March 18 2025

Happy birthday.

I could be anybody, or rather, any way I wish. What comes easiest is not me, nor what is most strenuous. None of this is ME. Familiarity is not me - though sometimes I do identify with it.

I am not 'having my cup of coffee in the morning' nor am I 'doing schoolwork.' I am something beyond this, I am the EXPERIENCER of these experiences. That is what I am. These experiences are simply perceptions of my body and brain, perceptions of which I am either consciously or unconsciously aware (unconscious awareness is surely not a thing... not really... what is actually meant here is an awareness which is so subtly felt that it likely cannot be identified, pointed to, or explained/articulated... blind sight is interesting here...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight)

I feel like writing, I feel like reading. Physical books. Blog posts and cursive practice. Life can be light, life can be arduous. It's what you make of it really. Easier said than done. I'm listening to 'Water is Alright in Tay' by The Clancy Brothers, and life is so light. The song has now ended, but the resonance of that song lingers in me. It's incredible how things past radiate within you, even without their effortful remembrance. We remember by default - not episodically, but intuitively and embodied. Remembering is what we do in every moment of the day - faced with new information, we consult the past to figure out how to figure out what we are presented with. How does it fit in to my model? How does it integrate itself into the pre-existing structure of my mind, of my predictions about the world and my relationship within it? Any learning necessarily has some destruction as a part of it. Parts of you must die to accommodate new information. Maybe the 'current' version of you is constantly dying and being reborn with every moment that passes. You are never the same. You can never be the same as you once were. You cannot go back. You cannot be blissfully ignorant again. Never.

This is what I'm struggling with. How can I be less self-aware? I am hyper self-aware - so much of my mind is preoccupied with how my body is being received by others. 'Oh, just don't think about that' you say to me. But, I tell you, I'm not even thinking about it! It doesn't feel like I have a choice in the matter! Maybe I do, maybe I constantly choose this way of being - but it's not much of a choice if I feel I don't have any alternative. I don't know what an existence is that doesn't have constant, painstaking self-scrutiny and -examination. That's the life I have lived, and I have not lived any other way. I would like to foster a sense of something different. But this still feels far away. So yeah, though I might constantly 'choose' to hold myself to a standard of not being perceived as 'stupid,' I don't know of another option. So yes, I choose the only option before me. Am I to blame? Oh man, there I go again with that word blame... I am to blame and also not to blame. Both are true. What a paradoxical world.

I extend the idea that what has been I cannot alter, but I only have the present accessible to me. If I am unhappy, contemplation of that plus any associated change can ONLY take place TODAY, HERE, IN THE PRESENT. All we have is now. All I have is now. What am I constantly running away from? Where do I believe I am scurrying towards? All of it's in vain. I am here, now. Why shouldn't I be honest with myself. Will I feel a 'bad' thing? Definitely the socialized understanding of 'bad', because if something presses upon my mind it has a good reason of being there. So perhaps I feel a 'bad' thing - that's helpful. Perhaps I feel a 'good' thing - that's helpful. As much so. The two are as helpful as the other, equally. Fundamentally. For those reading, please keep me PRESENT. It's never easy - I am very good at projecting myself anywhere and anytime but here and now. So hold me to it, please, I know it's best for me. It's painful most of the time, but its through pain we learn. It must be through pain that we learn - re the idea we die/destroy parts of ourselves in order to learn/update.

Happy birthday to me. 24 years old. I will work on refining my writing, vocabulary, and reading. I will seek to create poems and vivid imagery. I will take care of myself. I will live more analogue. More here and now, in the real world, whatever that might be.