Bare Minimum

8/31/24 Bare Minimum #

Holy crap Lois. I’ve been suffering the effects of being chronically on the internet and staring at a screen for hours everyday since I was a child.

I just listened to “I am Mothman" by Buice. Also I’m relistening to Census Designated by “Jane Remover”. I don’t know if I’m into the whole digicore thing, maybe I need to give it some relistens. I like the emotions pouring out. “I am Mothman” is an absolute crescendo of experimental noise and energy screaming out of Hayden and the rest. I just fucking love music. I can’t believe that anyone can make it at the level we do now. There has never been a better time to make music than right now. I think everyone should start doing as much as they can of whatever they want before A.I. ruins everything.

I always feel so much more at peace when I’m doing something. I don’t have a good on and off switch for productivity. How I have operated for a very long time now is periods of either work mode or doing nothing. I always get burnt out inevitably, and then periods where I’m doing “nothing” is me doing the bare minimum. The “bare minimum” has changed over the years but at this point it’s in a good state. I am still committed to working out, and I’m still committed to music. But it’s not paying the bills, and I think this life of living out of touch with reality needs to come to an end. Or not that exactly. I am a hundred percent out of touch in a very self-aware manner. Or at least I’d like to think so.

I took time to explore, travel, try new things, see what works, see what doesn’t, network. And I got things out of my system. I used to want to travel and see everything. Instead I decided I am more than grateful that I got to see the sights I got to see in my life as they’re incredible. I got to go to all kinds of places and countries, meet all kinds of people. But wherever you go, there you are. It’s time to lock myself in a room and “hone in on my ish” (The words of the great jasper.heart). A big house, money, health, those are all nice to have. But one must live a life of indifference towards these factors if one is to feel fulfilled everyday.

People have different ideas of success. This is not my personal idea, but I think that the general population’s idea of success is gaining money (and maybe fame along with it), by pursuing wealth directly. If you are working hard at something, but money is the ultimate reason why, then you become a hollow shell of a person. (I am not talking about individuals who need to work a job they don’t like to pay the bills.) Narcissists are rewarded in our society, in fact it’s encouraged. Anything out of sight is out of mind in business, so it’s a job well done when you finally get all your company’s manufacturing moved offshore where people make your product(s) for slave wages.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve been nothing but a horrible person. I’ve been reconsidering getting an actual job again as I think that the job I had may have just been a uniquely aggravating one to me. Not all jobs are the same. No job is the same actually. Jane Remover is spitting.

You know I’d obviously rather become who I am and feel confident and sure of myself. I guess who wouldn’t? I want to put in the work, but it’s not like building legos. It’s not simple. You don’t stack bricks one at a time until it’s made. That’s how I’m always used to it being as schoolwork was always clear and linear. Instead it’s like jumping off a cliff. It’s all these giant leaps. Aches and pains and triumphs. You don’t even know if it’s the right cliff.

When you question everything that you are, and realize you might not know who you are because of what you went through and how things are, well… You have to figure out what parts of you that you show are you, what parts of you aren’t, and what parts of you you’ve denied and kept hidden for so long. So long that you don’t even know what they are yet. You have to come from a place of complete acceptance and love for yourself. You, and everyone else, are the universe loving itself.

I always get along with people who I feel intuitively are messed up. We all are. But I can sense when people are too hard on themselves. I’m definitely one of those people. I realized a long time ago that no one cares, I have to relearn this fact to myself again and again and again.

I’m tired.

I just reread everything I wrote and it’s like “ugh”. It’s good, it’s fine, it’s healthy. I’m fine. I just hope this doesn’t come across as an “everybody feel bad for me” thing. Feeling bad for yourself holds you back, but I think there is a line to cross where you don’t hold yourself back, and you end up becoming blind to the things you do wrong. I get worried about being ignorant and arrogant because a part of me tells myself that I’m the last person who would be.