is it gauche to do a year end retrospective almost 5 months into the following year with no warning? who cares.
best movies i watched for the first time in 2025
Massillon (1991)
Limbo (1999)
The Black Tower (1987)
Monster Road (2004)
Reflections of Evil (2002)
best video essays i watched for the first time in 2025
For-Profit (Creative) Software
astronomy has a colonialism problem
How To Become A 37 Year Old Broke Loser
Scientology's Friends In Washington
Fantasies of Nuremberg
best albums i listened to for the first time in 2025
The Callous Daoboys - I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven (2025)
could be better - i hope you look back on this time fondly (2025)
Jadewick - I'll Take You With Me (2025)
Mensa - Classtraitor (2025)
Merauder - Master Killer (1996)
big year for being emo
ten random things about 2025 that i enjoyed
starting a sticker store and using it as an outlet to make more graphic designs and also make a little extra cash
tabling at more than one art event in the city
meeting a new group of friends that seem to instantly be on the same wavelength with me and being inducted into their sphere effortlessly
taking a break from the club to remember that i love going to punk shows in dirty basements with people slamming into each other
finally getting off twitter and also going sober
using my digicam instead of my phone camera
getting on more meds and starting couples counseling
watching more weird esoteric movies, often at home, but sometimes in theaters #moviemindset
rekindling friendships with people i used to be very close to but have drifted apart from in recent years
getting a substantial raise at my job that actually makes it worth it to be working there
pretty much exactly 50/50 on 2025 sucking vs owning. lots of great memories made and lots of wonderful new friendships fostered. at the same time a lot of real hardship, personal pain, and necessary growth as a result of tremendous depressive spiraling. but every single fucking day we get back up and move forward and that's what it's all about god dammit. became fatter and more crippled this year and i've still got motion, baby. life starts at 31.
content warning for discussions of: death, depression, suicide, family trauma, and general vibes of apocalypse and destruction
prologue: chemicals can't be trusted
every day we fight an ongoing war of attrition being waged between mind and body. the mind's desire to be free and the body's need to be controlled by its circulatory systems of fluids and chemicals. either side in contention with the other causing the tethered threads between the two to wane. creating an antagonistic stalemate between physical corporeal necessities and the abstract yearnings of conscious thought.
and while it is true that the body keeps the score, when the interwoven stitching of our makeup is not in synchrony, neural pathways get carved into the roots of the brain that make the development of both sides uniquely centrifugal. creating disparities that go on to greatly affect our every day lives. when the digressions start, the balance can never fully be restored. all that's left in moving forward is to strategize how to level the playing field whenever possible.
finding stability in life is difficult. the longer our time on earth goes on, the more we are besieged by powers outside our control. trapping us into archaic response cycles that shield attacks from the unloving and immutable world around us. but it is not impossible to dig a path through that keeps our heads above water. one that gives us a vantage point to see beyond the trenches of dynamic warfare.
focused choices and changes will create fresh neural pathways with intention dug into them. paths that allow for more space to breathe, time to think, and energy to focus. finding out how and to what degree to get the neurons firing can cement progress in ways far more efficient than waging war on the self. and this disarming of that which is deployed deep within our psyche will expand our vision on which directions we wish to walk.
but there is always a homing beacon. a lighthouse guiding every fork in the road back to a collective, conclusive terminus. the distant glimmer shining towards that one being which we all eventually come to know. perhaps the only universality among man. waiting for the very moment our journey ends.
chapter one: she comes for us all
on january 2nd, 2002, my grandfather passed away. i'm told he went peacefully, but i was not there to witness it. being informed of his passing at age seven was my first memory of honest to goodness depression, not just sadness. it was also my first real encounter with death.
a few weeks prior, we visited grandpa in the hospital for christmas. my dad surprised him dressed up as santa claus and everything. i didn't know until many years later that he was initially hospitalized there after suffering a series of strokes. nor did i know that at the first hospital he was admitted to they gave him an irresponsibly strong dose of sedatives. sending him into a PTSD war flashback psychosis that permanently damaged his brain and nearly killed him on the spot.
but grandma's passing eleven years later was much more visible to me. after grandpa went, she had to be put in assisted living. succumbing to worsening dementia and monitored for 24 hours by overworked and underpaid nursing staff passing through the place like a revolving door. my dad would take the 6 hour roundtrip drive nearly every weekend to see her, talk to her, and just keep the gears in her head going as best he could while she still had time. but there wasn't much any of us could do to quell what we all knew was coming.
in 2013 she passed away. her slow descent into end of life twisted my world view of how cruel death can be. with grandpa the adults in my life kept his suffering less visible to us. but with grandma i had to witness the fun loving granny with sassy t-shirts who played checkers with me as a kid get mercilessly stripped away from illness year after year. and all i could see by the time it was over was the dying light of someone who i feel didn't deserve to lose their humanity. it was devastating.
