april 18th, 2021
when i feel lonely in a certain way, i automatically picture a view of the
southern side of a certain dormitory from a certain point along a certain side of
a certain road near my house, at night. nothing in the view has any particular
significance to me, so i'm not sure why it got linked with that feeling
june 13th, 2021
what i have been waiting years & years for is a face-to-face friend whose personality juxtaposed with
mine has the simple & inexorable effect of cracking me open like a pistachio so that when speaking to
them there is not the slightest chance of me being stilted, affected, managerial of my expression
in the current, actual situation, where i don't have such a friend, it feels sort of demanding
to want. like, i don't want to feel so stifled, but in place of remedying these traits i just
want to know someone around whom they melt off? a panacea of another person
but then, i imagine actually having the friend, & if the situation were real, it'd just... be the situation
that chance had afforded me, self-justifying. it'd be very simple & good. people can actually find
such friends, if they're lucky. it'd just be equal to the kind & helpful friends they really do have as
i type this. & if, having that friend, i were to imagine a me that lacked such a friend & pined
for them, i would imagine the pining me (who is typing this) to be very justified
i feel helpless as to whether chance leaves me with the fantasy, which is to make me feel greedy,
or the reality, which is to make me feel... like the fantasy could never be greedy. it's strange
june 18th, 2021
i'm now of the belief that the reason people can go crazy if they're too socially isolated is less that some
part of their brain atrophies from lack of stimulation & more that people constantly say things to which other
people immediately go "pfsh, what? that's dumb," & the person who said it goes, "oh, of course, you're right."
if there is no one around to go "pfsh, what? that's dumb," these thoughts go unchecked & harden & become
logical foundations for additional things to which people should also be saying "pfsh, what? that's
dumb," & the deluded thought patterns keep growing like a crystal in its own weird ecosystem
june 19th, 2021
hesitancy occurs when an intuition is suppressed by the power of the mind. the body knows
what is correct in every cell of its being, but the mind immediately imposes its doubt,
anxiety or opinion, thereby rendering the true perception powerless. in this way,
all true alignment to the power of the now is lost & clarity - which
is pristine & visceral - is repressed in the body
Richard Rudd
this feels like the unfortunate foundation of my whole being. when i was a child i started treating any
involuntary social characteristics on my part as "invasions of my privacy," i tried to be wholly inert
unless i explicitly chose otherwise, chose to transmit... for instance, when we are sad our vocal folds
can restrict, changing our voices accordingly. it's an important eusocial characteristic & the sort of
thing i would have despised. "why should i be forced to divulge to anyone that i am sad," i thought
now every little muscle movement i direct toward anyone feels terrifyingly deliberate, planned,
indictable... in the wake of the resulting lack of socialization, i now fear being underdeveloped
& that my being underdeveloped may manifest awkwardly or hideously, so i now fear
these characteristics less as "invasions of privacy" & more as... a lack of
restraint may expose the awkward or hideous qualities
june 23rd, 2021
personally i kind of see this sucky paradox thing where it seems like ninety nine percent of people are
alienatingly insane, but then the remaining one percent is still a big enough number of people that it's
like, ok, there's still this whole world of non-insane people. but that doesn't end up an unfettered
positive because, despite the awful global proportion of alienatingly insane people, that framing
of there "still being a whole world" sort of undermines anyone's excuse to like, cling to non-
insane people as precious exceptions, the alienation inexplicably survives... that one
percent of people could occupy a tiny island but you'll never have anything like the
unmistakable direction of being shipwrecked there with one other person
june 24th, 2021
it's surprisingly easy to forget that a large part of the reason i don't have any friends where i live
is that some irrational part of me forces me to think that if i glance at, smile at, or approach anyone
they could instantly take it as a signal that i have some kind of psychotic obsession with them lurking
behind my placid exterior. what this also means is that when people choose to be particularly nice to
me it gives me more of an incentive to never acknowledge that they exist because now the irrational
part of me can tell me that they'll think their niceness was what precipitated the psychotic obsession
june 26th, 2021
being lonely doesn't feel like a problem that i can just go out & solve, not under any circumstance. it's
a problem for which i can go out to maximize its chance of organically resolving, but that's about it.
just an existential sense of helplessness vs. blind hope that the endless, directionless, chaotic global
churning of connections will happen to produce whatever it is exactly that is appropriate
for me, & that i will respond to its emergence productively
ambiguous date
i don't really want to be a recluse. but ideally i can cultivate such a staunch optimism
that i can make it not matter. even if it lasts forever. that's what i'm aiming to do.
