"The Great Reset"

[eos_nyxia]

....

 

>insert something later<

[eos_nyxia]

"I DON'T KNOW ANY OF THESE PEOPLE":

In this life, I obeyed one superlative principle above everything else: I wanted to witness people, see some truth about how they'd act and what they'd choose. Now for years, I've wanted to move on completely. But something always sticks; it doesn't help that I tend to be very problem-and-solution orientated.

But there is one best answer, and it may be the only answer there ever was for all of my issues:

Whatever this energy is.

Deep down, I've always known this to be true. Moreso at the emotional level rather than the cognitive level, as the latter tends to end up as cognitive dissonance.

 

So yea.

I don't know any of these people.

[eos_nyxia]

THE SUMMER OF NEON '24: (I decided that I wanted to have a NEON BITCH summer, because I've never had one before. Bye bye monochrome darks!)

• Retrofit: 40s to 60s.
• Neon-ass print: ....the 80s?

(Otherwise: I was happy when oversized clothing came back within the past 5 years (?) or so. Whenever I've been the most into it, it hasn't exactly been popular. But it being on trend gives me more clothing options if I want them.)

Honestly... if I wasn't going swimming, I could happily live wearing a tent these days. In general, unless I'm going through some (usually short-lived) flashy and expressive phase, I dress more conservatively than average because being an exhibitionist is exhausting, whether it's intentional or y'know, people just happen to be there existing where I'm existing with functioning eyeballs. Being acutely perpetually aware of people being aware of "me" usually has made me feel decentered from my own experience. But I think finally I might be moving past the stilting and limiting feeling of BEING SEEN by people who have their own ideas and biases about who you are based on how you appear and what that "has to mean".

Like, eventually you can truly and completely stop giving a shit, right?

Plus, I am not really, in my heart of hearts, an attention addict, and often my favourite things about experiencing life through a human vehicle have no direct relationship to being constantly reminded that I have one by other people, as if I exist to be seen rather than to experience life directly and rawly through my own senses and perception as myself, first and foremost. Basically, whatever reality that dudes get to live in and take for granted.

Oh, the joys of being invisible. (Or at least, believing that you are.)

But I mean, there's no intrinsic problem with being seen (or being hyper-aware that you're being watched), until you have one.

 

Not sure how this fits into the general aesthetic, but I've slept on getting this pin, and realized I missed out. I thought it would be like using a hair chopstick, but it stays in place as well as those spin pins but they're a lot easier to get out of your hair. Plus, regular-sized screw pins don't work well for smaller amounts of hair anyway.

 

Nails: Apparently, this is "on trend" and they're calling it "soap nails" (...because it looks clean?)

But really...

1. I'm lazy, but also can't stand overly-obvious chipping on my hands.
2. I do a lot of things with my hands; I've always been a doer. IMO long fancy nails are for ladies whose primary mode of being is liking or needing to be looked at (and who like to look at themselves). No judgment, but a ruined manicure is worse than no manicure at all. If it can't even last half a week before I end up chipping on some weights or gardening, what's the point?
3. I use pale pink in place of a light neutral (like white/ cream) because I hate wearing whites and instead opt for nude-ish colours, especially to break up the monotony of dark neutrals. Anywhere along this spectrum from pink to brownish: ballerina pink, pale rose gold, champagne beige.

Wearing ***too many*** rings and bracelets on one hand: (specifically my left side), and minimal jewelry everywhere else:

I hear there is some symbolic meaning to adorning either your left or right hand, like this picture below.... However, I've also heard that the right hand is connected to the left hemisphere of the brain (and also vice versa). While I'm fully reconciled with how all of this information squares with the sensations and observations of being in a body, realistically, my right hand is my drawing/ painting/ writing/ finger-picking hand, and I hate things getting in my way.

But yes, I'm an occultist, and my left hand is totally my wizard hand, and my wizard hand must be decorated and celebrated.

Wearing and reclaiming old symbols: (symbols were always meant to evolve anyway)

1. amber sun pendant
2. thor's hammer
3. minimalistic infinity band

Everything that I wanted them to mean, coming out of yet another hopeless phase in my life (early-mid 2019), I embrace now. Because why not? All you can make of it (that you will allow it to be made of) is ALL THAT YOU'VE GOT. Same as it ever was...

THE OFFICIAL MOISTURIZER OF THE UNDERWORLD: I'm trying pomegranate seed oil instead of my usual rosehip oil. I read that it smelt terrible, but it's not so bad. It smells a bit like exotic wood shavings.    (At least it doesn't smell like neem oil?)

ON THEME: I'm not much of a roguelite/ button masher, but I became one mid-late last year.

Originally I got this game for my husband a handful of Xmases ago, and now I think I've played more than him and may know the ins-and-outs of this game better.

