'safe' 'privelege'

things being 'safe' and being aware of 'privilege' in intention are great, without a doubt. but for the aware (male) character to have to be on guard at all times... well general themes of 'being a decent person' or just 'having self awareness' seem to be overruled by a very specific context. it's fair because we live in that particular context, but I just wish people would think more abstractly for the good, at least in a way that can be applied in real life.

what's 'right'

i don't know what's 'right' for me or anyone else, but i do know how to keep myself sane and alive (i think).

when it comes to music i believe that it should be about embracing everyones individuality and message through their respective musics.

however i'm a young man making young man music and all these kids around me are in very obvious ways trying to flex through the act of making music.

i don't wish to flex, but rather make something that is true to me. ultimately this leads to 'automatic' flexing, if the music is 'superior'.

By 'superior' I mean it represents the musicians intent more clearly.

sure, taste and interest is subjective, but mastery of an art regardless of the aesthetic is comparable. the comparison is not really needed, because again, the core idea of music is to embrace the music as opposed to the music in relationship to related musics and it's social sphere.

but such thinking is also idyllic and unrealistic because one's enjoyment of music is based around context. my personal context is one of a hormonal young man who obviously has something to prove. if this encompasses inferiority and uncertainty, it only means i need to represent it clearer through my music instead of attempting to dispel or repress it.

 it's something that i feel should be embraced (at this age bracket) rather than rejected; the calming of ego and athleticism in music will subside with age (i believe) but for now I will let it take me as far as possible, pursuing a personal truth through such a lense.

perhaps this may seem ignorant but i believe that I can represent these feelings musically - if i can create music that is convincing of a perspective (emotionally) then it is valid. and i don't think it's bad for me.

I don't feel corrupted but I definitely don't feel pure in intentions at all times and my being is constantly in flux, often times full of character and other times despicable. i will look for a truth through a particular lense now.

Work my mind off yet not having what I wanted
sleep it all off and I still feel so fucking tired
have I lied, you’d see it in my eyes

Never mind, that just means I’ve tried

thoughts I hold

so I was told

if I make it up

I’d comfort myself

Caring not what happens I mean whose there to hear it
no one knew my thoughts about you were just what could haves

Now I care, just from where I am
slowly feed this bitter taste to you  

Truth betold

So I’m not that old

Should I do what’s ‘right’
I’m in no spotlight

Telling everybody that values aren’t feelings
remind me now tell me why I’m the one whose hurting?
so alive, with curiosity
afraid to die when actualizing it

Who will ever know?
 I’m not so old.

Work my mind off and I end up feeling tired
sleep it all off and I am still feeling tired
have I lied, you’d see it in my eyes

Well never mind, that just means I’ve tried

thoughts could hold

I’ll never know

How to make it up

Comfort in oneself

Lost in no world as I put the pen down on paper

Caring not what happens, whose there to hear it
all myself, just thinking bout myself

Caring for you, from where I am

Written recollection of absurdity, and presumptions before meeting

A) I met a girl that had green colored hair on the internet. She now has blue hair. Her parents own a weed farm, and she just told me she is going to sell some of her panties on Craigslist to pay off a parking ticket, and that she has done it before when she lived in another state. She's a girl with blue hair that I met on the internet who sells her panties to strange men on Craigslist and her parents own or operate a weed farm. I like her / have a crush on her. It's probably the wrong thing to pursue, I know, but sometimes I feel like a child and no matter what my more adult neuroses tell me, and no matter how self deprecatory or conflicted I can get over the whole ordeal, that 12 year old voice in my head pouting and screaming "I want it!" reigns supreme. I want her.

She once told me she went on a trip to xxxx (in Southern California) for no reason, just for the sake of spontaeneity. While I respect spontaenity, I've always thought that xxxx was a shithole and wondered why anyone would go there for any reason. I thought it was stupid. What is the point of dingy motels, emotionally desolate casinos and Circus Circus? Beats me. I just realized- people come from different walks of life, have different friends, and do different things accordingly. A lot of people have friends that they don't like very much. It's an odd thing, seeing people move from friend group to friend group. It hasn't really happened in my life, because I think that I seek individuals over 'people I want to hang out with' and 'groups'.


