7/16/23

This will be my last post on this blog, as yesterday was my 18th birthday and I want this to be a capsule of the times before. However, the topic I want to talk about today is the retention of the self and if it is indeed possible to live based on principle and according to one goal without experiencing evolutionary stagnation. Or contrarily, if it is necessary to bend those dearly held principles for the sake of evolution, how far can they bend before one becomes a shadow of their former self. And finally, if that occurs, will one even be conscious of the lost plot, and if they are, can it be reversed, or is the very point of becoming not realizing that you are becoming because you are too busy living life? I mention this because I’m now 18, and I have the freedom to physically sculpt the world that I have wanted and conceptualized for the past 3-4 years. But now I wonder if that was true goal that I should work toward, or simply the product of juvenility. Personally, I have never been the sort to believe in that concept, as the teen years may not be the best for decision making, but they do yield some of the most creative and individualistic concepts of ones life simply because they have the freedom to do so. But as I study the paths of those I look up to for doing the same thing in their earlier days, only one (sort of) out of the at least 10 have stayed true to what they set out to do in the beginning, while the others have either sold on what they believed in entirely for some corporate advantage, seen the fun others were having in their ignorance and imposed such a state upon themself, or (and most scarily) naturally evolved away from that. So now I have the fear that I will fall victim to that since being an adult in America means that I have to assimilate to work culture and fear persecution as a black male and be just as susceptible to the traps that have claimed the vision of many before me. However, I could also look at this anxiety as the product of a larger blessing. Now that I have a worldview (the destruction of capitalism), the means to bring it about (music), my own set of interests (video games, dystopian anime, cloud-rap, shoegaze, philosophy, important fiction, thrifted culture as it should be (90s grime)), and a place where I aim to call my home and see to the marriage of these ideas, I can learn from those who came before me and avoid the pitfalls that they encountered. I believe these pitfalls are dangerous in of themselves, but even more so because of the fear of those pitfalls causing people to fall into them even faster (i.e. Anakin Skywalker). So perhaps the answer to this is to make sure I maintain this goal, but only for a set period of time, as to ensure I can freely evolve as a person and not live for only one thing, all the while giving myself an invisible deadline to achieve them by to accelerate progress. Then, after this period, I will hopefully be in the position to pass the torch and move somewhere desolate to find myself once more, before returning to the forefront to assess the situation and explore my options from there. This way, I will never fold on the principles that drive me, and allow the goals that they beget to continue even if I am not the driving force behind them, for what is a communistic government if it cannot be sustained by the people that it “governs” so much as one man. But I can also evolve freely, and mature in every way save for the youthful imagination and drive to achieve despite the risk that makes up the light I have seen die in many others far before it should. Perhaps this is not the correct philosophy to use, and perhaps I am just as naive as those I wish to prevent becoming, but I need to try for my own sanity. I also need to find somebody to share these ideas with in a romantic and unbreaking fashion, as I don’t want to be another incel philosopher who blames the world for his problems and cannot experience the most important of human emotions, as one who cannot do that can neither say they’ve lived, nor properly move past certain eras, as while an era is about one’s headspace at that time, it is also about the people they share it with. And perhaps that is my biggest fear after all, for as I prepare to go to Michigan in one month’s time, I won’t know anybody period, much less anybody that I’ll share an actual meaningful connection with. And even if I do find somebody like that (including friends), I do not have the faith to believe that they will last or be genuine, as the entire point of college to a degree is individualism and faux-achievement, but it is a sort of Catch 22, as you need to do it to get the tools you need to succeed, but you lose some of those very tools by doing it. And even if you do go into it with the mentality of not losing sight of what you want to get out of it, being close enough with others as to foster a connection will likely see you being influenced (even unconsciously) by what they want to get out of it. So I suppose I’m simultaneously battling a sort of preemptive cognitive dissonance paired with a fear of being alone at a permanent level paired with a fear of being an imposter/stagnant. Which is great. But I suppose the only way to get through it is to simply live instead of dwelling on it. Because if there is a meaning of life (which I don’t believe there is) it would be to simply live. To feel. To experience. Maybe trying to accomplish something governmental rather than simply feeling and living and putting that into the music is what is causing this. So maybe I’ll just try to feel for a while and see how that goes for a while instead of trying to be something so rigid and defend that by saying its for the purpose of feeling, all the while knowing where that path goes. We’ll see in the end. And I guess you guys will too in a parasocial sort of way if it all works out. Maybe it will all work out. And maybe it won’t. But I guess I just need to keep on living and feeling. And being a person instead of an idea. That sounds pretty nice.