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Itâs short enough, so let me try dropping the text here. Follow the link for an accompanying demo, the 59th unreleased song Iâve shared this year on my Substack newsletter, âorganizing an accidentâ.
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Wanting to be something youâre not is a form of suffering.
If we accept this as true, then life itself, as the Buddhists say, is suffering. This line of thinking has always resonated with me. It also immediately strikes up the beatnik whoâs squatting in my soul, saying things like: âHey baby, if this is wrong, than I donât wanna feel right.â
Itâs through our suffering, our yearning, our active participation in it allâthat we can pass from that which we âwere notâ to that which we âareâ now. Sometimes, this process is experimentally prodded and analyzed, with each shifting atom felt and celebrated. Other times, probably more often than not, we find ourselves abruptly at our unannounced point of arrival where we either stick out our thumbs and hail a ride back or get on with it, find some comfortable ground, and pitch a tent.
Where do we go from here?
The human condition is anything but permanent. Any semblance of permanence in our lives should be treated with utmost suspicion. From one second to the next within the microcosm, despite any recognizable turbulence, you and I and the world in which we inhabit are constantly transforming anew.
Resistance is futile.
Thus, we embrace change. Personally, I love change. I love big change, and I love it incrementally too. Whether it's discovering an entirely new country, writing a piece of music, choosing an unexplored route on a daily commute, or, yes, even the few gray hairs that have appeared on my head this year. It is in our nature, but due to a variety of obstacles and circumstances, some will always opt for or falter to a reality closer to a reenactment of The Sims, continuously walking into walls.
It is also in our nature to build bridges we'll later bomb, create moral and aesthetic standards we'll never exemplify, and partake in all manner of acts of self-sabotage. This could lead one to move cautiously through the world or worse, adopt a nihilistic posture towards it. The only greater tragedy than a person beaming with potential but paralyzed by fear is one motivated by cynicism.
Feb 22, 2024
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This might not make the most sense but if I donât write it I know Iâll be angry with myself.Â
As someone who has always naturally been drawn to archives and journals and stories- Iâve found that Iâve been trapping myself in the narrative. The idea that life is a singular, vertical narrative, that pain is not simply pain but part of some bigger cycle of distribution and retribution. That pain is naturally repaid with love or safety or comfort. This narrative keeps me coddled in myself, it keeps me safe from having to face the fact that tomorrow might not be easier than today. That this year might not feel much better than last year. That as some things go on, they donât always get lighter. They donât alchemize from emotionally pain into material pleasure.Â
The heroâs journey tells us that the narrative follows simple steps. We are called- your alarm, a Britney Spears song, plays in the morning. Your car breaks down in an unfamiliar part of the city. Thereâs a death in the family. Whatever it is, the call is something that moves us from familiarity to the unknown. It pulls the hero into the journey. We will then face the unknown and hopefully overcome it. But what about the calls that we donât answer? Or when we get stuck in the unknown? What about when we are braver than brave and we still cannot overcome everything? Iâve learned that sometimes our pain doesnât come with atonement. Sometimes there is no return.Â
Life doesnât fit into the narrative. The alarm in itself is a narrative, you set it the night before, or maybe you set it three years ago and youâve been waking up to the same song every single day. The car is a narrative, the unfamiliar side of the city is a narrative. Why havenât you been there? The death is a narrative explored and experienced by every person in your family, every friend of the dead, every coworker who called the morning after to see why they didnât show up when their alarm went off that day. Everything is a million narratives coinciding and to trap ourselves into one, to tell ourselves only one story, is blinding us to the intricate nature of life. We cannot exist in only one dimension, and to choose to exist in various different- sometimes beautiful and sometimes horrible- narratives at once is to choose to stop coddling oneself, to stop following your pain like it always has something to give you.Â
Sometimes it doesnât. Maybe thatâs fine.Â
Mar 11, 2024
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working from what may seem like very surface level cliches but stay w me here
((tldr: why not just believe that its all working out for the better, even if thats not what you planned? also, empathy and objectivity are a solid duo that id like to see in combination more frequently.))
putting this at the top because this is a dissertation, at best; psychosis, at the other end of the pendulum.