I recall that one time I honestly felt as though she tried to impress me by telling me that she had an 'in' to play at a festival if her and her best friend got a set together. The first thing I thought was 'oh great, another talentless hot girl duo', and I didn't take her seriously, so I teased her instead. I felt bad about this, because as my friend xxx put it, she's not dumb, and could easily tell I didn't appreciate her efforts. My room mate told me that I didn't respect her. I wondered and continue to wonder if that was/is the case. I knew that she wasn't an active practicing musician, so I thought the idea of just picking up music to play out an event was sort of trite, so perhaps I didn't respect her motive, since music means so much more to me than just playing out because you were given some random opportunity. Then again, she was honest about her enthusiasm. How could someone arbitrarily find motivation to pursue something if they didn't know what was worth their time or not? I feel as though this is the case for her, but then again these are assumptions that I needlessly worry about, having never met her in person yet.



Is that just a way I try to justify my shallowness when it comes to her? I am shallow. I knew that although I was trying to be open-minded, I wouldn't cut her as much slack as I did (and probably continue to do) if I wasn't extremely attracted to her. I recall her being involved with drunk driving, cocaine, and an illegitimate older man at (maybe five years older) at the age of 17 or 18. I tried (and continue to try) to tell myself, "it's not my responsibility" and if she is cool, it doesn't really matter. I mean, I'm not her parent, and I may seem 'lame' for my judgments. I understand cocaine, I understand illegitimate relationships, but drunk driving puts the cherry on the top of the stupidity sundae. It's just not something you do, because it puts others at a risk that neither you or the victim has control over. I really could care less what anybody does to themselves, but drunk driving is a totally different story. 


I then thought that maybe, she really just doesn't give a fuck about much at all, which was comprehensively a far more appealing thought to me. Although I'm not a fan of apathy, I think it is something I understand pretty well. I've had moments of it, and before I became driven to pursue things that mattered to me, I revelled in it. There was really nothing else I knew. The only thing I ask of people who are apathetic or don't know what they want in life is to seek it, instead of stagnating and drifting through periods of their lives without making any drastic changes. But I don't know if she cares enough to find something that could make her life meaningful to her.


I don't know that much about xxxxxx because it is not like we've had deep conversations or anything; I don't know if she is the kind of girl that can express her feelings wholeheartedly and in detail through virtual means, despite being a 'girl on the internet'. From what I've gathered, she got either her high school diploma or GED when she was XX (mid-to-late teens) and moved out soon thereafter, stayed in the same state of xxxxxxxxx and moved into weird spaces that would host shows for somewhat outsider music, in the realms of noise, experimental and electronic. I originally thought that her 'scene' consisted of douchebags, but it may have just been jealously and my inability to find a scene or group of independently thinking musicians on my own quite yet. I speak and I act as though I deserve a community and a band, but really, I'm sure I haven't put as much time and effort into it as any of those guys. I act entitled with the ignorance of a privileged person at times. I digress... eventually she moved somewhere in Northern California because her parents thought she was getting too out of hand in xxxxxxxxx (not that she got any less out of hand just because she moved).

So why do I like her (besides for being super attractive)? I should start with some background information about myself and relationships: I am XX (early twenties), and when it comes to basic romantic and/or sexual interaction, I'm simple; I like to give girls that I think are pretty my attention (given that they're not compliment saturated attention-whores, which many happen to be), and I like to receive attention from pretty girls. If their personality is decent, I'm ecstatic. My perception of my physical attractiveness is directly tied to whether or not other attractive people find me physically attractive. Without thinking about it, I think I believe that people who are attractive pursue other people who are around the same level of their perceived attractiveness, so perhaps I am attempting to assure myself of my appearance through interacting with people who are highly attractive, physically speaking.

Although I put my dilemma in words as though I am ok with it, I'm not. It disgusts me. What I am trying to say is that I often times get disgusted with myself because of my shallowness. It is something I own; I've contemplated writing 'this' shallowness instead of 'my' shallowness, because I wanted so badly to remove myself from it. But it is mine and only mine and that I can't deny. It is a constant and neurotic concept that pesters me and asks me why I care and bother. But the caring and bothering never ceases.