i am sort of running a gamble. either this is a valid option, where this can be wholly
manageable because i am never truly obligated to be sad, or, the reality turns out to
be that i should realize how much i am missing out on, that i am ultimately supposed
to ask for more, to recognize that i ultimately don't want to be a recluse,
& to think very seriously about how i could address it
july 15th, 2021
meeting & realizing a relationship with my soul mate can feel hopeless when i consider
i shouldve been getting a feel for how to maintain just normal platonic friendships
for at least six years or so now but i haven't been. i think it will randomly happen
tomorrow though, it will simply transcend being wholly unsocialized
august 4th, 2021
to fall into the comfort of someone i'm in a relationship with might feel inappropriate because
i'm treating them like a family member. to fall into the comfort of a family member might feel
inappropriate because i'm treating them like someone i'm in a relationship with. stuck...
august 23rd, 2021
i have to stop imagining affection... it is an attractive escape, but the way it inversely creates the
implied absence of another person in reality, introducing a problem into a room that didn't have one
before... it just sneakily makes me obsessed with loneliness, & i start to have a bad time. it is a bad
habit. i have to reacquaint myself with the simple & neutral qualities of being on my own
august 27th, 2021
waiting waiting waiting scanning crowds waiting for my as-of-yet-unknown future
best friend to walk around every corner i approach straining to filter signals of
synergistic identity out from the noise waiting waiting waiting waiting
all while actually hiding desperately from anyone of the barest interest, so as to by any means negate the
perceived sinister qualities of seeking to approach, encroach, impose, god forbid "possess," this extending
to the barest "possession" that even the most glancing friendship entails, basic conversation perceptually
exaggerated to each sentence being a demand for a reply rather than just a prompt
august 28th, 2021
in addition to straining to filter signals of synergistic identity out from the noise, there is also the activity which
kicks in if & when someone does speak to me, which is straining to detect any signal that their way of engaging with me
is in any way informed by e.g. tv shows, or even if not tv shows, other people who in turn were informed by tv shows,
or other people representing a third link in the chain, & so on. at the slightest hint of this i will just emotionally
shut down & invisibly retract like a turtle. sometimes i wonder if it is too sensitive, if i am not giving people
enough time. it is also based on the questionable assumption that whatever i see invariably originates in tv
shows, rather than originating in the people & then being portrayed or exaggerated in the tv shows so
that they are relatable. like i already said before though, i'm sure there's fuzzy feedback
i imagine violating a social norm in a one-on-one interaction to feel like receiving the disapproval of not just them
but all the millions of people who would vouch for them in that situation... it makes sense to me, people establish
norms by expressing them en masse & then the full weight of all those expressions is supposed to weigh on you
if you threaten to violate one. it's like millions of people are spectrally present, judging. i feel that sharply
when i talk to people, i think. i can't feel alone with anyone, it's like i'm in a dialogue with all of
society. i don't know. it's hard to describe. it makes it feel impossible to have a pure conversation
september 3rd, 2021
a problematic perception that living near people isn't a precedent for interacting with
them, in fact it's a reason not to because if i impose my existence on theirs it's like
i'm doing it "just because" they're nearby, subjecting them to that happenstance
i think what happens is that on occasion i'll have an extraneous experience with a person or some people, actually
freely talking & joking & laughing, & i'll realize how plainly that life is hardly worth living without things like
this, & then i'll go back to several weeks, months, a year, longer, of general solitude, & kind of settle back into a
lifelong default perspective where i have no idea what possibilities i'm missing out on. something where... i guess
i can tell that something is wrong, but at the same time it is kind of painless & only sad from a more "objective"
viewpoint beyond me. of course, the memory of the experience is still there, so i guess the awareness of
what i'm lacking is still accessible. intellectually, as sort of a footnote, lacking particular
feeling behind it. it's not like the feeling would have anywhere to go anyway
september 4th, 2021
the couple i often see at the bar & coffee shop, who gave me a ride home that one night, who i'd
ideally like to try to be friends with, have been inexplicably showing up in my dreams for a while
if i were feeling self-critical i could say "okay, see? all it takes is some strangers talking to me a bit
for them to start showing up in my dreams all the time. this just goes to show that, whether i like
it or not, i'm too isolated to engage with anyone without bringing way too much desperate-friend-
want into the picture like an obsessive creep. which is why i shouldn't talk to them"
or i can shrug & interpret it neutrally. thats possible too
september 7th, 2021
pushing through social anxiety
it feels like i can't even use "i'm gonna die someday anyway, i might as well do all i can to just try to make friends while i'm here" as an
excuse to approach people because how do i know they'll have a perspective like that? they're probably approaching things on a smaller
