#playing thru it was a fucking nightmare but i love it so deeply | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

violetsystems · 3 years

Text

#personal

I write here sometimes because it’s incredibly satisfying to be understood. Some people take pictures. I took pictures for years. For a time I really believed that what I was doing was connecting with the world. I traveled all over. Spent weeks at a time in Asia by myself just wandering. I shared it with ghostly friends and attachments. I had understood it to be a precursor to a real connection. That I was putting out this information on the internet to connect with someone. Much like I had tried to make it in the music scene at one time to find likeminded people. The one thing I’ve learned through failure is it doesn’t always work out the way you want it to. It may just be from repetition that I’ve become more talented writing about the things I see and feel. I’m never good enough at anything to be recognized or treated with some value in the real world. I’ve had some of the same cryptic names cycle through my dash for years. I’d argue sometimes that media here isn’t very social. It’s rather communal. A shared almost secret history of memes, idols, art and music. You never have to clarify much. Something here is cringe to one person and high art to others. There’s this silent understanding that we’re all trying to move closer to what moves us. We’re adrift in hidden connections plugged together like a Rhizome. It’s all romantic shit if you grew up reading Gibson playing pen and paper Cyberpunk with a bunch of nerds. But the world gets harder and harder to plug back into outside these delicate ebbs and flows of information. I never really spent much time on Usenet back in the day other than to dig for mp3′s. I grew up running Bulletin Board systems with my mother. I was always writing. I almost got expelled from a Christian High School for publishing a zine. Some younger kids on my bus got a hold of it and claimed it was Satanic. Half of the zine was about illustrations from people I met in real life. Most of them were reminiscent of Pushead. Very gory skate graphics. The guy who drew them also designed flyers for punk bands. Decades later I don’t really think there’s much difference between Tumblr and Zine culture. Of all the things you’d have to wear the badge from high school, nobody really empathizes that I have become the patron saint of zine culture. Of all the shit people could talk about me over the years. He was a jungle dj. Oh he was a footwork dj. He was a white rapper. He tried to skate but my friends are better than him. He tried to make his own shirts. I sold a lot of those here on Tumblr. More so than knowing anyone in real life. People get the impression I’m a lot of things. I’m that guy you see helping the lady in the wheelchair in the grocery store find help. This happened yesterday. The woman thought I worked there. There was an awkward sign on the door looking for a security guard for hire. I spoke with the deli and got someone to assist. For some reason everyone made the mistake of labeling me as a graffiti artist for years. The police didn’t help. I’ve had varying degrees of mistaken identity and my share of surveillance. But I’ve never done anything other than run an apartment gallery for street art. I was in the walk thru for an outside atm yesterday. There was an angry white man scrubbing off some purple tags with some orange zep. I joked and said “get the led out! He didn’t think it was funny. He replied the people who lived in this neighborhood should do something about this. I replied I lived here and there’s not much you can do. He scolded me saying Chase could remove the atms as punishment. He didn’t work for chase. I told him I was more of a JP Morgan kind of guy. Everybody on the internet thinks I’m the next roaring kitty but doesn’t want to admit it. Or is that the other way around. One thing I’m for certain. I’ve been a lot of things and someone always tries to outdo me at being me.