sooooooo the fact that u have no control over life liek At All. has been a consistently terrifying concept for FOREVER as a shorty who is Clinically a control freak, but realizing that the unpredictable essence that makes all of this shit unnerving is the very thing that can take the weight of life off of your shoulders has been pretty revolutionary.
im still digesting/integrating it one bite at a time, for sure, so call me a hypocrite ESPECIALLY if you know me personally. when in clarity, though, its been so pleasant to realize that since Nothing truly matters that much since nothing is set in stone anyway- w regard to action, approach, fulfilling temporary expectations of yourself, whether or not you reach short term goals, etc.- living life completely and utterly for yourself and whatever that means to you at any given moment will likely ultimately be the plan that brings you most fulfillment, when all is said and done.
whether that means taking the risk and changing your major, taking that freaky elective bc it sounds cool, moving in w some randos in a townhouse, quitting your job and starting something new- maybe it winds up being an epic fail, who knows? as long as youre setting goals that align with an ultimate sense of who you are and what youre looking to get out of life, which i presume can be solidified further by pursuing said experiences just for the sake of it? right? helps u figure out what u actually want? and as long as you keep bareback essential priorities straight (financial and emotional stability come to mind), then theres no reason for impermanence to work against you.
this also counts for people, as well. i feel like we hold others to critical standards, as we should, but contemporarily tend to neglect the fact that people DO change. morals/how you view the world are impacted by experience, and we are all fruits of very very different trees. completely dependent on circumstance, of course, empathy/understanding/consequential second chances are side-swept under the premise of respect/accountability. accountability is CRUCIAL, but i feel like so many of us (myself included) take that to heart and forget that figuring out how someone got to some place is a key aspect of understanding whether or not their position was truly from a place of lack of respect? if that makes any sense??
i also have been thinking about this a lot: my best friend throughout middle school and i fell out the summer before sophomore year overâŠnothing? idk, 3 years of seeing each other every single day (neighbors) to no contact until senior of high school- still werenât talking regularly or anything though.
2 years ago, she turned 20. i posted an old photo of us because, despite everything, 20âs a big one.
this year, weâve spent late nights on facetime, drove to watch the sunrise after hours of catching up on god knows what on the hill where we would listen to music while her mom cooked dinner, and sheâs been my go to for any necessary bitching/ranting during whats been the worst year my mental health has ever seen??
time is your friend, if you let it be. connections arent a race in any dynamic, and itâs never over if itâs truly meant to happen.
let life change. i think.
Dec 5, 2024
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-> is a quote from my journal that i wrote in a few long months ago. like with what i write, ever, i always expect whatever thoughts and feelings i express to amount to none or be something i cringe at. i don't want that to happen anymore, no matter how seen this account is.
-> i'll often confuse myself as to what being different means, because with black and white thinking it really is like turning an on and off switch. the changes come how i wanted them to be, and everything else different in me gets swept aside or doesn't change at all.
-> deep down, i know change needs to happen. in that same journal, i'd write off-hand phrases of "maybe some on-spirit growth can happen i don't know". i'd sweep my wishes away because they felt too grand for me to deserve or act upon.
-> right now, i'm good at acknowledging my issues and admitting to them, even if its to myself. i'm at a standstill of what to do about them, but i'm hoping to start thinking of it as practice. as a rehearsal, that being better is muscle memory. there's no switch to it and i guess i need to concurrently shape whatever i do.
-> but that's it, for something that i feel like would bring grand change to everything and everyone around me, it feels too little for such a large result. do these things really add up in scale? am i communicating this in legible words this time?
Jan 19, 2025
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Feb 13, 2024
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If youâre not familiar, this is the best concert calendar for gigs in nyc. I wish it existed in every city.
Some fav venues depending on whats happenin: Babyâs All Right, Union Pool, TV Eye, The Sultan Room, Bowery Ballroom, Music Hall of Williamsburg
Jazz, etc: Ornithology, Smallâs, Nublu, BarbĂšs, LunAtico
Feb 22, 2024
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Itâs the same life but way better.
Feb 8, 2024