scale, in more of a "sitcom mode," does that make sense, like they're plugged into interpersonal standards for which no one's days are
numbered, as far as the standards are concerned. like an endless social sandbox, a slice-of-life interpersonal narrative that isn't
concerned with stuff like mortality. no one extends these mortal considerations as they tell their friend about the awkward
interaction they had earlier in the day. so it feels like the standards are in their hands, which feels like power they hold
over me, because if i end up committing some transgression then the scope of the story is like. limited to that day,
which acquired the stain of some weirdo overstepping a boundary or committing some faux pas, at the expense
of someone else's comfort. that's the story i feel like i'd have lived with someone, not me being driven by my
mortality to just face a fear & see what happens. i don't know if this makes sense. [feedback] ok it makes sense
i guess part of it would be to just try my best to be personable but still bite the bullet & set a
threshold above zero for how much of a burden i want to make myself as i figure things out
wondering if other people are more inherently driven than i am to do things like remember others' birthdays, wish them
good luck, express interest in their interests & pursuits, encourage them or express sympathy in times of uncertainty
or hardship, give them gifts, or simply check up on them, ask how their day is going. or if i'm perfectly normal &
everyone is just constantly, virtuously pushing themselves to do these things just so everyone feels seen & the
network between them doesn't decay, not because it feels super great. & i am just neglecting to do that because
i am waiting for a convenient "drive" to pull me along. i hope it's not the former because at that point it just
feels like i have this inherent absence of love & at that point, like, even if i can approach & befriend
someone at the coffee shop, what am i even hoping for past that point, why am i alive. not that
i think i would be suicidal if that were the case but pretty despondent for sure
september 9th, 2021
every time i see the girl whose fashion sense i'd like to compliment it reignites my disappointment in my inability to
interact with people, it's like, becoming bad for me. it also gives me this vague guilt as though the idea of giving
the compliment started out fine & earnest when it was still an impulse, but over time it's less percolated, more
festered such that the compliment would now only be an instrument for me, overcoming my own anxiety, it becomes
about me... i guess i'm also nervous about how such a pointed intent might affect how i would act in an actual interaction
september 14th, 2021
am i going to just type posts about this over & over? it is like it is slowly killing me that i'm incapable of delivering
the compliment. it's like it is metastasizing, becoming symbolic... i am the sort of person to pine only to deliver a simple
comment, feel deeply incapable, become very sad about all the incapabilities it represents, often cope by retreating into
an imaginary scenario with the same non-existent unrealistically idealized romantic partner, as i do to cope with
various things... really, though, i think once i go home i will forget about this again. i think there
will be reoccurring moments of despair that i quickly forget each time
september 16th, 2021
crossing paths again, failing to deliver the lousy looming compliment that has accumulated the state of being a nexus
of something. walking around for a little while, walking off the peculiar agitation that makes me question whether to
frame the situation as a crush (it'd be the first in a pretty long time, i think.) returning to the cafeteria, eating cheese
sticks while i turn & look out the window incessantly without really thinking about it, tenuously anticipating
another chance at simply pushing through the life-ruling shyness, one i might not waste. "eventually,
at least by the end of the semester," i tell myself, it's not a very harsh deadline
something in the ballpark of "i'm incapable of needing anybody because it feels like it carries the
additional implication that i would hypothetically put effort into retaining them, which makes me feel
very imposing. if i were to need anybody it would only be the most avolitional & at-mercy sort of need"
that or am i just not remotely naturalized toward having any
stake in my connections with other people. maybe a bit of both
i do something i love. i share it. maybe no one cares. it hurts. but the only reason i was opened
up to that pain is that i shared it. i shared it because i am not living for myself. if i were
living for myself, doing something i love in isolation would have been enough
the underlying mechanic feels very obvious to me: i feel chronically deprived of & desperate for human contact such that i have
trouble finding joy in solitary activities, because they are never compensated for with unsolitary ones. there is always a drive
to share fragments of my activity, & there is always a channel for it. i can idly draw a picture, lie in bed & look at paintings
i love, or something like that, but it doesn't bring me satisfaction or peace until i've also run them through a process of
distribution, satisfied a pressure that arises in the process of viewing or creating, become secure in knowing i am not
the only one experiencing it. i am not living for myself. "stop & smell the roses," but writing about it after is more
important. i don't think anything should be more important, but that is the situation. i think this is the situation
of lots of people. i think there is lots of profit to be made from it, generate ad revenue from parasocial
garbage enticing to people not admitting to themselves that they are alone in a room, ETC.
