Hi to the readers. We’re back with newly developed film photos, new months to write about and new promises of consistency to abandon.
I saw Charli XCX perform at a music festival and she ended her set staring at the camera while the words NO ONE LASTS FOREVER flashed on the screen. She stood that way for over two minutes and the gusty wind and mist blew her hair and her backup dancers breathed heavily and pulsed around her. It was cinematic but I remember thinking that the sentiment was sooooooo obvious. and also kind of at odds with the image of a pop star grappling with leaving a mark on culture. But then again I think I could use that reminder – that everything is essentially impermanent. Which maybe means that we shouldn’t be thinking so hard about everything. There really isn’t much we take with us in the end, there is just the outward ripples of our actions. Which will also end somewhere.
To cope with the idea that I am essentially a fruit fly, I really need to feel like a person. But it turns out that it is soooooooooo hard to be a person who feels like a true individual. yada yada algorithms – we don’t really like them. But I like to do things and buy things and say things in the hope of them shaping me. Is the antidote to look inward? I’m trying to be envious of myself lately. So let’s try to fall in love with clothes and things I already own. Try to just be good to the people around me and not be so bitter! Try to write more, though we see how that is going. It’s really easy to blame everything and anything when I don’t have a strong sense of self. But that can only come from one place. (I kind of love when people just tell me what to do.)
I’ve always felt safest and most like myself alone in my room at night, listening to something, writing something or crafting something. Lately, nights are precious. If there isn’t work to accomplish, there are beloved people to spend time with. There is my brain’s fatigue, and then its craving for thoughtlessness. And now that I’m returning to my own ritual, I feel a little anxious that I am supposed to be doing something else. Could this be growing up? An indicator of becoming extraverted in the displacement of time for myself for time with others? [Weirdly, I kind of love being people’s coworker. I think having shallow and amusing conversations to distract from work is something I am good at. I wish that in itself was the job. To get polite laughs out of everyone.] It’s okay to feel like change is occurring as we speak. and it’s okay to want and need new things.
I hope we can feel the promise of oblivion in its best form. To see ourselves as fully, finally and temporary. The idea that impermanence is good for us because it is freeing and not a trap. Not existential dread, but a promise of liberation. okay, time to stop here probably.
End-of-Month | webzine and blog 