be graded on how well it's able to deliver the intended message. obviously there's a lot of holes in this standard (which is why this was even an argument in the first place), but i do think it has a place in analyzing and evaluating art. (hold on i've got dinner to eat i'll finish this in a bit)
anyhow, i suppose a way to look at this is to realize that there's rarely ever any completely realistic visual depictions of life. take photography as an example - by choosing a focus for the lens and blurring the background (or even putting something in the main view) is, to some extent, a distortion of reality. similar things would most definitely happen in other mediums like painting or sketching - even moreso because the shapes themselves can be stylized as well to accentuate certain features, like the way cartoons exaggerate the facial features to make the expressions more readable to the audience. so where do we draw the line between a mistake and a stylistic choice? i suppose it depends on how much it interferes with the message's portrayal and the artist's intention, i guess. for example, if the eyes are drawn large to try and make a character cuter and more sympathetic, but are so large they end up feeling uncanny, i suppose that's a mistake. bringing back the parallels with photography, i guess if you took a blurry photo of something that was meant to be in focus, that makes it a bad photo as it didn't really capture what you wanted it to. stylistic choices should probably have some degree of self-awareness and intention behind them and should be used meaningfully to achieve the desired effect.... i guess? i don't know.
tangentially related but i suppose there's also different ways to evaluate a piece - for example, compare a photorealistic drawing that completely fails to deliver its intended message but contains no formal errors with a drawing made by a young child to illustrate their emotion, i guess. the latter would probably be more striking. i don't really want to imply that art is completely subjective (and not to mention that the argument is really tired and honestly not that interesting) because i do think there are metrics in which you can evaluate the effectiveness of a piece, again as a form of communication, otherwise techniques for analysis probably wouldn't exist. "good art" does have some recurring properties that underly a piece, i guess, even if these properties aren't consistent in the visual aspect (which is probably why people think art is subjective).
and now i'm upset because i opened a whole new can of worms about the artist's intention vs. the audience interpretation. i'm too tired to write anything too intelligent but i guess both come into play here? like. the end product is ultimately the audience's mental construction of the meaning of the piece - it will only mean to them what they think it means. i think the actual art lies in the understanding produced in the audience, probably. of course this will also be shaped by the context of the piece's creation and what the artist wanted to make in the first place, but this should all combine into more information to construct that said understanding. maybe in edge cases the intention does end up relatively irrelevant - for example say a photographer wanted to take a picture of a nice flower but accidentally took the last photo of someone before they disappeared because they captured some guy in the background. where does the artistic merit lie there? i do not know. i've been playing terraria all day i'm really tired
i kind of just remembered that college application essays are some of the most boring and predictable shit ever. my brother and i wrote a backstory to some character named "wet bird" as a joke and it followed the exact same formula fucking hell. they should let you say fuck in those essays. it really shows the admissions team who has the bollocks to actually be authentic
on a similar note i also remembered that even though colleges emphasize their values of diversity and variety quite often i feel like they always admit the same sorts of students. at least for the most part. maybe this is a fallacy? since most people are by definition not weird. but yeah admit someone that's actually off the handle. let them fuck shit up. makes things more interesting that way and dare i say more effective because i think a whole college with the same mindset and values or whatever will get wiped out by some sort of plague via lack of genetic diversity but in the brain
not me tho i'm honestly the sanest person i know
they should engineer some sort of double mouth/nose action so you can play the flute and sing at the same time
gonna pitch all my great ideas to chatgpt so in the event there's a data leak maybe some genius will make my vision a reality
right after writing that sentence above i realized you could just go with a more straightforward route and post it on the internet directly. i won't do that though i'm shy
subconsciously i always knew that i'd probably derive more satisfaction than anything from working on something i find meaningful to me (which, y'know, is pretty common knowledge) though tonight i'm starting to think about its specifics a little more... for example i'm not sure how good i feel after drawing single pictures - sure, i'm proud of it at the moment, but after a while i get sick of it and need to draw another. just like buying things lmao. i've thought it to be a powerful motivator to have something to work towards (redundant and self-explanatory i know) - or in other words, what i mean is that life feels a lot more fulfilling when you wake up with a specific, tangible thing that you want to work towards. i always look forward to having something to do - especially if said thing is challenging enough to be meaningful and ties with my character and identity. not just that but feeling progress on a big project is definitely a lot bigger than finishing little ones - completing a drawing that's part of a larger collection is more rewarding than completing singles. i've made a few attempts to write more novels, though there's a bit of a personal reason why those kind of fall apart in terms of motivation/reward - novels are only good when they're completely finished. writing a chapter definitely doesn't feel as good as making something that holds merit as a work of art by itself, since it doesn't feel like i've made anything until i finish the book. i'm thinking of making some sort of multimedia series - a world defined by bits and pieces of articles and short stories here and there. bah. i don't know if it's too young to think about what i want my life's work to be - i mean what i make right now will most definitely NOT be the magnum opus or a core part of my identity in any way - honestly i just really want something to work towards. hm...