"it comes for us all," they say. but death can hardly feel real until you see signs of her peering into your world. stealing your loved ones away for what surely feels like a trip to the other side unjustly taken. death can be cruel that way. but she's a harsh mistress with which we all flirt. throughout our lives we come to form a foundational bond together. i feel she is a misunderstood figure in the land of the living. her likeness, her specter, and the experience of leaving with her all separate facets that too often get lost in the dialogue of our conversations.
there's much to glean from how we connect with death. a deconstruction of our relationship casting a reflection back on what we are pouring our energies into. perhaps death needn't be scary, nebulous, nor all-encompassing. perhaps she can instead be: a friend. maybe there is more to discover by affording ourselves the opportunity to listen to what she has to say.
chapter two: we must destroy ourselves to save ourselves
to know death is to see her as an equal. to be in conversation with her is to accept her as part of our community. to grow beside her inviting the questioning of the vagaries constructing our confused existence. it's in this bond that we can come to define the self, understand our actions, and see the world we are cultivating.
as we develop in early life, we learn to perceive outside forces gradually. eventually landing on distinctions that make us unique from our environment; however facetious their definitions may actually be. it is in this process that the self takes shape, habitually forming an identity as we evolve. it is an inescapable part of the human experience.
but what shape ends up being created is entirely in the artist's hands. our clay has malleability and is molded out of the cumulative experiences of everything that crosses our path. each a fresh notch in our cosmic design. death's touch, one we "brush shoulders with" as they say, is a precious resource to be gained in this evolution. helping concoct an overall picture of ourselves that is fluid, yet nonetheless recognizable. a self that is distinct, but still entrenched in its surroundings.
precious few choose to make bedfellows with death in this life. so rarely building settlement for her to be our familiars in. most wish to deny her touch. creating a shadow over their journey that becomes perniciously warped with time. it is here where we are introduced to her specter. the cloak of a ghost cast wide and immune to even the strongest resistance. we cannot truly know death if we are stuck in the shadow of this rejection.
for millennia our species has painted death's portrait in as many ways as we've depicted images of christ. hoping to understand her in the same way we seek to know the holiness of the lord. and to paint an image of death, there must confer a meaning onto what she represents. there must be a desire to categorize her; to create myth. but in so doing she has become less understood as a corporeal form made manifest by the visions of the inspired, and more the tortured reflections of the painters behind the canvas.
our sympathy for death's plight relies on the freedom of radical acceptance. to understand ourselves as a partner in her dance, not her adversary. but the crosses we bear too often act as karmic debts throwing us into paths of least resistance. away from this freeing embrace and into the very concepts of shame and judgement that blind us. from here death can only remain a shadowed figure. her abstraction granting her omniscience; lest she run afoul the perceptions of fallibility. this veil of mystery primarily representative of our fears of the unknown more than anything she speaks into the wild.
we need not be occupied by the questions of what lies beyond our grasp. we must trust what is present and within reach. death is trying to help us. she may not have the most deft hand, but she still makes statements. her words seeking to create balance where there has been great disparity. and we can choose in these moments to see her as a punishing deity or as a force for great dynamic change, for equalization. one who helps us comes to grips with what we are and how we act. in this acceptance we can come to know her more intimately. it is here, where we can begin to call her our friend.
--
our lives are built on fractions of time. a bevy of mistakes and embarrassments that grant us humanity. in the transparency of playing the fool we can find something meaningful nested in those blurs that make the world spin. the qualities of life that keep our momentum, a rhythm bringing tranquility to an existence that is dizzying. one that is painfully unknowable, chaotically entangled with every other soul on earth, but one that is no less poetic in its interconnectivity.
life's limited scope is what gives it meaning. we can feel emotions more intensely when they are small enough to be personal. to most, abstraction is necessary to manufacture comfort. there will never be enough time to know every soul. we cannot build universes of knowledge in our brains as complete as ancient libraries, and we shouldn't try to. but a shared dialectic of what is ours and what is outside our scope helps us grapple with the trials at a more comprehensible scale. we simply must settle in with life's confusing limitations and understand them as worthy of appreciation, of love. to believe anything less discards notions that any of it is worth experiencing at all.
we cannot build homes in the darkness. each light we carry casts definition onto our character and shadow. there is no need to wear a mask. we are always going to be what we are. no matter how much change comes about. to exist is to be seen. to be alive is to be known. and we cannot nurture ourselves without seeing each other. we must endure the torture of recognition. we must brace the trials of being naked. we must know the shame of being human. only in this open display can we make any sort of connection at all.
it is all too prescient that we take these lessons with us as we go. to surrender our pride, individualism, and resistance to liberation in the face of a dying world. there is still hope out there, found in the uplifting spirit of untold numbers working in harmony to create a brighter vision. a better world for all. it's imperative that we interlock arms with these bandied masses and push back against the great flames fanning the atmosphere. because god, you and i both know, those flames are very, very tall.
chapter three: apocalypse is inevitable
when i was younger, i sketched an idea for the perfect performance of ritualistic suicide. conceptualizing the peak of an idealized enlightenment and inner peace that granted me the opportunity to exit this earth on my own terms. beginning the cycle of death and rebirth by walking directly into the sea at sunset, like godzilla retreating homeward bound, alone and in synchronous harmony with death and mother earth all at once.
but tantalizing as it may be to fantasize of total bliss in death, these days that dream has lost its desirability to me. i have seen too much to know that this sensation of complete balance will never come. my understanding of death's presence now more a reaction to her hand taking those around me and showing them her kingdom than an opaque desire to be her most trusted ally. instead, i choose to be linked to the world death is constantly eyeing. my voice just another in the cacophony of pained cries vibrating through the airwaves, but one i still hope is heard by the others screaming in harmony.
is there really room to find peace in this noise?
