as the moon rounds full / so the year rounds out
in this post: stream of consciousness ramblings of a stoned "adult"
+++ cross-posted from write.as which i abandoned in favour of this platform
I haven't earnestly blogged since I was a teenager. My heart sinks six inches and feels like it splats into my stomach when I scroll on Instagram and see a Reel recounting 2014 as the height of American Apparel and Tumblr Teendom, living the Lana Del Rey Americana drama; when I come home to visit my family across the country, I'm back in my childhood bedroom where I spent hours on MySpace, LiveJournal, and Neopets, downloaded music with BearShare or the Panic! at the Disco demos on PureVolume (RIP). I remember changing my desktop background on the school computer in middle school to some band-themed wallpaper, courtesy of absolutepunk.net (RIP), probably something like From First to Last or The Used, trying to send out some Bat Signal for a shared kinship in angst, in a vibe. Somehow, all of this still matters to me, as some form of Personal Identification, an echo that I still exist somewhere, can be pinned to a certain time period or location, since there is no more truthful way to put it than this: I don't feel like I feel too differently than I did when I was 12 yet I turn 30 very soon (Yes, a Capricorn!)
To me, this has many deep implications, some contradictory, but truth can't and doesn't exist in vacuums:
- I perceive that I am as mature as I was when I was 12, which is extremely depressing as it means I have plateaued as a person and have wasted almost 18 years in doing all the things I did not want to do just to appease my parents' expectations of me (which were guided by my own perception of my parents' expectations?)
- I perceive that I am as mature as I was when I was 12, which is extremely enlightening and interesting from a psychoanalytical perspective as my unusual upbringing and educational experiences have presented various trauma that I now get to watch chaotically interact and transform as an adult.
- Emotionally, I had already written myself off in social situations when I was 12, which seems to come back a lot in my life where I don't seem or feel to be heard (which is interesting -- I have been struggling to communicate on a deeper level with my family, with the biggest hurdle being that I am just not fluent in the native language, further exacerbating this feeling of feeling unheard).
- I am not brave. I have come into more opportunities than others have had. I air my grievances too loudly and quickly around the people I know. I trust them openheartedly. But I always feel a fool. Everyone sees through me. I see through me. I'm not doing the things I think I want to be doing. I know I need a different life and that I can't maintain this image of myself for any longer. If there's anything these past 4 years have taught me (truly digging into the cusp of the early COVID era) is that
fake it 'til ya make itis taking its toll on ME and I wake up every day with the choice to continue lying. - I am stuck in a fantasy. I'm dreaming of a different world. I lean too deeply into my fantasy and reality seems further away. What am I talking about? I'm talking about wanting to dismantle capitalism. That I am now a high tax-paying citizen that relies on weapons to provide for my long-term safety and stability in terms of shit like investment accounts. That my parents lived through bombings during the American War in Vietnam yet went on to become educated, had children who went on to get advanced degrees, and I just scroll online to firsthand videos of death, disability, and destruction of the Palestinian children and people? And that I'm just supposed to continue to go to my remote STEM job and continue to deliver under extremely unreasonable timelines to help advance approvals for my company? What the fuck is that? And who the fuck am I? I don't think I ever dreamt I would make as much money as I do now, and it's all just bad, I haven't had in apartment in over 3 years where I had a restful night's sleep, I can barely function to get my life in order as an adult, all because my precious mental energy is being spent trying to uphold this vision of me that should not have existed. Talk about diverted resources.
I think I worry that my inability to lead an ethical life reflects on my ethics as a human being. And I sure as fuck believe that. However, I am a coward, as already pointed out in (4). I think about ending things, about ending me [see next paragraph], and then I think about my niblings, and that I need to save them from this compounded trauma in my family that is only going to get more complicated with them. Also, no one has caught on that ADHD runs in the family, and suddenly I have bestowed that responsibility upon myself?
'Ending me' doesn't have to mean physically dying (I once reasoned that suicide was never going to be an option for me because I need to live with the Guilt of the Opportunities I Have and ending myself would literally be the most wasteful thing I could do especially since no one can come in and inhabit my body and life and use it if I don't want it) -- it can also refer to the Idea or Past Version.
I'm tired of this version, of numbing out, yes I can do smart things, but boy am I fucking tired of everyone's shit. And I always feel like a Brat thinking about how I don't get paid enough, when I get paid a lot, and if I got paid more, I'd probably suffer even more from Imposter Syndrome, but also, money is kind of (definitely) fake, and maybe we'll see the downfall of capitalism within my lifetime (or I set out upon a different course to achieve that?) so I don't even have to contend with the same worries in the future.
I'm tired of living with the reality that we live in the most interesting and technologically advanced era of human civilisation, where we actually have the tools and computation to tackle Real Fucking Issues, and yet we're still massively impeded by Greed fueled by the Delusion of Money and Numbers Going Up. We could actually help more than harm. But harm (weapons, war) brings in more money, and we love Big Numbers, and That's How It's Always Been.
Utterly brainless.
I'm convinced that our problems could massively be solved if people with Narrow Visions for the Future and Narrow Minds or Windows of Thinking did psychedelic drugs. Everyone could benefit from drugs. Look at the complexity of the world around us. There's no other way to get to a more complex level of thinking without partaking in a mind-altering journey to, frankly, evolve our fucking brains to see beyond Survival and Scarcity.
Important side note: I have no idea if this blog will be read by any young audience members because I intend to remain anonymous so that my blog can flourish in whatever chaotic way I want it to be. In any case, I want to take a second to address my bold claims for using drugs. By drugs, I'm really talking about mushrooms and LSD, but I think this applies to anything. You should never do drugs alone, at least for your first few times. For your first time, always have someone sober in attendance. Stay hydrated and eat well. Consider gathering a variety of snacks and beverages that you like so that you can create an environment that you can calm yourself in if it gets intense. Also, warm and comfortable clothing and blankets. Buy a lot of different art supplies and just let yourself lean into it. Remember that life is short and try to give back as much as you take away from it. But seriously - stay hydrated, and set alarms if you need to. Then later, when you've learned how your body and mind act on certain substances, you can see where to safely push the envelope. Sometimes you do feel like making yourself feel like shit and want to confront the worst parts of yourself to remember they're real. But the trip always ends though the memories remain.
There was a point in time where I kept separate WordPress blogs to categorise different ways or forms of how I felt like writing. In the early days of Social Media, I loved having different outlets for different ways I saw myself (what you shared on Snapchat was different than Instagram) and as I progressed in school and career, I wanted people to know even less about me, to a point where I think I effectively diminished myself. I didn't want to post to those outlets anymore, and in doing so, lost some kind of outlet with myself and have thus felt stuck in time. Or floating nebulously through time, nothing's really progressing forward, it's just ticking onward, really. I missed being on the Internet to be on the Internet and not be a Real Person since that was my hideaway. But I can't hide forever and not sure I can even envision what's next. I don't even know what the Internet is like anymore. I don't really like most of it and am alarmed at how quickly things are embraced from it. But maybe the social anxiety plays a deep role in that perception. And that is of course fueled by the fact that I am just not living a life that I want to have. But what do I want to have? I don't even know what parameters I need to consider to answer that question. All I know is that there's an Out for me to find.