I started a 2nd game and beat it after only dying 12 times, lol. I was mildly proud of myself.

Whatever the aesthetic and vibe of Mother 3 is:

I think it might also finally be the summer of the macebell. (Usually, it takes me about 1-2 years before I commit to learning a new medium or skill.)

Not right now though, because of cyclical female hormones.

Edited July 21 by eos_nyxia
The real reason why I started having a different "era" each summer, and sometimes every season, is that it makes it very easy to distinguish one season/ period from the other in my memories. My life is worth remembering on my own terms, isn't it?

[eos_nyxia]

THE SUMMER OF NEON '24: a soundtrack

Another loner insomniac anthem, which ironically makes me feel connected to everything.

Quote

Go outside... It feels right
To wash away your dreams and your desire
But you're not alone, you realise
You try to speak but you can only cry

(I love the person I am when I'm alone still though. What am I supposed to do about that?)

Vibe and lyrics are on point...:

Quote

If this is it
If this is all there is
I hope you live
I hope you live
If there's no end
And we are infinite
Still, I hope you live
I hope you live

 

A dimension of sorts.

Somehow, I swear I've heard this melody in a dream a thousand times before, like a forgotten, familiar, ever-shifting face:

Knowledge and memory of the last 10,000+ years did not save my life either.

I suspect that 2nd gen (?) shoegaze is probably boring for people who lived through the first wave. But then.... I didn't. It's all been equally new and novel to me. All I really care about is living in the sound universe(s) that make me feel the way I want to feel, you know?

Thematically this has been living rent-free in my head for a while, and I've been wondering who and what it's actually about, as I'm only aware of one Wittgenstein.

Among many things, I wasn't aware that the philosopher had a pianist brother and that there was a lot of death in their family. It seems there's a lot I don't know about them, period.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wittgenstein

IMO, drastically slowed-down music seems to be very hit-or-miss with very little in-between. I wonder why that is?

In any case, a great deal of the greatest beauty I've experienced in my life basically amounts to 800% slowed down, 10000% magnified experiences of otherwise "mundane reality".

In other words, they get the "blip in time" experience of something possibly beautiful, and I get a whole dimension all to myself. (It's not always so bad to receive a whole mountain created from a molehill though.)

Edited July 21 by eos_nyxia
1. Lots of other music, but it doesn't fit this vibe. Mostly summer pop girl vibes. 2. Is this a depressed soundtrack? It doesn't feel depressed.

[eos_nyxia]

TO MY HUSBAND:

When you've been feeling especially low, it's been so hard to convince you that you haven't been some consolation prize, and that I truly DO believe in you. And that I mean it when I say I will never leave you, if that's what you want. (And you've had more than enough time to change your mind already, haven't you, although you were always sure from the start?)

You've known me since I was... what... 16? You know I don't fuck around when it comes to these types of promises, specifically because I believe it's a sort of "sin" to promise someone forever if you can't deliver, to be flippant and careless in this way even if you somehow still mean it with everything you can attach meaning to. Specifically, it's the "sin" of being a person where your own words ultimately disintegrate into nothing because they MEAN nothing, to not be a person of your word.

I understand why you feel that way, and I know how it looks from outside of myself. It makes me feel so so sad, and at times, ashamed. I hurt the only person who ever truly was there for me in my time of actual need, and it hurts like I'm hurting myself directly (but like, hurting in a way that actually matters to me, because hurting myself often doesn't matter because for it matter, I'd be a slave to pain). It hurts every time I remember and every time I see you hurt. I'd say.... "I'm sorry", but it sounds so frivolous. The drama of sharing these words with you while having strong feelings about them, it seems to always fall short of how I actually feel. So I shut myself up and bear witness to your grief and my own. Because no matter what now, your pain is my pain now, as your joys are my joys.

I've told you over and over again: if I had left this body in 2019, you are the only one I would have felt bad about hurting. Certainly not my family or anyone else I had known. If I were to have regretted anything about leaving this body, you would have been my one regret.  (As for the rest of them, fuck them, I literally owe them nothing. I kept my hands as clean as possible and walked as lightly as I could given my circumstances. If I didn't stay by the roll of dice, then my business was otherwise done here.)

I don't have any more words in me to explain why I felt like that was the only choice I had to make: you've already heard it all over and over again, in slightly different iterations. That I was a slave to my ""higher self", and to "truth" via the "process of elimination" in general. If I could have known what I knew right now, instead of being dominated by intuition and cynicism of things that I had not yet directly experienced and seen via the actions of others... then obviously I would never have left you alone as I did. I can say "I did not want all this" (the way I hurt you, the unintended consequences) but that alone does not absolve me of having hurt you in any way.