i think shifting focus to a pastoral understanding affords a broader perspective, sure. we cannot save our world alone. nor can we feel connected to it if we don't consider the others who occupy it. but in the tangible here and now it is paramount that we also consider the worst possible outcome: our own annihilation. complete and total destruction of everything and everyone around us happening as we speak. no future for the generations being born right now. what are we to do then, when the ground we walk on gets burned and the shores swallowed by the ocean? how exactly do we fan those flames?
if you trace the paths of those who have become swallowed by death's specter you will find settlements built in the thickest of glass houses. fortresses for our species' most spineless and cruel. those who abandoned their souls to nurture fortified structures of power and caste. hierarchical systems that have damned the very soil we walk on and cast pestilence into the very air our screams get caught up in. there is more that is terrifying in our current moment than in the mystery of a ponderous future. more worrying and apocalyptic in the traditions and hegemonies of man's own selfish wrought that exist right in front of us.
we know it's here and we've known it's coming. our species' great evangelism for industrialization expediently propelling us toward collective genocide. the capitalists have stripped our home of everything that makes her whole. choosing to dredge up the sludge and bones buried deep within her bounds and count them like coins. funneling every last morsel back into the slaughterhouses that churn endless bodies to dust over decades of unvalued labor. catastrophe is here. the result of this harrowed ritualistic sacrifice for the false gods of capital. the fallout of pushing the very concept of "civilization" to its extremes. they have thrust the anthropocene upon us, and so our hand is forced in the process.
our mother earth has no preoccupations with tradition. she ebbs and flows in response to the planets outside her. in community with that which is greater than her. without our presence she knows the passage of time as only the erosion of the rocks and shifting of the tides. mother earth exists as we were meant to. free from systems and the rigid calculus of pattern recognition. if we all listened to her, we would live for hundreds of thousands more years in lockstep with her ongoing transformations.
but man, in his hubris, has made manifest horrors beyond mother earth's conception. terrors that death could not even hope to conjure by herself. this myth of the "great man," a callous framework for justifying destruction heretofore unfathomable. for centuries now, we've been the occupiers. we've colonized that which is supposed to move with us. creating grounds stillborn for other thieves, rent-seekers and sooners to tear apart and paint over ad nauseam.
now much of our home is no more trees and desert than it is brick and cement. we've broken the agreement to dance in step with mother earth. choosing instead to conquer her. placing down roots and forcing out life we see as unworthy of settling beside us. filling the air with methane and salting the earth with toxins. it never had to be this way, but the exiling of the people who sought to listen to the land has turned what's left into occupied territory.
there will be no equilibrium to keep our world from being sullied by those who wish to plunder it, and none can be found from within while the earth is being killed. the desire to maximize creature comfort over human connection for the sake of profit has turned us into bitter beings. the powerful hierarchies forged to keep man in his place doing little to balance a craving for blood, nor to satiate the tortured masses. the myth of the individual is what haunts this planet, not death. dooming a great many to a fate they had no hand in earning.
there is blood in the fields, blood in the factories, blood in the trucks, blood in the air and the water and the mangled manufactured harvest of that which is entirely unnatural; unholy. we're not supposed to live like this. we're not made to fulfill the pipe dreams of autocratic fools. the ugly and cruel ideals of soulless demagogues who wish for a world where the strawberries never go out of season. a world where it doesn't snow. a world where the trees burn so that we are forced not to lay under them. there is no happiness left to be found in their world. only a warm gun.
i fear our species is reaching its Great Dying. a self-inflicted wound of capital and colonization that paved the way for desolation. a great bleeding out of a population poised to reach closer to the sun than any other has come, only to meet the same fate as icarus. the sky is falling and none of us have arms big enough to catch it, much less put it back in its natural place. there is no lord that can forgive us in this wake, for we knew exactly what we were doing. and yet, we just did not care.
when we reach the kingdom of heaven, will we be judged on our role in this destruction of god's creation? are we as a people to blame for the hubris of the few? why must we be sacrificed for the dreams of those with blood in their eyes and rage in their hearts? surely, there is room for something else before it all comes crashing down. something equitable and agreeable that could be better, while there’s still precious time. there must be something in the collective that can at least make the bombs raining down feel less painful. i'd hope that in dying times, death more than anyone, could be our friend.
chapter four: god doesn't build bombs
it can be tempting to become antagonistic in the face of total darkness. to want to form an equally great armament for mutual destruction as a counterattack. a crimson wave come to cleanse the earth of her colonizers. there is something comforting in the idea of being pulled into abyss to give mother earth a clean slate.
but if you are willing to breed annihilation, where will you hide when there are no trees left? when no tall blades of grass can obscure the faces of those who soiled the earth, will you feel any different than they who built the tanks and pipelines? will you find peace when the reckoning comes? will you give yourself up to be swept in mother earth's call to reset?
nihilism is purely theoretical in our world. entirely inactionable in a space where existing alone grants itself purpose. you can break the code of your identity, but you can never escape from it. martyrdom not historically faring much better. what we should never be beneath this crushing boot is complacent. giving up autonomy in service of a moral high ground will get you nowhere. gods and pharaohs will do nothing to hasten the apotheosis of our extinction. they serve only to fall back into the very myth of individual that got us here in the first place. you cannot claim to be outside the radius of the bombs. you're in the warpath just as much as the rest of us.
