actual life (12 august 2025)

i've heard of mercury being in retrograde years ago - it was a cool bloc party song - but only decades later did i actually live the concept. or at least it was fun to attribute shit to planetary alignment. it's nice to not be responsible every once in a while.

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typically when i don't do much writing here, it's because i'm not battling a bout of depression. but really, i've been doing most of my writing on twitter. it's harder there. i have to distill my thought, yet maintain my nuanced voice. every word has to fight for its place. so it's less about actual writing of words, but more about shaving off words from a much grander write up without losing soul. i workshop the hell out of my tweets. agonizing over a few words for something that barely gets read. if a tree falls in the woods, right? yeah, whatever.

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it's been a while since lyrics mattered. music to me has largely been about the vibe. melody, rhythm, instrumentation - anything but the words. if my spotify wrapped is any indication - with fred again, eurovision songs, french house - the songs i listen to aren't lyrical masterpieces. recently, i encountered someone who expresses and processes complex emotions through songs. good thing all i had to decode were taylor swift and gracie abrams songs. that got me started to revisiting my old favorites. and my god, it's only now i'm finding out clairo and chappel roan are gay. police's roxanne is about a whore. granted, broken social scene songs are still incomprehensible lyrically. kevin drew and the crew must've had a deeper meaning when they wrote “i swore i drank your piss that night to see if i could live.”

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i realized i've been living the so-called "lonely chapter" for the past couple of years. i probably got stuck in pandemic mode and decided to socially distance so i could focus on personal development. my evenings and weekends were spent on learning, building skills, developing substance (not making drugs). any socialization were just incidental to whatever work engagement i was doing. i limited myself only to friends in the moment. it was uncomfortable to be unproductive. it also didn't help that adhd medication really made productivity more rewarding, and by comparison, making socialization an annoying speed bump. for a time i was convinced i didn't need to seek out any human connection. until a wrench was thrown in my gears, and i remembered how it is to have inexplicable soul-level connection. now i'm learning how to be a social creature again. i'm skilled, yes. but unnatural. i won't win any suave awards. but hey, at least i'm a different enough human being to make a mark.

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