also i exhumed a school project i made last year. it was a text-based game made on twine and it took forever to restore it because i used discord links to host the files :(( i did figure out that you can host twine games on neocities though! this changes so much
i firmly believe that "hamster" is an objectively funny word
anyway disstracks are a hilarious concept.. imagine hating someone so much that you dedicate a whole song to them,
"the pain you go through isn't unbearable because you've already dealt with it for so long" i would like for them to tie you down and slowly flay you alive and see how long you can last before you start crying for mercy
"suicide is selfish" "learn to live for yourself" god damn you fucking cunt which one is it then. all the things people say to suicidal people are actually super fucking dumb yeah no shit you think life is precious but it's precisely because i disagree with you that i'm even considering killing myself in the first place. they just keep throwing those phrases at me hoping it'll eventually work. yeah sure the sky looks nice and the trees look pretty but have you considered that every thread of my soul is being endlessly tormented. why don't you go up to a guy in a torture chamber and show him a flower to try to get him to stop crying
damn someone was in a bad mood
anyhow i spent my evening trying to count along to songs with weird time signatures and failed for the most part but now i know what a mixed meter is. i also often think about how rabbits have such good ears and they would be amazing music teachers if they just weren’t so FUCKING stupid
this sounds pretty counterintuitive but we should get more depressed people to be therapists because i find that the vast majority of people without depression are absolutely horrific at dealing with it. i mean i don't blame them since it is a disordered way of thinking, but god damn they are unhelpful. i'll be showing them some analogy i came up with when talking about how hard it is to talk about how i feel and they'll go "yes i understand" No you do not because this is literally what you do lol... it's even worse when you're depressed to the point of non-functioning because there really isn't anything anyone can do except for pity you; you're always treated like That Burden that the other person is just so kind and understanding that they feel bad for you, so they don't have any expectations for you because they're just that good of a person. quite frankly it's a disgusting attitude to treat a human with but it's also completely reasonable since sick people do require more resources. iiiiiiii dunno. what i'm trying to say is that no matter what i say to others it always feels like i have to be the one apologizing or owing gratitude because i am only seen as a hardship and the only value i provide is sentimental - like a pet that isn't trained to do anything useful except provide companionship. yeah it's an easy life but i am a human and i am intelligent enough that a life like that is demeaning. being valued by others the same way they value animals really doesn't make me feel any better about myself
another thing is that when they tell you "no don't feel bad! you make me stronger as a person" it also feels like shit because... what? yes i made you stronger by making your life harder. in a way they're just thanking themselves for deciding to improve their own quality of life after i brought it down. it's like thanking a rock in your backpack for training you or whatever - unlike a coach it's not like the rock did anything of value; it was you yourself who decided to do that. every time i hear something like that, that me being depressed makes those around me better people, it just sounds like they're complimenting those around me for putting up with my bullshit. something that's similar is a common attitude i see towards children with some sort of neurodivergency or other disorder, usually autism, like parents congratulating each other like "you're so brave for having a kid with autism" like oh my god way to make the kid feel like absolute shit! you're telling them the only worth they provide to others is burdening them!