we don't live in an imagined past where theory can overcome ideology without praxis. maybe in times of antiquity war could be romantic. there could be nobility in sacrificing one's self for a perceived greater good. but the power funneled into creating that placation mechanism for generations was merely a facade to mask the bloodshed. we know too much now. claiming ignorance is no longer an option. we've seen how the jokers at the top play with us like toy soldiers. and we cannot unsee their naked displays of greed. we can't opt out of apocalypse.
in times of hardship, only those with the ability to form bonds can survive. we humans are pro-social. it's the only reason we've lasted long enough to have this dialogue. so we must answer the ever daunting call to organize in order to continue on. to forge coalition for peoples who need the utmost protection. we have to be vulnerable, we have to be honest, and we have to see beyond the masks. we need strength in numbers. enough of us in a greek phalanx who will fend off the cataclysm of the few that wish to tear us apart. and we need to push and shove until the line moves and the bastards topple from their thrones.
this means slipping and falling and getting back up again. it means making mistakes. it means admitting failures. it means taking accountability. it means trusting our fellow fighter. learning and unlearning and going back to the drawing board many times over. creating this line of defense will be uncomfortable and new. but we must not shy away. we must poke and prod at each other until we have something cohesive. something consistent and able to stand on its own. but also something transient, ever-evolving. we cannot move through this fog without our high beams on. so we must be ready to adapt and change for any circumstance that arrives. be malleable.
you won't get anywhere lying to yourself or keeping things from others. sure, you need not be an open book to be accepted. but you should be able to find out which people and in what situations you can share your emotions with. find the safe spaces where you can yell and cry and be completely unfiltered when you need it. create something sacred out of the fractured pieces that we all carry with us. use your skills to strengthen your bonds and you will never feel truly alone. because we all deserve to find our home. we are all empathetic creatures who understand nuance and can hold dialectics. there should always be space to find a home within each other.
we have to be ready to show up when the going gets tough. lend our bodies and our spirits to heal the wounds when the time comes. everyone has something to offer. maybe you can drive, cook, sew, provide shelter, or tell a good story. no displays of kindness will go unnoticed. you have to pitch in and be vulnerable. be willing to connect with strangers. be willing to do tasks for others. be willing to inconvenience yourself to support your people. it's only in our reciprocity of love and care that we can grow alongside each other. be a security blanket and the winters will seem less cold.
and yes, we must fight. everything that is precious and worth holding close is in constant danger of being destroyed. we must strategize how and when to lob crushing blows at our oppressors. they need to be stripped of their power, deplatformed from their influence, held at trial and fed back into the very death machines they built to be torn limb from limb when all is said and done. nobody should govern above the people. they should be buried beneath them if they even try. we must be tactical in how we send this message. because the earth is crying out every day for someone to speak up and save her. choose to be her ally, not theirs.
but be weary in your methodology. understand each move as just one piece in your arsenal for fighting back. no singular outlet will make change happen on its own. many have tried and failed in your wake. don't be the fool that plays the hero. commit yourself to being part of something greater. that is the only way we can bring down the towers, by working hand in hand. the most effective ways to dethrone power rely on working together, not going rogue. so remember, a death drive will always arrive at the same terminus. have fun staring god in the face if that's what you wish, but god's seen more than you have.
chapter five: let yourself have it
everything you do will be imperfect. there will be no overarching standard of singularity to the self you craft. a consistency will be built over years of radically diverse experiences. the great balancing act one that you take on, finding whatever ballast you need to keep yourself moving forward. let yourself be what you already are. be broken and bruised and scarred and let it all shape the face you wear every day. because the world will keep on spinning anyway. give yourself some grace and be true to what you have inside. nurture your inner child and make peace with your mortality. you cannot connect with the world without connecting with yourself.
you don't have to have all the answers. nobody does. not even death, not even god. but you should keep asking questions. find the threads woven tightly within your psyche and learn when it is valuable to pull on them. challenge what you know, why you think what you think, and what you may be projecting onto others. the world is friendlier than you may have thought. your people will be more accepting of you if you are accepting of yourself and of them.
you are allowed to have it. you are allowed to be loved. you are allowed to be who you really are, at your worst, at your lowest, and still find peace. you can do it. i believe in you. no matter who you are or what you're going through. i believe that you can make it out of this hell. in a storm of bullets or walking like godzilla into the sunset. you will find a life worth living in this twisted cavalcade of madness that we all slog through. it will never feel complete and many days will still feel unconquerable, but you will move through them all the same.
so keep going. for yourself, for your community, for your world, keep on fighting the good fight. your efforts will not go unnoticed. mother earth, death, they will watch as the days roll on. you are in good company if you look back upon them. if you embrace your time in this life then you will go peacefully into the next. and they will bury you with flowers in the end. take care, take time, and take one for the team when you can. we will all be better for having known each other when the war is over. so embrace the darkness, and let it guide you toward the light.
i've started using tumblr again. and with each new login comes a wave of nostalgia to wash over me. from revisiting blogs of friends i made on there a decade ago, to experiencing the idiosyncrasies of the site i forgot existed, to seeing posts i reblogged back in 2013 still being in circulation, it's been a journey. and looking back, honestly? i kept an impeccably curated blog. i've maintained that centralized hub for the type of visual styles, poetic themes, and moody atmospheres that are so appealing to me for the last 11 years. and the prevalence of comfort i feel in that content, specifically the images, has moved to the forefront of my blogging experience as i make my return home.