& then i write this post, which at the moment i consider an act of bundling up the entire condition & feeding it back into
itself, like resorting to burning furniture for warmth, something desperate under a guise of "self-awareness" & "observation."
i sit pleadingly, but it does not matter whether anyone cares, because each display of care is only a stopgap in the
cruel system, which is only a product of the cognitive flaws which make me so lonely in the first place
it is a very flawed way to live, tethered to this online environment. without it, though, i think i would be at the same level
of loneliness, only i would have never ever been meaningfully shown any compelling aesthetic or temperamental alternatives to
things like nu metal or the Rolling Stones, living in a tiny two-dimensional universe where i am the only point of opposition
to these things, albeit with no vision inside of me to replace them with, & maybe i would have just gone crazy & killed myself.
i wonder if it sounds absurd to have been taken care of by unconfrontational family & wanted to kill myself over music.
well, if it does, i just don't think anyone in circumstances not quite like mine would understand
september 28th, 2021
its funny because i might very seriously need some sort of therapy to reestablish (or just establish) my basic ability
to generally connect with other human beings but also i think there is a chance that i am just occupying a time
& a place & a self that join to make it reasonable that i find so many people really banal & upsetting
maybe both. i imagine the latter like an undeniable background to the former, which
might be true to a very small extent or a very large one or anywhere in between
october 1st, 2021
sometimes i like to really try to imagine myself as the last human being alive. it puts into perspective how
much i psychologically need others, even just the idea that others exist, that even if i'm stuck alone on
a desert island for thirty years someone might still rescue me & i'll finally get to unload the experience,
release, write a novel about it or watch a smile cross a person's face as i recount an anecdote from that
time. but if i'm the only human alive? at that point, it's like... what is my perception? what does my
evaluation of my situation even count for? it's just my synapses firing impersonally. it doesn't matter
where i am or what i see, i'm a spectator to some firing synapses & nothing else. sure, if i had someone
else to relate to, that'd just be their synapses firing too, but that dynamic of synapses is just what i need,
it's what i value above my own, that's just my nature, i'm a machine designed to relate, i know what i want
compare this to feeling "alone in a crowd," compare this to parasociality, compare this to relying on
devices for receipts of having been seen & comprehended, compare this to alienation, compare this to
idiosyncrasy, compare this to autism, compare this to psychosis, compare this to social anxiety,
compare this to cultural rifts, compare this to judgment & resentment, of course
october 4th, 2021
it is like i genuinely want to embody adjectives like "welcoming" & "kind" but i am also starting to question whether in
my heart i really care about other people enough to bother reaching out & establishing any interpersonal medium to express
those traits in. am i just mindlessly clinging to those adjectives as shorthands for goodness, without regard for their real
true meaning & the complex dynamics that goodness is actually defined by? animal tortured by sentience more at eleven
october 7th, 2021
i've felt totally isolated my whole life & i suspect that it's because of some uniform qualitative difference between
me & most other people. the punchline is that i'm sort of incapable of really, honestly considering that possibility
specifically because some completely unidentifiable person, somewhere, at some point in the past decade, composed
a portrayal of a cartoon frog expressing the same sentiment. which, hey, is maybe for the best, maybe my
conscience is trying to tell me that it's a (kind of elitist) delusion that i have to fight against
october 10th, 2021
i don't know what i'd be doing if i didn't have access to the internet. it's like in that situation everything gets
constrained by actual physical geography, this unique globalized ability to amass & filter signals of personage is
taken away, the factors of isolation are each multiplied by a hundred. the absolute coolest people in a city end up
being, like... what, six tumblr users drawn completely at random from the userbase? & maybe you get a lucky break,
but, um. that's still drawing from the tumblr userbase. &, not being able to explore the internet, i wouldn't even get a peek
into this giant churning ball of garbage that, as it turns out, would be the underlying system piercing into my physical
social life, dictating aesthetic & temperament & whatever else. i wouldn't get to understand that
maybe i'd be completely debasing myself for the company & attention of people i don't relate to in the slightest. maybe i'd
be about the same, but immersed far deeper in isolation. maybe i would have killed myself! maybe i would have adapted, would
never have come to perceive a fundamental alienation between me, "them," & "the few people i feel i can find even online" in
the first place, & i'd be having elaborate, emotional, engaging talks with anyone in this city, every day. maybe i'd have
uprooted, started travelling, desperate to expand my odds of finding anyone, perhaps moved to a big populous city
i suspect that me's did exist before the internet was an
option. smattered helplessly across the landscape
october 15th, 2021
endless oscillation between an external interpretation of the situation ("people i am capable of loving,
platonically, romantically, or in any other form, already exist. there just simply happens to not be any
of them here, whether it is because this is a qualitatively miserable place, or whether i am just too
niche of a being such that it would prove true elsewhere") vs. an internal interpretation ("i am simply
in a state where i am incapable or unwilling to love anyone regardless of my setting or who is in it")
october 18th, 2021
when i picture a version of me who is prone to un-self-consciously throw her arms around someone, i'm basically imbuing an
imaginary golem with the characteristic of inevitably throwing her arms around them, like keyframes telling the arms to
start at one place & end at another, & i press play. it works precisely because the agency that i'd have to display in
reality is taken out of the equation. i'm creating an instance of myself who i can observe displaying agency
that's left implied, just like how my actual life is almost entirely restricted to observing others. it all scans
perfectly with the reality, where... what hinders me is my terror at having to display even the slightest
interpersonal agency. & it scans with how fractured my relationship to my own agency feels
october 19th, 2021
2 pm
i played bingo in the cafeteria. i didn't get a bingo. i might have finally taken my ultimate vengeance out on this
wretched world!!! but the girl with the outfits appeared & said she really liked my sweater, that i always have
the cutest outfits, & i finally told her that i really like how she dresses in general. i was very elated
11 pm
lying in bed, idly imagining saying more things to the girl with the outfits. there might be value or
interest in knowing the full emotional context behind my saying the compliment, which must
have seemed very spur-of-the-moment & uneventful, just simple reciprocation, when
for me it was really a great relief. i would say something like:
"yes, i kept seeing you around & wanting to compliment your fashion sense, i thought it had a unique appeal.
