The most beautiful souls I know struggle with existentialism and it’s so incredibly painful (and isolating). . . and I honestly believe it is due to generations of trauma that get passed down until one person decides to actually feel it all. Here’s to being soft and noticing the ants but also everything else — the wind and the trees and the grass. We are all just little kids who got hurt badly by the people who were supposed to protect us, and now we are trying to make sense of that.
I actually think about this often but haven't really had the words to fully express it,
"If enough of us look up, we’ll remember there was a whole world outside of us all along."
When I was in college, I did this workshop out in Northern Cali and it was so isolated and I was so removed from the internet for the first time in so long.
There was one day we spent swimming and eating and drinking on a giant boulder in this beautiful hidden lake in the middle of the redwoods, and I remember staring up at the stars and wondering how people (like fascists, racists, etc.) can be so hateful and evil - have they never experienced such simple joy? Why focus on all this evil bullshit when the life could be... this? If we all just took care of one another and didn't care so much about made-up bullshit.
It's almost embarrassing to think about/to wish it could be so simple, but... yeah. I do feel like the internet is making me insane - the unfathomable enormity of useless hate feels inescapable. I have other provoked thoughts but don't want to continue to write my own essay in your comments. Thank you for writing this.
"It’s easy to feel stuck in your ways, to believe your brain has ossified, hardened into something unchangeable."
This line really stuck out to me, because I have been struggling with this feeling lately. I have been trying to write more, but the voice in my head has been telling me that I just don't possess that skill anymore. That it's too hard. This line reminded me that it's only a feeling that is bothering me. And feelings do change.
It is very easy to get caught in the familiarity and comfort of our spirals and negativity. But once we accept it for what it is, a perpetual cycle of doom as I like to call it, that is the first step to breaking free from it. Although it may seem like one of the hardest things we could ever do, once it is accomplished we can take the time to realize we are stronger than we have made ourselves out to be. To everyone out there struggling, I see you, and I hear you. You aren’t alone in this, and it won’t be this way forever, we just have to take it one step, one change at a time. You are stronger than you think, don’t hold yourself back, the only one that can hold you back from change is you.
“People are having homicidal fantasies because their underpaid-virtual-slave-grocery-store-shopper got the wrong kind of Oreos.” this made me LOL
I’m curious, does writing these feel like a performance sometimes? or do you feel like you’re creating something? do more of what feels genuine to you, that’s how you change your brain
My stuff is either personal essay which often feels like stream-of-consciousness, or it is interviews or fiction. So not so much. The barrier to entry is also higher for consumption
Top tier work as usual. Regarding COVID making people meaner, I also think the reaction/politicization to COVID made people meaner. I was told by a self-described nurse online that my mother died from “survival of the fittest.” The comment still gnaws at me as you can tell (it was a tik tok comment! I should be over it).
Did you guys ever play that game where you can let a program take over your desktop, and every time you click, you create more termites that eat away at the screen? Then you can select tools to kill the termites; hit them with a hammer or shoot them with a paint ball gun. Cue blood splatters. If you're a completionist, you can play until your entire screen is blood and black and dead termites. That's what this post made me think of. 🐜
This is awesome. I've never read your writing and only know you from social media (first tiktok, then twitter and got to know u more thru Hasan etc) but felt curious. Anyway- this was a fascinatingly simple and all too relatable read. I hate using the word relatable bc of that the internet has turned it into but I truly do feel like I read something I could have scooped out of my own brain. And admittedly I originally just skimmed the beginning before getting to the part post Lady Ophelia bit. And thereafter went back to read it in full and thank god because it was worth it! Suffice to say it never fails to help to know how one is never alone in one's thinking. Especially in the bleak overly aware thinking's . And I'm glad. Thank you for sharing this. My well meaning brain wants to say I'm now inspired to read more of your works and while i wholeheartedly mean it and say it genuinely, the little worm in there too (adhd and others) might make me a liar inadvertently. ANYWAY anyway ending this now with a Hi Lolo this was great 👍
The most beautiful souls I know struggle with existentialism and it’s so incredibly painful (and isolating). . . and I honestly believe it is due to generations of trauma that get passed down until one person decides to actually feel it all. Here’s to being soft and noticing the ants but also everything else — the wind and the trees and the grass. We are all just little kids who got hurt badly by the people who were supposed to protect us, and now we are trying to make sense of that.