there's something... i don't know... calming? about a social media feed that is only meant to pleasure my neural pathways. one that is primarily built to satisfy my tastes and get me excited about what i'm looking at. it's purely a good-images-in / good-brain-chemicals-out transaction when i look at my dashboard. none of the trappings of other modern social media apps exist on tumblr. or more accurately they are easier to avoid over there. no, instead of being subject to a random 20-year-old's halfcocked take against my will, tumblr is predominantly focused on just ingesting some Vibes. and i'm all about a good vibe.
vibe check: i'm a scorpio, so being broody and romantic is kinda preprogrammed into me. i find beauty in the emotional. i find comfort in that which is spiritual and that which comes from inside the heart. the art, the memories, the positive associations that dig down deep and settle into my psyche are all burning expressions of humanity, expressions of the soul. they are what sticks out among the mundanity and cruelty of everyday life to me. visual media is perhaps the most prominent outlet for expressing such concepts. no matter how abstract, how messy, or how intentional, a static image will always be a portrait. and that portrait necessarily becomes the canvas for audience projection.
it stands to reason then, that every image we encounter begets a mental process by which meaning is formed. and rest assured, not all content needs a thorough definition to be ascribed that meaning. not every jpeg needs lore. but every form of visual stimuli does require passing through the barrier of our complicated minds to land an impression, even if it's a passing one.
the way our brains will carry out that work is fascinating to me. all of it happens on the back of a plethora of experiences we've had over our lifetimes. we are all not but the summation of every single interaction and lived experience we've ever had, after all. so our interpretations of what we see are based around that foundation of life experiences in aggregate. our tastes and worldviews likewise formed as a result of that exposure. we are then, informed by what has touched and moved us in the past. every new image to digest becoming another piece of the puzzle that is forever forming and rearranging itself in our brains, and mirroring back on what is already there.
so while not all jpegs need to have Things To Say, all of them do invite the opportunity to have something, anything, to be heard. what we are hearing then projects back onto that canvas. thus creating a new, separate portrait, one of a crystalized idea in our heads. and so our interpretation gets codified by the end of this interaction. the full cycle of a process that is fundamental to looking at any image; and one i've enjoyed having over and over again on tumblr lately.
for the pragmatic of you thinking i'm getting too flowery here, ian danskin has a wonderful video about art and meaning called The Artist is Absent that has a detailed breakdown of how human beings interpret language. within the breakdown ian explains this phenomena more beautifully and succinctly than i ever could. so, to borrow for a moment,
inside every brain are thoughts in a mother tongue spoken by only one person. and to speak and be heard is to go from one private language into a "shared code" and then into another private language. the translation is always imperfect.
[...]
all communication is collaborative. even when i'm the only one speaking, we make meaning together.
the jpeg, in my interpretation, is that shared code. when the creator wills one into existence it starts this cycle anew. giving those interacting with the jpeg the opportunity to ascribe a personal meaning to it that will never be the same as anyone else's. all communication is collaborative, or put another way, all art is inherently interpretative.
me personally, i like introspection. i like expressions of vulnerability. i like when things get messy, when they get abstract, when their messages are intentional. i find euphoria in intimate and emotional displays. so the type of content that i flock to ends up being highly personal. you can imagine then, that having a refuge for nothing but visual media that plays into those desires, would insight its own form of sentimentality. a unique comfort that comes in being allowed to yearn, to opine, to romanticize and to wear my heart on my sleeve. it's something all of the other government-mandated-five-apps-everyone-uses-these-days sorely lack. every time i log into tumblr, i am faced with the opportunity to openly engage in this interpretive dance. to romanticize a jpeg and allow that genuine expression contained within to be openly seen and heard. and i don't know, that feels very liberating to me right now.
it's a freeing feeling, akin to when i was active on the site years ago. back when tumblr was an exciting place where i met friends, gained hyperfixations and really formed my personality in realtime as a young adult. but eventually the site just became another feed. and the images, while still resonate, felt a bit more like a necessity to maintain a curated blog than artistic work to genuinely connect to. aesthetic upkeep, so to speak. but being back after several years of hiatus has invited this new magic. this freedom to get lost in other artist's ideas again. this feeling of immersion inextricable to art that inspires, art that captivates. that's really what i am trying to describe to you. there's passion to be found there again. inspiration and delight to be had on the platform once more. and the jpegs, my friend, the jpegs are plentiful.
whereas content on other apps tends to pass through me these days leaving zero impression, tumblr feeds me jpegs that warm my heart with love. jpegs that trigger a profound sadness within me. jpegs that light my eyes up with wonder. jpegs that make me introspective and melancholic. jpegs that exude a dark decrepit quality. jpegs that evoke a lingering nostalgia. jpegs that titillate, jpegs that frighten, jpegs that confuse, jpegs that intrigue, jpegs that make me uncomfortable. there's nostalgia, romance, elation and so much more in the jpegs i see every day. the feelings run the gamut but the consumption is always joyous; the emotions always bountiful.
maybe this feeling isn't so unique. maybe this is just what reconnecting with a platform that used to excite you feels like. maybe this is just what keeping an open my mind to embracing art in earnest does to an mf. either way, my sense of enthusiasm is through the roof right now, no matter where that feeling comes from. and i'm just blessed to have that in an online destination once again.