but i kept feeling incapable. it was actually making me pretty sad, because i felt like... i just wanted
to give a simple compliment but my shyness wouldn't even let me have that. then when you
complimented my sweater, & i finally seized the opportunity, that made me happy"
i guess i... don't really desire to say these things, the thoughts are just an expression
of that contrast, between the context & the actual moment of saying the compliment
anyway, at that point i realize how wrong i think it'd feel in reality to say that - "it made me happy when..." - even that
feels like too much of an unrequested bond. it's adorable, in concept, truly - people exchanging casual sentiments & then
stating, just to let someone know, that it made them happy. but in reality i think it would feel very wrong... it feels
like such molecular elements of my ability to bond with others are mucked up in this way that it feels hopeless
i dream of people ordering me to be affectionate with them - strangers approaching & hugging me without
asking, which on principle they could be criticized for in how it's really overstepping a boundary - even if
they were enormously lucky in hugging someone who dreamed of being hugged in precisely such a way
october 20th, 2021
opposing forces inside me: i would like for life to make it irrefutably clear to me that i should probably at
least try to be close with any other particular person. if this happens, though, i will feel like i have fortunately
"caught myself" viewing some constellation of random circumstances as an excuse for actually intruding on anyone
else's existence - the greater the certainty, the more deluded i'll regard myself as - & i will correctively
devote energy to never speaking to them or even looking in their direction
october 26th, 2021
it feels harrowing to think about how someone can satisfy the basic standard of not being an outright threatening
person but still be lonely because they are boring... it just seems like no boring people should be lonely when
dangerous people exist. but it doesn't seem to shake out that way. someone who is successfully not in the class
of threatening people just ends up having to navigate the standards of the nonthreatening people.
there's no reprieve. it's like it pays no mind to how there's threateningness at stake
i think my social life will be incredibly dispassionate for the rest of my life because i just don't care
about forming or inserting myself into tiny narratives like "express self-doubt -> receive support" or
"witness pain -> share pain" or "accomplish -> accept congratulation" or "affirm identity" or
anything like that. i don't embody anything for anyone else to have any stake in
october 28th, 2021
i've spent years indulging the temptation to rationalize it by trying to acquire some explanatory historical or cultural
perspective but at the heart of it is just blind animal anguish at the fundamental disconnect i feel between me &
nearly every other human being, & it's something that's probably just impossible to satisfactorily explain
neurological? circumstantial cultural alienation? systemic cultural promotion of things that are completely unreal, owing
to the socio-historical conditions i live in? only there because i believe it is? more dedicated to being un-conforming
in every aspect of myself than to being a human at all? social anxiety trapping me in a bad perspective that only
creates the impression? i don't know, life doesn't seek to make itself understandable to the person living it
i am a living suggestion of the idea of a very loving & connective person, i am the
remaining flimsy border of a photograph with the outline of a person trimmed out
it is very painful to think of how loving i could be under different circumstances. i imagine so many things
that it feels tragic to reduce it all to that single adjective. i want to be loving & earnestly forget all other
varieties of being. i want to prune a great number of the primordial seeds that my thoughts can arise from
look at this gif
october 31st, 2021
if i get coffee with someone, i want to feel like the situation is an expression only of the system of social exchange, which
deals in things like proximity & words & gifts & simple communicative touches. i want to feel, for a little while, like that
system is the bounds of all reality. imagine... a cartoon, imagine two cute chibi characters getting coffee & exchanging
dialogue. you know the bounds of what is generally possible in this style. as a viewer, you are supplied with
that assurance. nothing crazy can happen. it's a portrayal of the perfect ideal of social exchange
but life doesn't provide those guarantees, & so i feel burdened with this constant repressed awareness, that social exchange
is itself only embedded in the overall system of physical interactions, that it's only a carefully maintained pattern in
physics, that it's possible for me to reach over & physically hurt someone, that it's possible to have sex with
someone, that it's possible to depart entirely from coherent social exchange & speak in gibberish
& i'd like to think that there is a normal, healthy ability to limit oneself to only thinking in social
terms, that nothing like this ever crosses the other person's mind, but i'm quite afraid of the idea