Physical attractiveness is something I might never understand- have you ever been on xxxxxx (social media / art / design aggregator), or in any cultural hub of a city? Models and beautiful girls overall burst forth from these places and their physical appearances are out of this world. The most obvious characteristic that can be distinguished by any person is their look, which drastically changes their life instantaneously, regardless of their personality. For instance, someone like Usain Bolt who is born with the ability to run incredibly fast doesn't necessarily 'look' any different on the outside, and thus wouldn't be treated differently from birth. From the day they develop any features, the attention they are given and the way that their personality will manifest in the future will differ greatly from any "normal" looking person. 


In this American day and age, I think we can all agree that giving privileges to people solely based on their looks is extremely primal and backwards. It sickens me that fashion tries to elevate this concept of physical beauty to an intellectual realm, when really all they are doing is portraying 'beauty' in ways that are supposed to make your heart flutter, and cause the viewer to hypothesize over the potential perfection that a physically flawless individual has intellectually, socially, and personality wise... to appeal on a visceral level, affecting the viewer from an immediately aesthetic point of view with little to no regard for content and substance. Yet I still feel obligated to say that at times I am swayed, and each time I sicken myself. 

I digress... She feeds my otherwise humbled and previously nonexistent ego. If you met me, you might think that I know how to interact with people with resolve and speak my mind at times, but really, i'm able to  because I rely on the integrity of my thoughts or the subject, instead of my ability to communicate them eloquently. I don't feel it's any merit of my own. I'm not afraid to put things in the simplest terms. I'm not confident overall, but in many ways she makes me so.


The reason this is is because at this very moment, the fact is that I rely on people who share the same sensibilities as myself to judge me, so I can convince myself that I can like myself. Because I trust my own judgment more than anybody else's (at least when it comes to making decisions and what I perceive as good or bad), I am more willing to trust someone with similar sensibilities to judge me on similar criteria. 


In other words, I don't trust myself to judge myself, but I trust others that share my sensibilities to judge me and this helps combine my personal perspective with theirs. Although, this might make me sound like a pompous self-centered asshole (I am self centered, but we can get to that later), I don't think I am. I fully appreciate and learn from the opinions and perspectives of others and how they perceive me; for instance, if someone complimented me and told me that I had broad shoulders and my personality was chilled out, I would be glad and appreciate the compliment, but when it comes to judging myself for my personality or my appearance, I could care less about my broad shoulders or my chilled out personality. Maybe I'm close-minded(?), but really it's more about filtering input in order to get to a manageable state. 


She jacks up my ego because I think she finds me attractive in similar ways that I find her attractive, both physically and stylistically. It's as though I think that by being attractive, it will give me more opportunities with girls, and while it does, the reality behind it just leads to more decreased honesty behind the interaction between myself and these girls. I hesitate to include personality in the equation because I feel like our online communication has been limited and in no way represents the flow of real life conversation or interaction. This is odd to me for a variety of reasons- as I brought up earlier, the idea of judging someone based on their appearance is obviously shallow, yet admittedly, my own appearance remains important to me. While I despise the concept of judging someone off of their appearance, and don't act differently depending on how someone looks (for the most part; even though I am obviously swayed by xxxxxx's looks, I clearly don't cut her slack when it comes to personality and intelligence because of it), I still care about my own. When it comes to romantic or sexual relationships I am only enthusiastic if the girl is notably attractive... and I hate myself for it. 

Another reason she feeds my ego in such a signifigant way is because not only is she incredibly attractive, she is physically compatible with me. First off, I am 5'11 and she is somewhere between 5'5 and 5'7, I'm a slim Chinese guy and I've been told that I have a somewhat intense face and my demeanor is cold and intimidating, although that is clearly not what I am like when anyone starts talking to me for even a second. It's strange, but my first impression of being cold and intimidating is not untrue, despite my second impression (and probably for most social situations) lasting the longest; the first impression may be cold and intimidating, but the second impression upon socially interacting with me is generally on the witty and humorous side of things. Still, when you get back down to the essence of what I do and believe, my personality retains seriousness and often times reverts back to my first impression. 