had a bit of a night, then a bit of a morning. emerging from a familiar yet unfamiliar place i moved forward to collect myself. in a moment of vulnerability i put on a story from a youtube video that has connected with me emotionally in the past. something to ride this mood out and find some self-confidence in.
after a hot shower i realized the answer to a near 7 year block of trying and failing to make another film since graduating film school was staring me in the face all this time. all my words, all of them. no matter how scattered, no matter from what time, no matter how messy, told my story. i must gather these texts together and form a testament of my adult life. share, something i have so much trouble doing, with the world my naked emotions and inclinations.
maybe then i will feel a catharsis. that all the work and pain and grief will have built something that i'm proud to call my own. i think i already know the answer to that question. but i want to manifest it into something physical, something concrete. a tome on a tablet that imperfectly yet poetically tells the tale of thombo. one that will always still be being written. i feel ready to face it now. to build such a thing. i feel the drive kicking in. thank you to the heavens for this gift.
after this epiphany i googled some lyrics i had written down in a note on my phone months ago. to look up what song i randomly heard at work one time that moved me. it turned out to be Harvest Moon by Neil Young. i took a moment to just sit and listen to it after feeling something profound, and by the time the harmonica solo kicked in i found myself crying like i had been the night before. oh what a beautiful morning it has been. let's go dancing in the light.
going to hopelessly attempt to keep this brief. but i will ramble anyway, so let's get into the weeds.
the fact that this year was maybe the best i've had since the 2020s started is more of a reflection on just how bad the decade has been so far than it is a positive blessing for 2024 on the whole. this year still sucked, but the sucking became a lot more bearable for me.
the big one
i turned 30 this year. still feels great. age is (for the most part) an arbitrary human construction. meant to give context to our confusing world more than anything. but with all the pain wrapped in the hegemony of reaching a specific age, i still found something worth celebrating in just getting this far at all.
it's been a turbulent time since i finished college and tried and failed many times over to start a life of total independence. much great love lost, many great challenges faced, some great truths learned through hardship. i've been telling my friends that i'm "escaping my flop era" this year. which i think is indicative of the kind of freedom that loving yourself affords. i continue to work on carving new neural pathways. and it finally feels like i'm getting somewhere in this great experiment of "working on myself."
for anyone who feels like you won't make it past your twenties, or that whatever struggles you're facing will destroy you or come to define you: you are not alone. and you will make it to the other side. people always say "it gets better." and i mean, it kinda does, but you have to be the one who makes it better. it will still feel bad, sometimes worse, as time goes on. but the change you have to make is to be okay with that. radical acceptance will save you. and so will talking to a health professional.
happy pills
2024 is the year i got back on SSRIs for the first time in a decade. i advise literally everybody do this. getting on them i mean, not stopping them for a decade.
despite finally finding stable work in this city, i've still been deathly stressed about being impoverished. it's hard to pay all my bills every month, and it feels like new expenses keep materializing from thin air to halt my life's progress. so as you might imagine a mentally ill person in my position would do, i developed a panic disorder this year. it wasn't fun! i spent most of the summer either not sleeping because i was having panic attacks or fending off having panic attacks instead of sleeping. pairing that with a costumer service job where i'm on my feet all day was absolute torture and i felt like i was going to break. so i decided to find a psychiatrist.
after some initial sessions, i started taking lexapro for the depression and propranolol for the panics. i also got on ritalin a short time later to do something about this ADHD warring inside me for the past 30 years. medication takes a second to get used to, but i feel like it's given me some semblance of a working brain. haven't felt this clear minded in a long time, honestly maybe ever? medication doesn't fix your problems, but it does make it easier to get up and start fixing them yourself. even if you don't have insurance or are broke, please get medicated. let the debt collectors worry about who pays for it.
you should be at the club
rediscovering that i love dance music was one of this year's rejuvenating miracles. i went to more random raves and club nights consistently in 2024 than i think i ever have in my life. and it has been just another piece of the puzzle in getting my groove back. turns out the dance floor is a good place to do that.
dance music is transcendent and will always accept you with open arms. but it is also full of the type of oxygen sucking attitudes and egomaniacs that make life unbearable. the exact type of thing the disco was invented to escape. probably the biggest net gain for me is learning to tune that bullshit out.
i've been DJing for 10 years. i've been a life long lover of this music and its scene and what makes it special. i know what i like and how to identify what interactions are just exchanges of social capital. keep that shit off the dance floor. just go for the music. take in the cool visuals. and make conversation with people who are feeling the same vibes as you. ravers are some of the friendliest people in the world. we could all benefit from trading kandi with each other more often.
also, i dropped another mix this year and it has been going criminally underlistened. please give it your time if it sounds up your alley. i'm really proud of how i can meld together extremely cracking rave tunes and i guarantee you haven't heard most of what's in here. come and av a go mate.
being angry can be a good thing
sometimes you just need to yell. the world can feel like it's falling apart and everything is breaking around you. and it can be all the more cathartic to just let the demons run free and scream your heart out. i mean how else are you supposed to dig deep when that stuff is in the way?
i don't advise being a bitter or spiteful person. but i do think being a hater can motivate you to do better. sometimes the fuel that keeps us going is forged in our passionate discomfort with and antagonism against the unloving world around us. and we can use that energy for good if we concentrate it carefully.