that it does, that the wrong series of gestures could suggest outright threat. i don't want
all of this possibility to exist. i guess this is why fiction can be such a good escape
november 4th, 2021
my drive to engage with the outside is really waning. i don't actually want to experience any books, music, or films. the
curiosity dragging me along the process of taking them in is essentially compulsive. & lately i feel especially conscious
of a lack of passions that would drive me to speak with real openness & presence of mind, & qualities of being truly
responsive & dynamic, that i see in others as they discuss their passions. i do not want to dupe myself into
collecting or researching anything just because i am convinced it is filling a void. i am very reluctant
to join voice calls anymore. i am unwilling to display the independence of obtaining
my own place of residence, especially if it is beyond this city
there are numerous people in my life who pique my interest as potential connections to reach out to, but i am uniformly paralyzed
by the familiar & hard-to-articulate sensation of it being incredibly inappropriate. just stopping by to say hi to you feels like
too much of a connection, of a deepening, & i can't even tell you that it's too much of a connection, because even
formalizing it as something called a "connection" pushes it beyond the total fleetingness that it is supposed
to have. no i cannot walk with you without the most explicit possible verbal invitation, your posture is
not enough - i need to know that i am free of culpability in consenting to walk with you
i beat myself up on occasion for feeling self-centered: not especially caring about most of the people i know, who are
basically all online, to the extent that i should. but i don't think i have to beat myself up, really. here is why: none of this
is accompanied by the usual reward, succour, bonus, of the simple joy of speaking & then seeing a smile cross a face
in response, & also of not being afraid & uncertain & strained as it happens, of not averting my eyes as
if to be seen reaping the pleasure of that sight would be an obscenity
or to make unconcerned eye contact, or simply smile & nod as they recount something, or earnestly smile myself.
i lack the occasional doses of this which might at least viscerally remind me that what's happening in the text
boxes does at least correspond to these things happening off somewhere else. my humanity feels like the
dim vibrations of a virtuosic orchestra heard maximally muffled through a thick concrete wall
november 4th, 2021
gets scared when people online [type really clear-minded & insightful things that display, on a level beyond other things, that
there really are other conscious living people out there just like me], in a way that feels like repeatedly rationalizing the fact
that other people exist the way someone does when they are an infant... for unclear reasons, perhaps because it is easier to
accept & acclimate myself to the helplessness of being factually alone than it is to know that i am not alone & that it comes
down to my own volition whether i ever connect with anyone who is an exception to being alone. or that having a clear example
of consciousness introduces the notion of them being conscious & me not realizing that i am failing to actually be conscious
november 5th, 2021
envision a montage of several years in the life of the most endearingly silly person, then rewind & have them sequester alone
in a room instead until their happy thoughts start to fold in on themselves & form a self-sustaining mode of cognition where
they can come to regard themselves as very cynical & hideous. really apply your imagination to elaborating the sheer
contrast between the two states: how clear & real the former is, & how much of a negation the latter is
november 6th, 2021
my dislike of capitalism is viscerally rooted only in the sense of social alienation i have felt for my entire life & how,
although it could stem from all sorts of factors, i have come to attribute it a fair amount to capitalism based on the
general notions of like, the omnipresence of mass media & the inexorable slant of everything in mass media towards
marketability or control, which are directly at odds with the humanity of a given work. & that when someone is
born into & taught to live by these things it basically guts them of their soul like coring an apple & makes
them fundamentally removed from me. so i feel like i am living in a world that, in like, being guided by
capital, is basically completely oriented & straining toward what under ideal conditions would just be
my complete & total isolation with no escape except death... all the other stuff like pollution
& economic inequality & exploitation is just, like, oh crap it does that too
plz shriek like a caveman & smash this flimsy worldview to bits with a rock so i can consruct
a better one from the rubble O_O ... rebuttal 1: alex you don't voluntarily speak to anyone
1. the dreadful, looming awareness that no amount of trying to think about & dissect my constraints will count
for anything unless i actually apply it towards taking action in the direction of breaking through them...
