loose change

it’s a Monday. I’m writing in my living room even though I have a desk upstairs with an ergonomic kneeling chair. it’s cold out, and the heat has trouble getting up the stairs. I’ve been listening to neutral milk hotel, bright eyes, fugazi etc on shuffle which is good corner-of-the-eye music. went for a run this morning and felt good to move, but I didn’t feel like I was doing it for myself, I felt like I was doing it so that I could say I did it, which feels wrong.

over the weekend I received feedback on a nonfiction piece I submitted in class (and posted here…for what?!) and was immediately humbled. I’ve been sitting on the feedback over the past few days. it’s all very plain, normal feedback–I just haven’t written, or shown anybody my writing, in years so it felt scary. and nonfiction writing is different than academic writing because it isn’t objective. so in a sense it feels like commentary on my ability to translate what’s in my brain into cohesive thoughts, and not just commentary on my ability but on the specific way I choose to do it. and it’s difficult because right now I don’t have an idea of what is in my brain/where it wants to go, so when I’m writing I get hung up on ~how it lands~ because I don’t know what I want to say, just how I want it to appear.

I fell into a trap. I started this blog “with the intention of writing casually” (?? sounds dumb now) only to sit down and feel like everything I write has to land. I realized this after re-reading that piece, short winter at home, through the eyes of my professor and his feedback. which is so annoying because when I wrote it I know I thought it was good! this isn’t to say it’s bad. there are good kernels in it. but one of the comments from mike reads, “what kind of metaphorical train wreck is this?!” and it sums up the entire piece. it would be embarrassing but I kind of appreciate it.

so now I’m sitting in my living room writing this, “casually,” but wondering: if we’re being creative with the intention to post it somewhere, or show people, is it still casual? nobody knows I’m writing this, I have no audience or expectations. but the first two things I posted on here were definitely not casual, when I was writing them I was thinking about how they would contribute to my image. I don’t know why I thought of my image as something I can control. it feels dumb, but type ii dumb, the dumb that you cherish in retrospect because you learned something.

today it feels like I’ve been in college for twenty years. this is annoying because not only do I know less, I have less ambition than I did four years ago. I don’t have an alternative take on this, like I imagine I would feel burnt out if I had spent the last four years working in pest control, but I had this preconception that I think most of us have in the beginning which is that we will emerge from college smarter, and harder-working, and with at least one(1) goal or plan. I don’t understand why people who have been through college are not more explicit about this being on your own terms. it’s the whole “you get out of it what you put into it” thing. I guess it’s different for everybody.

I think I’m stuck on this whole idea of writing something that reads a certain way because of tik tok. I don’t know where I’m going with that exactly yet. but before I deleted that app it had a motherfucking iron grip on me. i first downloaded it in the first quarantine, march 2020, which is when it garnered a lot of attention in the US for its ability to distract (and ultimately destroy) our attention spans by promoting a fuck ton of little beautifully edited snippets of other people’s lives. the app has changed everything. its rise to popularity feels synonymous with decline in mental health across the globe. I don’t know many people who would deny that instagram portrays a false narrative, that it is in larger part performative than it is authentic. but it feels like when it comes to tik tok, we’re willing to look the other way. means of becoming popular on tik tok are translating into real life, the postures, the jokes, the overall performance. it reduces the human experience into something coveted, gives us infinite references when we dream about what our lives could look like, and then distracts us from pursuing our lives by sucking us into the vortex. it’s scary stuff. it’s hard to leave tik tok but it’s even harder to come back to because you’ll know you’re doing yourself a disservice.

anyway, I think the app fucked up my ability to just let things be. because it feels so nice when things are all wrapped up and tied with a bow the way they are on that app. I want things in my life to look good enough that if someone were to hold a camera to them, other people would think “wow, their life looks really good.” I want all of that while forgetting that most people only have cameras held to the good parts of their lives, and I’m not allowed to see the messy, unaesthetic parts. that’s the other thing about tik tok, is that literally anyone can rise to astonishing popularity within weeks. and so I think it’s warped my idea of a digital footprint. like, when I was writing that short winter piece, I was daydreaming about how once I’m a successful teacher or writer or creator or person, somebody will read this piece on this blog and think “wow, she really had it in her the whole time. genius.” are we kidding?!!!

I guess it is obvious that I can blame social media for this output mindset. the line between caring and comparing is extremely blurry, but every time I want to yell WHO THE FUCK CARES at an instagram picture or story I stop myself, because there are moments when I care. I want to know what my friends are up to and how they’ve been and what their favorite food at the moment is, and I realize that it’s my prerogative to ask them, not to check their instagrams. so I guess it’s okay to not give a fuck about what gets posted on instagram. just as it’s okay to post whatever the fuck you want on instagram. it’s hard to let those two things exist at once. anyway, I’m going to try my best to not write here like I’m going to be awarded a Nobel prize in literature for having a blog.

in retrospect I apologize to anyone who reads or has read the initial work here because I worry that I wrote it so that I could say I wrote it.