Her, on the other hand, from I've gathered from her through a bounty of text, IM and a Skype exchanges is that of a confident girl, perhaps cocky, who doesn't give too much of a fuck outside of instant gratification, who is humorous and would be a lot of fun to do things with. Her enthusiasm for living in the moment and her overall young person mentality are incredibly important to me, and living them means she embodies those particular values. I've been spending my life reveling in thought and intellectual honesty and finding the comprehensively best people, removed from ego, attractiveness and all these seemingly dishonest things, but maybe I just need to experience something on a different wavelength that, although I don't know whether or not it will be fulfilling, will be worthwhile for all the fun irresponsibility that can only be had at this age. It's as though my feelings and desires are headed in a different direction than it's been going my whole life, and in no way do I trust it. At the same time, we match so well because I want to continue being eccentric and independent in my own way, and she supplements that perfectly as a confident girl who believes in me, and wants to be with me (even temporarily, as I'm visiting home and will see her a few times over a couple weeks), but still operates independently from me. The idea of two independent people that feed each others egos seems sort of fucked up, now that I think about it. 



In terms of appearance, I look like a character from various slice of life / absurd mangas: FLCL, the works of Inio Asano, with a sparse bit from Taiyo Matsumoto. It might sound odd, because I don't dress in cosplay, and the way I dress is typically not that dramatic. I just reflect with the conceptual nature of the characters personalities, which manifests in how they dress, if you can get over the fact that they come from flat 2-dimensional forms that are often presumed by non-manga readers to be stuck in some comic fantasy land. The simplicity of lines and proportions when it comes to a strictly visual and aesthetic point of view influences me the most in the way I dress. The problem regarding fantasy is simply not present in the work of Asano or Matsumoto. 


I am very childish in the sense that sometimes I match real life couples to manga couples/pairs that consist of a male and a female. Even though I think of it with a grain of salt and realize that manga characters are more exaggerated than people in real life, if you step back and consider the reality behind what some of the better mangaka's such as Asano or Matsumoto are trying to convey, you come to realize that their characters do have merit. Maybe these are just ideas I project unto the characters themselves, and the seriousness I assign to them has little to do with the actual merit of a character. Or perhaps I reflect with the concept behind the character personalities. I don't know.


xxxxxx on the other hand looks like a girl from the internet, with her colored hair, affinity for black, a combination of japanese streetstyle eccentricities (two tone tights, platform shoes, odd 'technical' jackets), and a grungier hipster girl aesthetic (denim/leather jackets, ripped black tights, nice boots, a backpack with a 'whatevs' patch and xxxxxxx (controversial-for-being-hipster black metal band) patch). By default, it also make her appear as a character from the same authors (although I am pretty certain, she's had little, if any exposure to realistic/surrealistic slice of life manga). It only helps that she's half asian (japanese and laotian) and half white (french and something else(?)). She really is one of the most gorgeous people I know. Sometimes I go on facebook to find unflattering pictures, but she looks great in all of them and I still have trouble believing that she finds me attractive. I wonder if she's one of those really attractive girls that are simply not that shallow... but I am pretty sure she thinks I am really attractive. 

In all honesty, I almost feel as though I should ignore these ego-related experiences. And having thought about it, in some ways the whole situation probably seems ideal to me because of all the media I've been exposed to- even independent media, without an epically patriarchal tilt often have traditional views of attractiveness when it comes to couples and relationships. Usually, I have a good filter for the things that influence me through the media I seek (obviously I have no control over the media that is fed to me through advertisements or whatnot), but in this case it hasn't been something i've been able to filter out. I always think, she is too bad ass to be just arm candy, but as arm candy there could no one better, and I want to be her arm candy as well. It might sound like a matter of ownership, but it really isn't- it's just about looking good with someone who knows you look good as well, and vice versa.



 She is bad ass. She is the kind of girl whose tastes are eccentric. I know she will --

I wonder, am I becoming aimless like her? If she influences --

I'm very high and she's super pretty. How did I manage to make a girl like this laugh?

I've met outstanding talent in various fields, and my own, however. I can't find people who share similar principles or talents in a way that allows several groups to mobilize and establish a new wave. we're past the bss, arcade fire, shins, wolf parade/modest mouse wave and in between the next. let us be the next.

Taking a break from the internet

The internet puts too much of my mind into theoreticals and honestly detriments from my living experience from the present; in terms of how I view potential and standards, the appropriation of time I put into doing things vs. my expectations of whats to come because of them is totally convoluted.