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having a rough week. thinking about how Lucy Dacus said that she meant to deliver the message that “one day at a time was the right place to aim” through her song ‘Please Stay’. she said when her friends were struggling with suicidal thoughts, she wanted to provide them a way back into life. thinking about how Julien Baker said in an interview that her reason for staying alive was to show other people that there’s a reason to stay alive. thinking about how she once wrote the lyrics “god I want to go home” and then later wrote the lyrics “I changed my mind, I wanted to stay”. thinking about how Phoebe Bridgers said that her song ‘Garden Song’ explores believing that good things are coming for yourself and is about choosing to entertain hopeful thoughts rather than dwelling on your bad ones. thinking about how if Julien Baker had taken her life, then I would not have mine today. something about the nature of hope and survival. something about how much I love these boys and how many times they’ve saved me.
I have a highly complicated relationship with almost everything in life, but most especially with my creativity. I have such a deep, desperate need to create. Every single day without fault I am brought to tears by the idea that my voice will never be heard. It is not that I feel particularly special or that I believe that I deserve to have a voice, but it simply saddens me so much to see a life for myself without that happening. looking at my favorite artists and the ways in which they’ve been able to impact and connect with others through their creations has been the fuel for this ravenous need of mine to create. However, it is not enough for me to just create. I must create something that transcends all expectations. I must make something so impactful, so special, and so meaningful that it tops anything I could have imagined. I need my work to be perfect. It has to be that good because it’s made by me. If my work is not to be tainted by my own hands, then it must be made to be so perfect that not a trace of me is left within it. Of course, this mindset of mine is detrimental to the art itself. Perfectionism, perfectionism. I cannot make something perfect, so I will not make something at all. It is absolutely stupid, and yet this is a constant looming feeling that I cannot escape. And of course, my depression and anxiety create further difficulties for my creativity. I have this pressing, urgent, desperate need to create something so beautiful…and yet, I cannot bring myself to get out of bed and put my hands to work. I believe, somehow, that I have something that I need to say…and yet, I hesitate to share any of my words and I find it immensely difficult to believe any of my work to be worthy in comparison to those already in existence. It feels as though I am a shell. I was born to be an artist and I feel that pressure constantly, yet it feels as though every factor of my existence is working against my ability to create. I feel something just beneath the surface, an eruption of ideas and words waiting to be expressed, but I’m not quite confident that I hold the artistic abilities to translate them effectively. It feels as though someone with more talent and motivation could have been given my brain, and they could have really made something of it. It is a crushing feeling, one that weighs me down more as each day passes.
Nihilism and the concept of life being meaningless is a mindset that has entrapped me for a long time. I’ve seen it in a lot of younger people, especially in those like myself who suffer from mental disorders. When I was experiencing suicidal thoughts, I would use “life is meaningless and nothing matters” as fuel for my fire. I’d like to challenge these statements by both agreeing and adding onto them. yes. life is essentially meaningless. we live, we die, we are remembered for possibly a few generations, and we are eventually forgotten. however, as an addition to the “nothing matters” statement, I present “nothing matters forever”. the hug you gave your little sister won’t matter when you’ve both been forgotten. but it matters now because you saved your sisters life and she’d been contemplating suicide that night. she went on to smile at a stranger in the grocery store, and that smile made them believe in humanity again. that strangers regained hope led them to start a non-profit that helped thousands of people. what I’m trying to say is that we cannot be remembered forever, but we can do tiny acts of good that ripple out into other generations. nothing we do matters in the end, but right now, while we’re still alive, everything we do matters. positive nihilism is the way to go.
hi guys I just want to say that I am so appreciative of every single one of you who has interacted with any of my posts. seriously. i really really am. it feels amazing to know that you’ve heard some of my words and liked them enough to heart or reblog them. and it makes me feel much less lonely and much more connected. thank you guys I love you so much and hope you’re all doing well
this has been on my mind after coming across a YouTube video where a lesbian discussed how she is ashamed to be a part of the lgbtq+ community. she took pride in being a “normal” gay and not like the “weird” gays. many people in the comments agreed, saying they were gay and happy to find another “normal” gay person.
so let me say this: know the rich history of your community. the leather lesbians, the butches, the drag queens, all of the people who you are denouncing…they are the ones who fought for your right to love. they are the very foundation of the queer community. without their contributions, you would not be able to even make a YouTube video about your queerness. It’s extremely disrespectful to identify those people as “weird” and “not normal” when they are the very people who have paved the way for your existence.
in addition, I’d like to bring in a point that I read about the other day. a lot of younger generations of queer people are toning down their gayness to be acceptable and comfortable for straight people. what I mean is that they dress “normally”, they maintain long hair, they are not vocal about politics, they do not show off pride flags. they also denounce the queer people with dyed hair, short hair, pride flags in their bios, loud political opinions, and other outwardly gay attributes as “weird”. be aware of the ways that “acceptance” has really become limited in the way that many people are only accepting of gay people who are not too gay to be considered “weird”. do not, as a queer person, actively contribute to this.
and finally, please remember that in a world where there is increased division, where more people are attacking lgbtq+ rights, where hate crimes are on the rise…the community is what you have. those “weird” and “not normal” gays are a part of the community that has and will continue to have your back. show some respect.
one of my recent posts has been making me think in general about the type of people who are labeled as “weird”. In general, I really try to refrain from passing judgement toward anybody, especially based on their personality or appearance. and my greatest regrets are moments where I treated anybody as less than or excluded anyone (intentionally or unintentionally). every single time I look back and cringe at my younger self, it isn’t because of the way I looked or the things I said. It was because of the moments where someone was vulnerable and I withheld gentleness. moments where I could have been warmer, friendlier, or kinder to someone. I myself was a “weird” kid. I was loud, outspoken, I had a wild laugh, I never had many close friends. Yet somehow, I ended up turning my back on those same “weird” kids. and for what? popularity? the feeling of superiority? I know I was just a kid, and I was desperate to fit in and to receive love. I really wish I had gone about it in a different way, though. but now I do what I can to make up for it. I always loved you, weird kids. now I can do it out loud. I love you “weird” kids, I love you outcasts, I love you misfits, I love you loners. I love you and I hope you know that if you were treated like you were crazy or weird or like you didn’t belong, it probably had nothing to do with you. and I’m sorry for you and I’m sorry for the kids whose ability to love has been hindered by societal expectations and a lack of love.
I have a very extreme viewpoint with my life. It’s like when I envision my life, even if I have many of the things I want, if there’s not everything I want, then I immediately say “it’s not worth it. I don’t want it.”
like people always say “you can’t have it all.” but sometimes survival takes so much for me that I can’t hold onto having “some”. if it’s going to be enough for me to keep fighting, it has to be “all”. pretty tough