I actually think about this often but haven't really had the words to fully express it,
"If enough of us look up, we’ll remember there was a whole world outside of us all along."
When I was in college, I did this workshop out in Northern Cali and it was so isolated and I was so removed from the internet for the first time in so long.
There was one day we spent swimming and eating and drinking on a giant boulder in this beautiful hidden lake in the middle of the redwoods, and I remember staring up at the stars and wondering how people (like fascists, racists, etc.) can be so hateful and evil - have they never experienced such simple joy? Why focus on all this evil bullshit when the life could be... this? If we all just took care of one another and didn't care so much about made-up bullshit.
It's almost embarrassing to think about/to wish it could be so simple, but... yeah. I do feel like the internet is making me insane - the unfathomable enormity of useless hate feels inescapable. I have other provoked thoughts but don't want to continue to write my own essay in your comments. Thank you for writing this.
Mr beast called you on the phone???
Yes
That’s crazy
Mmm I don’t think so. More red ants for me
"It’s easy to feel stuck in your ways, to believe your brain has ossified, hardened into something unchangeable."
This line really stuck out to me, because I have been struggling with this feeling lately. I have been trying to write more, but the voice in my head has been telling me that I just don't possess that skill anymore. That it's too hard. This line reminded me that it's only a feeling that is bothering me. And feelings do change.
It is very easy to get caught in the familiarity and comfort of our spirals and negativity. But once we accept it for what it is, a perpetual cycle of doom as I like to call it, that is the first step to breaking free from it. Although it may seem like one of the hardest things we could ever do, once it is accomplished we can take the time to realize we are stronger than we have made ourselves out to be. To everyone out there struggling, I see you, and I hear you. You aren’t alone in this, and it won’t be this way forever, we just have to take it one step, one change at a time. You are stronger than you think, don’t hold yourself back, the only one that can hold you back from change is you.
“People are having homicidal fantasies because their underpaid-virtual-slave-grocery-store-shopper got the wrong kind of Oreos.” this made me LOL
I’m curious, does writing these feel like a performance sometimes? or do you feel like you’re creating something? do more of what feels genuine to you, that’s how you change your brain
My stuff is either personal essay which often feels like stream-of-consciousness, or it is interviews or fiction. So not so much. The barrier to entry is also higher for consumption
Well said, Lolo. 👊🏻
my brain is definitely fried. but this piece really sang for me.
Top tier work as usual. Regarding COVID making people meaner, I also think the reaction/politicization to COVID made people meaner. I was told by a self-described nurse online that my mother died from “survival of the fittest.” The comment still gnaws at me as you can tell (it was a tik tok comment! I should be over it).
Did you guys ever play that game where you can let a program take over your desktop, and every time you click, you create more termites that eat away at the screen? Then you can select tools to kill the termites; hit them with a hammer or shoot them with a paint ball gun. Cue blood splatters. If you're a completionist, you can play until your entire screen is blood and black and dead termites. That's what this post made me think of. 🐜
First
But unironically great piece. There's ants everywhere now. Thanks :)
This is awesome. I've never read your writing and only know you from social media (first tiktok, then twitter and got to know u more thru Hasan etc) but felt curious. Anyway- this was a fascinatingly simple and all too relatable read. I hate using the word relatable bc of that the internet has turned it into but I truly do feel like I read something I could have scooped out of my own brain. And admittedly I originally just skimmed the beginning before getting to the part post Lady Ophelia bit. And thereafter went back to read it in full and thank god because it was worth it! Suffice to say it never fails to help to know how one is never alone in one's thinking. Especially in the bleak overly aware thinking's . And I'm glad. Thank you for sharing this. My well meaning brain wants to say I'm now inspired to read more of your works and while i wholeheartedly mean it and say it genuinely, the little worm in there too (adhd and others) might make me a liar inadvertently. ANYWAY anyway ending this now with a Hi Lolo this was great 👍
God this was terrifyingly cathartic to read
loved this <3
you said you want to make something just because you want to, without worrying about who is watching. i want that-
regardless there is beauty in relation and in understanding so thank you for writing and deciding to share whether it was for me or for you or both.