2. a lingering kernel of delusion that maybe there is a threshold of dissection that will just fix things somehow, exempting me from
having to take action... that maybe the self-awareness of acknowledging 1 counts for something even in the absence of action
i am an immense coward
november 22nd, 2021
sometimes i fear that i'm perfect in my total unsociability. certainly not by my standards, but by "something's" standards
november 23rd, 2021
when i engage with a really absurd & rude person, there is obviously a feeling of welling frustration, & i've
always tended toward unconsciously attributing it to a vague rationale to the effect of: "they can't say that
without regret. there has to be an emotional penalty. but i'm not necessarily capable of administering it.
i don't know how to reconcile that." that rationale has never felt to me like there is any meat to it. it feels
hollow. not rooted in a more foundational rationale below it. it's just there, as if there's no alternative
i now prefer to attribute the frustration to loneliness. i suspect that it is a sublimation of the sense of
loneliness that is naturally inflamed if i feel like i am directly witnessing a quantitative decrement
of the number of the ultimately finite "resource" that is human beings who i am capable of
contacting & can conceivably engage with as other human beings on reasonable terms
to add to the sting: if i am walking down a road with no one to talk to, that is just loneliness as an
impersonal circumstance. but when someone is completely absurd, that's loneliness inflicted on me
as a conscious act: a member of the only class of thing outside of me that has the potential to
alleviate my loneliness is instead acting as a total inversion of that potential
i guess another way to frame it is... it can feel so natural to have enemies that i can forget that my dislike of their being
mean to me is even rooted in the corresponding rationales that i generally 1. want people to be nice to me; & 2. don't want
people to be mean to me. the relationship feels separate from those two considerations, somehow! it's like enmity has its
own separate space... once someone is being thoroughly mean, i totally forget to think of or wish for any better alternative
november 28th, 2021
sometimes i worry that i might have more learned emotional connection to a phrase like "hugs you" than to an actual act, which
by comparison would feel like an uncertain physical jumbling of stuff, lacking the sharp barrier between non-hug & hug which is
marked by the event of the communication of the phrase. & also lacking the explicit & indisputable intent. (how does a person
hugging another person not communicate indisputable intent? well it still does, but it feels less absolute. the verbalization
eliminates any chance of a disharmony between their bodily movement & what's going on in their head.) ...such
that i may need someone to literally hug me while saying "hugs you" so as to unify these things
i love how stupid it is that getting myself to do hard things like talk to people is just coercing a bunch of pathetic
microscopic abstract structures in my head to align in the direction of macro physical movements that are inevitably
just really simple & brutish in comparison. it's funny & stupid for instance that i will not socially walk across
a room & sit on a chair, & i really won't, there's no way around it, other than going through the maze
november 29th, 2021
anon asks are interesting. on their positive side, they do enable so much kindness that would go
unexpressed from people too shy to tether it to their identities. but, you know, the tradeoff
is clear: a vast pool of kind sentiments divorced from the faces behind them
i'm tired of anonymous messages, group chats, post replies, comment sections... the general phenomenon of the
comfortable diffusion of expressed interpersonal intent. it feels like a collective enabling. few restrict their channels.
few force people to approach them & to tether their identities to that act of approach. & so no one is obligated to
wear their face, or to point their sentiments straight at anyone. the courage to do this is left to rot indefinitely
this phenomenon simply couldn't persist if everyone restricted their channels & forced the choice: action, or
nullity. but people are left to wallow in the absurd sorts of logic that might, for instance, make a reply
okay but not a message, when they are completely arbitrary framings for the undifferentiated act
of communication. you want to say something! you do! own it! inhabit it! take the risk!
i sent a big letter to a stranger! i feel like it was a mistake, like genuinely, i'm admitting to you the reader right
now in this post that i feel like i misdirected my bravery & just made a freak of myself, & maybe you should think
"well, alex, in sympathy for whoever had to read a big weird letter, i'm looking down on you right now." ...to
be fair, i haven't received a reply, so i don't know it was a mistake. but, in the worst case, i still feel
like there is at least virtue in having embraced the uncertainty, of having reached out
right? i don't know
i feel like i can't "inflict" myself on anyone... it's absurd, the two options, the two broad
abstract options for approach. the first is a sort of interpersonal purity, a refusal to take risks
involving others - to the point of isolation. nothing bad can happen if nothing happens
the other approach is when you say to yourself one day, "i might harm or discomfit some people, i'm willing to
acknowledge this as part of the paths i might stray down in taking the risks needed to just exist sometimes."
