Mar 16, 2026
I wanna exist in a vacuum. I wanna shield myself from the constant bombardment of "should'ves" and beliefs and opinions about the world.
I yearn to be a child who has no opinions about the world. I have too many, I have too many, I have too many. And my own perspectives on the world I live in are acting like distorted lenses through which I see it.
I would like to take a hammer and shatter all those lenses, every last one of them. I want to shatter them all into a fine dust of glass that blows away in the wind.
I want to live. I want to go places. I want to dance. I want to take pictures.
I would like to share my pictures online without worrying about the platform and the algorithms. I would like to not worry about the algorithms. I would like to not worry about privacy. I would like to not care about how daily habits and activities add up over time to significantly affect our physical and mental healths. I don't wanna think about money, about dollar-cost-averaging, about different styles of budgeting and active and passive income.
Too many of my guiding forces are preventions of harm. There's a billion harmful things on the planet, and I refuse to keep to keep operating on the philosophy about avoiding as many of them as possible.
I am a boat moving in the sea not because of my clearly marked map and excellent navigation skills, but by wherever my boat ends up moving, battered from every direction. I've spent a lot of time observing and studying the patterns of the ocean, how to roll with the punches and how to stay afloat in a storm. But I have lacked in choosing where I'm headed, catching the wind in my sails and navigating by the stars. I bought the sextant many years ago, hung it on the wall, and there it remains, still hanging, brand new.
Why must a healthy life be so much hard work? Why must hard work be seen as a sacrifice? Why must today be a preamble to tomorrow? There have to be some hints of joy in the sacrifices done for love. In the hard work put towards inching closer to your dreams.
I do not want to forget this. Every few weeks, I open up a journal and re-orient myself. Even in journalling, I wonder if I am writing completely honestly about what's on my mind, or am I still filtering and re-arranging words as if they might one day find an accidental audience. Why must that be? Why must the way I mould and break apart and put together words like clay be guided by an insecurity about the extent of my authenticity? Why can it not be a beacon of love?
I am the audience. I am both performer and audience. I must make something beautiful so I can experience something beautiful. For anyone can think anything.
Then again, why must it be compared to anyone? Is there inherent value in doing something everyone isn't because they are running those specific things on autopilot?
What is the point of any of these abstract thoughts?
I do not want to think them, I do not want to think them, I do not want to think them. I'm trying to live today even though I am already living today. I'm always living today. Now. But my attention is on my thoughts. Thoughts thinking about what I read and what I saw and what I experienced, finding patterns and lessons, passing them through filters of whatever random filters my brain picked up along the way, and using that to construct a future where those values are reliably fulfilled.
Words represent concepts that can connect to one another like those toys that have sticks with magnets, and ball-bearings as connectors. I picked that up as a kid once, and never let go. I always have it in my head, connecting experiences, thoughts, beliefs and hopes in a myriad of ways.
I wanna think and speak without worrying about the timelesness of what I'm saying - without worrying about how most of it will seem juvenile ten years. I wanna say what I want. I do not want to productize myself.
I think creativity will have to do for now. To take all the mess that's in my head, turn it into something messy that exists in the real world, but with signposts so visitors can look around and know where to go.