some of our greatest thinkers and most inspiring minds were haters of the most principled stripes. malcolm x, james baldwin, hayao miyazaki, steve albini. there is power in using anger and duress to create positive change. both internally and within our broken power structures. entirely unrelated, here's a graphic i've been cooking up since the election results rolled in.
a couple best of's and ins/outs to round it all out
best movies i watched for the first time this year
Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? (2001)
Belfast, Maine (1999)
Fresh Kill (1994)
August in the Water (1995)
Moe no Suzaku (1997)
best video essays i watched for the first time this year
i get this feeling, all the time, that i'm doing everything wrong. like, everything in my life. creative endeavors, handling responsible adult tasks, interacting with humans etc. i know most neurodivergent people struggle with this feeling. i think most people in general do. it feels like just another feature of this thing we call The Human Condition. still, it's hard not to think i'm the biggest weirdo to ever walk the earth. and as a result, to think that i'm incapable of being understood or loved by others. i know those thoughts are not true in reality. it's just difficult to shake the mental attitudes that got me here.
it seems like Being In Therapy is the defining aspect of my life in my late 20s. i kinda wish it wasn't tbh. like i love to grow, i love to change, i love to learn and understand myself. i love to be taking better care of myself and possess better emotional intelligence and regulation. that's all fantastic. but i hate so much of my personality revolving around recovery right now. around just allowing myself space to stand on two feet. you know? i dunno, is it cringe to heal? is it uncool and lame and uncomfortable for others looking in to see someone who isn't exactly doing a whole lot other than surviving? and why does that fucking matter to me so much?
there's a word that is often attached to the word "young" when being talked about by people who are not young. the word is "impressionable." i've always found that pairing interesting. since being in therapy i've learned one of the cardinal rules/stereotypes about seeing a mental health professional is true, painfully true. it all really does come back to your parents, and the environment you were raised in. those who existed in closest proximity while your embryonic appendages were still cooking tend to lay the biggest impressions on you. and an impression that big is hard to scrape up and paint over decades later. even if those people and times feel so far away that they might as well be myth.
i think part of the reason i feel like i'm doing everything wrong all the time is because i was met with a lot of indifference as a child. i had a fairly privileged childhood, i was the baby in a family of four children being parented by a Perennially At Work father and a mother who had been doing childcare since she first got pregnant at age 15. but even so, most adults didn't seem to know how to care about what i cared about. the best they could do was be happy that i was happy despite having no idea what i would be on about. it led me to believe that much of what seemed indicative of my "self" wasn't palatable to people who seemed to have their lives together. that much of what i was experiencing needed to be hidden. that authority figures especially shouldn't know that i'm stumbling my way through life at a pace at odds with theirs.
i should, i thought, instead act like i have it together around these people. i should codify a state of normalcy that i can perform around those who don't understand me. and let me tell you, when you're young, it feels like nobody walking this earth understands you. and the more this type of thinking sinks its teeth into you, the more it becomes habit and routine. it becomes your normal. this is how the mask is formed. and soon enough the dissonance between what is true to who you are and how you behave around others stops feeling like a variance of speed on the same race track and instead two completely different dances happening in parallel that bump into each other when stepping off-beat. i tell you, it makes for a profoundly confusing and paralyzing way of navigating being alive when you feel like you're on a completely different highway from everybody else. but one that still overlaps and intersects with the one everyone else is on.
one time in my tweenage years i walked over to a friend's house, unannounced, to hang out. something i did fairly often as a kid. came to find out it was my friend's birthday that day, and he had family over celebrating. lacking the ability to catch most social cues at that age, i decided to stay around for the celebration and act like it was just me and my buddy hanging out normal style. his family was pretty confused by the whole thing. they asked me where my parents were and what i was doing there. i didn't really know how to answer. later in the afternoon, i was fiddling with a super mario world level editor on their family computer. my friend's mother asked in a stern voice what i "was doing on her computer," as if i was standing there straight up jorking it to redtube in the living room. i panicked and closed the window trying to avoid a conflict, but that didn't make her feel any better about my presence there. as i got older, i realized i was unwelcome in their home that day. that to them, i had essentially invaded a private space they were cultivating and acted like me being there was their problem to solve. idk, a bit of unchecked entitlement on my end for sure. but it's a moment from that age i still remember for how viscerally uncomfortable it made me feel. maybe that was god's way of making me understand my surroundings better.
i guess what i'm getting at, is that wearing this mask so often has lead to a level of guardedness that simply doesn't need to be there. why do i feel compulsions to withhold information from my loved ones? to lie to the people being the most honest and open with me? or to think i'm unworthy of forgiveness? of love? of being accepted even while feeling shame? i can't exactly answer those questions, but i can tell you that paint is still something i'm trying to strip away.
i'm still learning that being like this is okay. and that everybody, at least in some ways, is like this too. nobody has the answers, nobody is doing anything precisely perfectly "correct." and we're all just approximating stability and security when we can, because it satisfies carnal fixtures of our evolution that have stuck with us like an appendix. there is no such thing as Normal. there is no such thing as The Right Way. rules are the inventions of people, as such they are only governed by people. sometimes we invent lies so that the truths feel less ephemeral. sometimes we need frameworks so we don't stumble so far out of the frame that we can't get back. i'm not advocating for solipsism. but i feel that sense of never quite checking the box on anything, never fully dotting the i's and crossing the t's, well that is the human condition. just trying to make sense of the unfeeling, uncaring, indifferent world we're stuck living in. a world that can be beautiful when you take that mask off more often.