& this could mean you, or you, or you. so should "you," the "reader," really endorse this? well, maybe
everyone must endorse it in each other, the abstract sacrifice needed to be ugly & real, ugly but real
okay, okay, in practice, in general social practice among most people, very little is harmful, very little is weird, very
little is severe, courtesies are maintained. it's like that for me too. i think i am realizing i may have simply made a
mistake. i regarded it... as a high risk with a potential high reward. something with many potentialities. but who the
hell creates risk? who goes & actualizes risk? abnormal behaviors. just keep to the un-harmful, un-weird, un-severe,
courteous waters. i thought i had to show myself i could perform an extreme opposite to reclusion, instead of
just stepping out & inhabiting the comfortable medium that's so available to step out into
nothing has to be so severe. nothing has to be so severe
you just try your best. you just try your best. you just try your best
& likely, only in exceptional cases, in contexts of severity, is there
even a need for you to try your best! typically, you can just be.
i do not want people who i think are good to hate me.
i do not want people who i think are good to hate me.
what is there to guide oneself with, beyond the evaluation of the other conscious beings
who are the entire reason for one to seek anything to guide themselves with at all?
the worst possibility, really: that the thinking around "taking risks" is entirely rooted
in weird insulated thought patterns & so there is no reasoning to actually appeal to
mortality is interesting as an ultimate justification for anything. it both endorses & opposes. on one hand, all of
our time is limited, we must explore all the possibilities available - with our uniform ephemerality, even the
bad won't matter that much... but then: why waste anyone's precious, limited time? it's all we have!
to breach into a "general unacceptability," as defined by some fair standard of measure. to, to, to.. i have always fearfully
fixated on the character of the "called out" or the "convicted" or the "exiled." how if you retain a status of "goodness"
& "acceptability" then the dealing-with of the bad is like a non-fatal exclusion of them from existence. no one
has to think of them any further. yet they still exist, gone, in the dark, unobserved. that is a self & a
circumstance that must still be inhabited by them. i try to imagine this & it's like annihilation
to breach into a "general unacceptability," & then the immature thing is to retract & not grow, even if that growth
has to take place off somewhere else, right? to just surrender to self-flagellation, to ostentatiously punitive
isolation, that's not the way to go. but really, really, really, i would want to toss all my gadgets in a trash
compactor & hole up under a blanket in a closet indefinitely & not be a problem anymore,
& even if i went crazy in there, there would not be anyone to suffer for it!
i can feel very dependent on forgiveness
yeesh, the severity of this post! it sounds like something happened! nothing happened... the progression of this
ramble was kind of ironic. i started out critiquing the idea that people enable one another to have the ease
of not directly approaching others, & meandered into, like, the fundamental terror of approaching others
i feel a want & a drive & a lack & a danger inside of me, & they feel like things that should only be felt by people who have
already mindlessly inhabited them. people who have imposed themselves on others, have pleaded for the acceptance of others,
have sought to possess others. i've never done anything like this & i know i don't have any inclination to. but this what
i feel: the "want," the "drive," the "lack," the "danger," all of which i suspect i am just making up, just imagining,
just applying as a label to normal desires for outreach & connection. & so it manifests not as imposition
& pleading & possession but a syndrome rather opposite to all three: self-isolation
november 30th, 2021
walking back & forth & not smiling & not wanting to report it so as not to disgrace the better times i reported before & wanting
a person to unconcernedly smile at & have it either be romantic or be very explicitly not romantic so that i can silence the
thoughts & simply have a friend, who doesn't disappoint me as my snobbish self & to dismantle artificial links between
closeness & romance so as to free closeness & let it inhabit its own simplicity & let it be expressed without having
to consult over-complicated societally-wrought interpersonal systems & devising fictional situations in my head
that are very sweet in such specific ways that i can't reasonably describe any of them but they would shatter
my silly grave mindset if only i could feel them & flickering my mind's eye between the same set of
mundane spots around town for no discernible reason & feeling the same one hundred percent
undisclosed anxieties crawl in the back of my head as i write as i have for nearly
every time i've written for a long time now but once didn't
december 5th, 2021
i would like to have the capacity to need another person. i want to feel very sad that someone is leaving. or rather, i do not want
to be sad in any case, but i do want there to be a person who, by their qualities that i love, awakens in me a capacity to be very
sad if they leave, even if this does mean having to eventually experience that sadness. unfortunately i think i would repress that
sadness in any case, since i have a great desire to not desire to possess anyone. that notion horrifies me. & being sad about
their departure seems like a case for retaining them. so i do not want to present that case, & so i do not feel sad. so
maybe i would not actually like to have the capacity to need another person. what do i want?
december 8th, 2021
the idealized romantic partner who i envision when i am sad is basically an incubus... he
just sours reality by establishing only his own absence, which is all he has to offer!
december 30th, 2021
it's never just "i dream of x happening," it's "i dream of x happening & it having y effect!" typically y is one
becoming happy. "i want so-&-so to touch my arm & this to fill me with euphoria!" ok, so really i want to be
euphoric, & my perceived lack of euphoria is easier to rationalize if i tether it to a conceivably realizable goal
you want someone to tell you your skin is very soft & this to make you euphoric! ...yet when the
time comes, it may come more like a simple & unadorned conveyance of bare information. It's soft.