in far more vulgar terms: i hate talking to people without depression about my wellbeing because usually they just jerk themselves off in front of me
this thought has been fermenting in the pantry of my brain for a minute or two but i finally got the words to get it out: vtubers are cringe and i know exactly why
they just hit that degree of "uncanny valley" perfectly for me. i can simultaneously say "you're a drawing, stop acting like a real person" and "you're a real person, stop acting like a drawing" towards them - something about their whole concept (or at least, the industry concept with those agencies and shit) feels so confused and disturbing - you're essentially watching a person put on a mask and a persona so far removed from any sort of realistic human, and being streamers they do demand some sort of audience engagement and connection. not to mention that a lot of them are straight-up degenerate as well. it's the same kind of gross feeling i get from those AI lovers - you're engaging with some effigy of a personality except with all the unsavoury parts boiled away to leave you with the highest degree of marketability and holy fuck that's creepy. engaging too much with escapist fiction that's meant to be some sort of mental pacifier does dumb your brain down in the real world. now just imagine that except you interact with it on a far more personal level. it reminds me of those idol industries in east asian countries and honestly i think they're just as bad
though i just want to specify again that a lot of it does come from our treatment of them as non-product content creators. the reason why i don't have the same problem with someone like hatsune miku is that a lot of us are aware that she is a construct and an instrument and appropriately treat her as such. and also because she's actually involved in decent fucking music and not the same fucking song where the quirky playful anime girl sings to you about sex or whatever and lobotomizes your ears
of course i am discussing a very specific kind of vtuber. i know that a good amount of indie vtubers are just normal ass people who prefer to express themselves through an animated avatar which i think is completely reasonable and respectable - if you're thinking "hey what you're saying isn't true" then i'm not talking about you. but anyway yeah these guys are literally industry plant streamers how do you not find that extremely weird
there is a wider problem reflected in celebrity culture in general, which i find disgusting, though the span of that one is pretty large so i just chose a specific topic to talk about. a lot of it i guess revolves around the commodification of identity which i feel i'm too dumb to really properly discuss but i'll probably drop a few cents in the fountain sometime sooner or later.
too polite didnt read (actually not polite at all but): vtubers are industry plant succubuses engineered to suck out your money and your soul and you should stop letting the devil into your mind. go watch some cat videos instead
i was watching videos of people cleaning up the houses of the deceased and the comments and content gave me a good cry which doesn't usually happen but yeah erm. they make me think "damn that's horrible maybe i shouldn't kill myself after all" which is a mentality that dissipates the second i fail at anything or have to face against azorius control
in any case i guess i just wanted to talk about why it sucks so bad to be depressed (well first of all well DUH, but i'm talking about a different kind of feel bad, or why it kind of feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy, i guess) and i think a lot of it is that for a lot of people (by that i mean just me, so) being sick feels like such a meaningless struggle - like i'm not fighting against oppression or changing the world or anything i'm just a sad motherfucker and any sort of "battle" i fight benefits me, solely. all of it's pretty much self-contained too, so part of it almost feels like you deserve what's coming to you; with something like cancer at least you can kind of understand a bit easier that your body just kind of fucked up, but with depression all of it feels like it's your fault that you aren't thinking properly, or that it's your fault that you don't want to get better. i guess all that makes it quite hard for even the victim to sympathize with themselves. impossible to talk about too because if anyone tells you they give a shit about what your depression's like, then they're lying, because it is just boring by definition like damn bitch i don't wanna hear you talk about yourself the whole time. anyone who's honest with themselves know that they don't give a rat's ass about some random person and their mood problems that so many other random people have. what are you even supposed to say?? "i'm sorry you feel that way"???? god it's just so stupid, and i think what makes depressed people feel even worse (aside from the obvious, y'know) is that they're aware that it's just really pointless. it's not like you're solving climate change or bringing about the second coming of christ by taking prozac everyday so like what's even the big idea behind all this aside from having to live knowing that god hates you or something
on a similar note i saw a post somewhere characterizing depression as a societal failure instead of a personal condition, and seeing its prevalence and that it has a lot of trends, i honestly agree, and i think the dominant idea that it should be treated the same way the same way you treat something like cancer is probably getting in the way of finding some way to tackle it on a societal level. well 1) duh but also 2) it is interesting to think about - maybe the world as a whole is sick and we're just the symptoms. i will say though that i'm not very hopeful that it will improve, given that a lot of the causes feel very engrained into our communities, BUT i do think it would be funny if we took someone rich and famous and gutted them in public in the middle of times square or something, would be interesting to see what happens (probably just mass hysteria but still). gotta add that i don't condone murder and i do think that something like that would be a heinous act but you can't stop me from being a curious soul
tldr: depression makes you sad
"you are a nice person" well gee thanks but you see i actually have an insane amount of criticism for almost everyone around me except i'm quite good at suppressing those thoughts around nearly everyone because i know i'm being watched and i know that nothing anyone says will ever be private. "you can just tell me, i can take it" NOPE i will not because that doesn't change the fact that they are always listening. i don't even like thinking bad about specific people in my head either because somehow it's going to leak out and i would have made myself an enemy. i only criticise my family so if i'm mean to you then congrats it means i love you unconditionally. i hate being a liar but i'm not a man of the truth