there's beauty in our lives being limited. in our bodies being finite resources. in our experiences being frivolous. one day, hopefully far from now, it'll all be over and there will be words left unsaid and places left unexplored and people left unknown. and that'll be okay. and this life will have felt worth living. and in the end, hopefully, i will feel like i did it My Way. that i didn't need to do it The Right Way.
buried deep beneath the clouds are the lights that shine on us. but we've hardly seen them for months now, and we're starting to worry. all that lifts us up has become fleeting. drowned out by the tormented screams of a thousand dying souls breaking their bones to rise again for another day of misery before turning to dust. the sky grows bitter as the time slips ever faster into spiral.
i don't understand this gamble we've taken. forking over our bodies as collateral for a promised beacon in the distance. a light who won't make herself known until long after we've grown accustom to the darkness. by then her form will mean nothing to the untold lost in the interim. we'll just have to be thankful to still see anything clearly at all if we ever get there.
"i dream of a cleansing wave" washing over the little towns and huddled masses hiding beneath the trees. a quaking so catastrophic it propels us toward the light we lost. come forth my friends, you need not be afraid. death wears no mask here. we can only mold candles with our hands. attempting to bring into focus the details that make us whole. minutia buried so deep in the dirt for so long. up close we can finally see the small truths that the clouds have obscured.
the gods who stunted our vision have always been capricious. no more omnipotent than mortal themselves. it is them to blame for this curse on the land, salting the soil we once called home. for years now its fractions fading from the memory of warm embrace. it doesn't feel like home anymore. i didn't even know it was the skin i was living in until the scars started to show.
sickening to be built as gods and ultimately end up as fallible as angels. and yet equally tragic. i don't hold contempt for the darkness, merely for the lifeless souls that burnt out the candles. but i've found home in that blurred vision. grown fond of the gray that casts over the skies. she's become my comfort. no more black than white. and one day she will make a nice resting place. bury me under this sky, i'll see the light when i’m on the other side.
in february of 2020 i committed to moving to chicago.
never before had i lived outside wisconsin, the state i was born and raised in. freshly 25 and still feeling a very painful sting of losing a relationship with my best friend, i needed to make some kind of lateral move.
i'd recently moved back in with my parents to save up for a chance to take six months of language classes in tokyo. i put in all required documents and miraculously got accepted to the program. but it became evident that my only reason for doing so was to live a life with a romantic partner i no longer had who was also living in tokyo at the time. so i backed out at the last minute.
dejected and defeated, i was now doomed to be a 9-5 lifer at my old job delivering booze in a truck across the state. living in a town that i had no friends left in, and one that was full of traumatic memories constantly triggering me. i recognize this is still a privileged position. that i could've been on the street or completely shit out of luck without a support system. but that doesn't erase the pain of feeling like my life had taken a nosedive while i was in the moment. at the time i was certain that if i stayed in this situation long enough, i'd probably end up dead. if not under the train tracks by my parent's house, then in the back of a dusty warehouse or the cabin of a straight truck. death has always tantalized me, but at 25 i was not ready to meet it.
i got lucky and was able to find an apartment in chicago with a friend who was moving out of his place down there. we spent maybe one month looking for apartments before securing a primo spot in a good neighborhood. we were set to move in march 1st. in the year 2020. god what an omen, looking back. my friendship with this guy would slowly deteriorate over time and fuck up my relationships with just about everybody i knew in the city before eventually crashing out in spectacularly stupid fashion. but whatever, we live we learn. he was never a good friend to me anyway.
but in the week leading up to the move, an interesting music video dropped on youtube. the song Rascal by RMR was all anybody on my social media timelines was talking about for a few days. it's a rap track/piano instrumental ballad, sung in the style of Rascal Flatts' Bless The Broken Road. an aspiring song about the road to coming up and overcoming the hard times. it felt serendipitous to appear at this exact moment in my life.
the pandemic that would come to define 2020 was just about to explode in america. but right before it did, even in the throws of some of the worst shit i've ever experienced in my life, even with trump looking like he was gonna start a war with iran before dipping out as president, even with everything feeling hopeless and scary and undefined, this song... it was a shining light. helping push me toward something greater that i could make materialize right now, with my own hands.
a blistering optimism flowed through me that week. fueled by the energy of making an impulsive life change and the weird viral song that seemed to cement it as the correct move. things definitely changed once lockdown hit. but for a brief moment, i swear, so many other people online flocking to this song felt what i felt. we felt like maybe things were gonna be okay. maybe there was hope. and maybe whatever we were doing was leading us down the right path. i still think about that week of my life. i went to michigan to play a DJ set with my friends on leap day weekend and was bumping this track at every opportunity. before the lockdowns hit i was calling up every friend i had in chicago and going to shows and grabbing a beer with them in celebration. god, i felt unstoppable.
and in just a few short years, it seems like most people have forgotten about this song. RMR went on to make much more standard rap music, and really only peaked in popularity one other time when he got future and lil baby on a remix of one of his songs. i can't knock the man for following his path. hate the game etc. but that single slice of the past that lives in that song is forever crystalized in my memory. something to keep the light burning at a time when everything else felt so dark. something that gave me hope and led me on to whatever future i was gonna make for myself.
i came up and so could you. god bless the broken road.