I write here to parse the reality that nobody keeps score. I keep track of my finances often. For some reason, I’m doing about the best fiscally I’ve ever done just waiting for Godot. I spoke with my dad last night about things. I’ve had four packages go missing since mid April. I’ve had people follow me around and give me weird looks. I’ve had my locks tampered with. I’ve had consistent fraudulent charges I’ve had to contend with. It never ends. It’s like a literal nightmare shit show outside the door at every moment. I write here about it to simply let people know I do not think any of it is normal. And generally, I start to believe that it never was. I don’t drink anymore. I don’t really have a problem with people who do. But when people overdo it they forget how far they cross the line. My biggest fear for this summer is the yolo effect. That people will be so frustrated with being held back that they will use this summer as their ultimate party bus. The shoe will be on the other foot. If you wear a mask you are crazy to them. Everyone will have the chance to speak their mind in public now. They’ve been practicing on Facebook for fifteen months to tell you off. Sometimes I feel like there’s a whole generation of people who think they stan me here. Who go out into the wild and whisper what they think they’ve learned through reading comprehension about me. I relish this. Sort of like how Zizek talks of surveillance. Let the dogs and the secret police learn something I say! And you put it out there on the internet in any fashion and they will learn. Often not in the way you want them to. Which is why as a writer, obfuscation is the biggest weapon you have against nosy neighbors and pinkerton spies. If I am even a writer at all. This kind of activity just like my music isn’t considered anything of a skill. There are a lot of people out there who can’t even reply in an email on LinkedIn with the spell check on. If I have all these skills. If I have all these things I’ve been. Why am I in this situation particularly? Why hasn’t anyone noticed how badly it is I am suffering on the inside? Technically I’m not suffering as near as I was a year ago. I’m out of debt. I’ve gotten rid of a lot of excess baggage. I’ve kept healthy by working out in my home. I’ve adjusted to the reality that nobody ever gets it but me. I’ve plugged myself into investments that I took the full risk on. I’ve literally crawled from the ashes of a situation meant to break me. And my consolation prize is that nobody ever. And I mean EVER. Talks. About it. What happened to me. How fucking horrible it is. How fucking wrong it all is. All the way back to when I first started trying to be recognized as me. To be valued. I have to stop myself there. I write here often and I feel to a certain group of dear friends it is valued. That my context is understood a little more deeply than “maybe we can use this guy.” I’ve been used on levels that would make you vomit in public. And I’ve been gaslighted enough to know that there’s no use in trying to prove it. I’m supposed to move on and understand the rules. There are no rules out here. There’s a semblance of order when people stand in front of cameras or their zoom mic. When they’re shouting from their “platform” to change the world. Nobody ever talks. Nobody really listens. And for that I feel we’re all growing tired of a world that simply shouts out it’s demands. I wake up to the same reality every morning. Nobody texts. Nobody invites me out to socialize. Everybody has something to say to me and it’s never “How are you doing?” None of it really matters to me from simple statistical observation. If I haven’t changed your mind by now, you don’t really want to know what I’m thinking.

When you get stuck. And who knows if you will. But when you get stuck like me. It takes a lot of positivity to stay focused. I go out and try to do things often. But people will spoil that solitude with some bullshit excuse like “This is America. I’m free to do what I want when I want.” At the expense of others. And out here, I’d love to tell you how I survive when nothing changes. I stay out of the way. I am so fucking disassociated from this place that it feels evil. I’ve been in this city over two decades. You would think a person like me would have some kind of culture other than being hunted and tested every turn. Who knows who the ring leader is anymore. People read what I write and then take it their own way. Nobody really cares for my well being out here. That’s self love talking. And I am being real. People have manipulated my entire life and put my safety at risk for the sake of some sort of performance. Some of that is just life. Some of that I accept because it’s the way this lane operates. But nowhere in this journey have I sacrificed my authenticity for some big payoff. I don’t even know what the fuck is going on with people anymore. It is okay to remove yourself from a series of toxic situations. It is okay to reset. It is okay to understand that the pandemic might have reset everything for you back to square one. It is okay to let go of social obligations that never valued you as a person. It is okay to keep wearing a mask. It is okay to say no. It is okay to walk away from a disrespectful situation and rely on yourself. It is also hard as fuck in practice. If anyone can learn anything from me it is that you literally are asking for it. The old fuck around and find out. Except I’ve found out a lot more than just how charming I can be to the right person by being thoughtful and consistent. I’ve learned the FOMO of trying to participate in a pyramid is not the kind of leverage I’m interested in. I’ve learned that debt rhymes with net. I’ve learned how to keep that somewhat stable in one of the most fucked up economic shitstorms in America. I’ve learned I’m not eligible for the things people assume I’m on. Like unemployment. I’ve learned health insurance costs as much as my rent. Which is a great deal on rent. I’ve learned that making hamburgers and freezing them are delicious. But even then you’d have to pay me more than fifteen dollars an hour. I’ve learned this entire thing is my fault. And I’ve written about it for years. And yet nobody seems to want to have a conversation about it. They just keep on assuming. People are sleepwalking out there. Some people are really good at faking it. But then you follow their lead and end up in the same laugh out loud shit show. When you get stuck, it’s best to count your blessings. At least people might somewhere understand why I do the things that I do. Why I think it’s completely futile to try to do anything drastic when everything always fails. Why I’ve given up on believing that people have my best interest at heart in a city that’s ignored me for over a year. I write to keep a clear narration of how I’m trying to tackle a problem far bigger than me. I deal with it by staying out of the way. Out of sight. Trapped in a corner shack lighthouse in a highly accessible city. With no end of people trying to access me. To chip on through. I wonder if you got to the center of all this. If you really solved the mystery. I wonder if you’d finally break down and cry. That you’ve been wrong about me for this long. There’s no mystery to solve about me other than why I keep writing on a dead platform. And why the general public secretly pays so much attention to every word I type. I don’t really “wonder” anymore. I just know. <3 Tim

0 notes