Fresh Shit
It’s hard to be hard on someone you can tell is already hard on themselves.
Not that I’m going around picking at everyone and everything, but even if you consider yourself to not be a “judgy” person, we all judge each other whether we fully realize it or not—and a lot of the time, it’s a direct reflection of ourselves.
We all have preconceived ideas of one another and I just… anytime I, seldomly so, find myself examining someone more critically, I feel like the aforementioned notion rarely catches me off guard.
Until today, today it caught me off guard. I’ve always had this understanding towards these archetypes of people, but the way the phrasing of the understanding came out of my mouth after starting to loosen my grip on the pick, felt different.
Sometimes when I feel myself trying to understand why people act or present themselves in a certain way, there’s that little part of me that is very aware of the fact they are already doing the same thing to themselves; and I would hate for me to do that to me.
Nature of the internet aside, I can thankfully say I’ve grown out of that state of being that craves external validation to feel enough—whatever “enough” is.
Living my teen years with social media attached at the hip (ex 1D Twitter stan account here), to using only Instagram as a space to share and explore while trying not to get sucked into the algo (I enjoy my reels fix 😭), it’s taken a lot of time and conscious effort to continually find validation within myself without the likes of everybody else.
Do I still have moments of craving more? Yeah, I’m human, but I always know that’s not going to fix anything, and to sit with whatever may be the greater issue at hand.
What’s been irking me lately are the people you can literally feel the amount in which they are plagued by the idea of how they’re going to be seen, take over how and what they share. When you take the curtain of critique away, it’s honestly just really sad to bear witness to.
While I do think we should be caring about what we’re doing and why, at the same time, it’s like, why must we portray this level of seriousness that is so deeply rooted in the fear of not being seen.
To be seen—what does that even mean?
To be heard? Maybe…
To be felt? Likely.
I think there’s a difference between taking yourself seriously and presenting yourself seriously.
To me, taking yourself seriously equates more to being a generally caring human being who has interests and values, and stands by them, while also being open to conversing with others. There’s an unspoken confidence within people who are “sure” of themselves, who also create space for the un-sureness within us all.
Presenting yourself seriously quite literally feels like a cry for help. It bums me out. My first thought is always PLEASE get off the internet. None of us actually need this, and the vapid validation you crave is ruining your potential to blossom into whoever you may actually be without it. My second thought is, there’s no real way of escaping unless you shield yourself from everything, so I get it.
It’s always been so perplexing to me that in a time of such acceptance of uniqueness, we come across people who are drowning in uniqueness overload, and feel the need to take on a more serious persona to “stand out.” It feels fake, you know it does, so why force it?
I guess now would be a good time to say that this rambling is for those who fall in the taking yourself seriously category, but find themselves falling victim to the presenting yourself seriously costume.
This is not a rant for the reality tv star-turned influencer-turned another random person who thinks they have something to say because they have a “following.” While I am a firm believer that we all have something to contribute to this world, I am also a firm believer that the many who are not honest with themselves, unfortunately don’t.
It can be entertaining to pick apart the intricacies of what makes all of us who we want to be, but at the center of it all, we just want to be seen.
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Obsessed with this packaging I came across. The little dude? The blueish indigo ink on the orange? The type?! Always awesome to see some finessing in spheres most people would probably not think much design love is put into, I’ve always been in love with these Klein Tools bags.
These tracks have been on loooooooop. Quite the array if I do say so myself. I think with these few, it’s the relationship between production being somber in tone yet uplifting in concept, and overall lyricism that’s been hitting a nerve.
I stepped in a pile of dog shit on Tuesday—felt like I was due for it to be honest!
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Thank you for reading.
girl i know