As you've hurt a bit less deeply as time has passed and you've started to trust and feel more again, maybe it will make more sense on an emotional level. My choices. More than anything, I hope one day you will never have to hurt at all. I mean... if I've done my time, you've also done yours.

Isn't it time for a greater sense of a shared life and to take our place fully in the sun? Because why the fuck not? If this is all that there is, why shouldn't we live, and live well?

I know you're capable of it. If I was, (and I was certainly a "hopeless case", as in, there was no way out of my past predicament without destroying myself and starting over...) I know you are too. ....and I know you won't have to hurt yourself the way I hurt myself.  You ask me how I know? I JUST FUCKING KNOW, OK? (And now you're going to have to bear the burden of my endless belief in you, whether you want it or not!)

As for everything else, I will continue to try my very best to be whatever it is that you need and want me to be, and I will try not to let the remnants of my former life unknowingly creep onto us, in all these big and small ways that add up. There is... always something to work on.

Thank you for being here with me through all of it, and thank you for remembering my past self, and for being my second set of eyes (as I hope I can be for you). You are all I have left of my past self, that was seen.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you for your sacrifice.
For the record, I am glad it was you. And only you.

If they ever write my name down because of anything I end up doing with the rest of my life, I hope they write yours right beside mine, and not anywhere else.

 

 

Edited July 24 by eos_nyxia
----To the only person life has ever sent me to help me, like a gift, thank you.

[eos_nyxia]

VENUE SIZES AND PRICES:  I saw a local rabbit rescue that I follow post this:

I have nothing against Rabbitats (they are awesome, I've volunteered with them periodically) and Olivia Rodrigo (I've never heard her music and don't know much about her), but $1200 for 2 tickets??? Last time I checked, it was 200-400 dollars for arena tickets for bigger acts, but that was before COVID. Even that did not seem to be worth the cost, to be stuffed in a giant, sweaty stadium looking at a tiny screen with (presumably) a larger visual spectacle than would be possible inside a much smaller music club. I recently read that COVID had made the ticket price situation even worse, as Ticketmaster has developed new strategies to prevent scalpers from making money off-platform.

I'm sorry, but there is no person alive I would pay this much to see, regardless of how much money I have at my disposal. Especially when I think about how smaller shows are generally a better experience in every way. Without the personalized element of going to a show, what even is the appeal? I'm not even sure if my perspective is even a minority opinion, as clearly these arenas are filling out.

...or am I just a cheap bitch?

I'm not sure how much Olivia Rodrigo or other big acts take home, but I remember also reading that Taylor Swift takes home about 85% of the money she made on her Eras tour. Also: she is a billionaire now (not that I had to go out of my way to learn that whether I wanted to or not).

Like....

There is no artist that is important enough (like dollar-to-value received ratio) to make me think, "wow, they really deserve that amount of money, good for them!" Meanwhile, the work of teachers, nurses and caregivers, and people who literally build things (whether virtual or IRL) is so often grotesquely undervalued (especially the former in the USA). You know, people who keep human society running and functional at every level, who end up being directly responsible for raising the next generation IRL. (For smaller acts, I know that they struggle to make enough money from selling records, and streaming service contracts, and so making money from tickets and/or concert merch is something they rely on. I am not talking about people making a good living from their hard work, just the heinously wealthy.)

Some people would say that this perspective can't be anything other than envy. After all, if you were making all that money and you were idolized, you wouldn't have anything negative to say. Some people think that a music idol being a "nice person" and giving away lots of their money to charity justifies all the wealth they've received. Personally, I don't find it compelling to live in this type of world and it has no place in a more prosperous human future where more and more people get to maximize their human potential. Realistically speaking, the fight-or-flight experience of surviving at or below sustenance level does not leave people with sufficient time and energy to maximize their highest potential, and eat-or-be-eaten only brings a very few number of people to the top, and all of them are "killers" in a sense (or alternatively, are being handled or "managed"). Eventually, we have to stop the fight. The results of this sort of capitalistic idolization, along with the decaying remnants of """THE ARTISTE""" as a modernist, narcissistic phenomenon deserves to be phased out. Good riddance to it all...

This is not to say that art cannot potentially have an immeasurable emotional, spiritual, or human value. That this should automatically be reflected back as huge amounts of wealth and that this should be heralded as some sort of spiritual value, no...

 

While we're at it: do artists deserve this much social power, especially because they are famous, have creative talents, and sometimes charisma? No, generally not.

Should they roleplay as public intellectuals? Probably not, though there will be exceptions.   (For the record, many public intellectuals should not be roleplaying as public intellectuals either.)

 

Perhaps the world's social climate will change again, perhaps some time very soon.

Because this is stupid.

Edited August 8 by eos_nyxia
I'm going to see Bent Knee in September at the Biltmore Caberet. It's one of my favorite venues with a capacity of about 350. Worth leaving my house for.