Another quick one

I feel like I’ve come up against another brick wall, and this one has hit me much more suddenly than the last. Right back when I started this I had so much to write about, and I did. For the first couple of months I uploaded a lot of my best stuff so far, and I was uploading way more frequently too. I was writing for hours every day, it was new and exciting and I had a lot I needed to get off my chest as well, and to be fair I had more free time as they’ve been giving me more work since the winter really got going. I did slow down though, and I also uploaded a few mediocre entries for the sake of keeping to at least something new every week. I was worried that it wouldn’t end, that the enjoyment I had for this at the start wouldn’t return, but then over the last month it has. I’ve been really starting to enjoy it again, the last post especially might be the one I’m most proud of out of all the things I’ve uploaded. If not it’s certainly up there, and it’s definitely the best quality post. Not that you can really measure that in any objective way, but you know what I mean. It’s the best example of what I’m trying to do here, that and a couple of others are the ones I’d show as a representative if asked, not that anyone ever would.

See that period before was really concerning for me, I began to worry whether I had again got myself into a situation where I was expected to spend hours of time on something I found arduous and boring rather than the enjoyable hobby it should be. Very similarly to what I was talking about two posts back actually, where I’d started off enjoying chatting with that girl and then began to hate it, I thought that maybe I was growing to hate this. It never happened, but there were a couple of weeks where like I said I just forced myself to put something up rather than letting a post come together organically. Because of course, part of me thought it might never happen or at least that it would take a while. Of course none of those posts have been very good, and maybe it would have been better to just post even less often but I really really don’t want to go less than weekly. I’ve already gone into why before, but basically it’s because I’m scared of losing the few regular visitors I do get. I think I’m on three or four now, so back up from my lowest point of one but still a tenuous amount. As much as I am doing this for myself, I am also doing it to be heard. Not by a large number of people, but some. I write these because they will be read by someone, and maybe give them something to think about or just hear me whine idk..

I was going to force myself to write something again this week, I finally finished the book I was reading and was going to talk about that but it’s been six days since my last post and all I’ve managed is a couple of paragraphs. It’s not even that I’m not interested in talking about it, I just can’t right now for some reason. I remember at several points while reading the book there were things that stood out to me and got me inspired to share my thoughts. This post about the book, which I’m sure I’ll get around to eventually, was on my mind during those times. I think I mentioned I was planning it in my head in the post I made right after New Year’s Day even. I have both specific ideas for posts I intend to make down the line and the random moments of inspiration and yet I can’t do it again. I hope this doesn’t last as long as the last time, and next week I have a lot of time off so perhaps being stuck inside for four days in a row will get me writing but at the same time it can also be rather demotivating.

As I said before, I feel like I’m navigating my way through the black land. The thing is I don’t really know where I’m trying to get to, and I’ve been here so long I forgot what it’s like in happier and brighter places. I get a glimpse every now and then, the star poking through the sooty cloud layer, and it gives me energy to move and push on. This time a month, another just a few days, etc. The doubt always creeps back in eventually, where is this new path actually leading, further in? If I just stay where I am I’ll definitely get nowhere, and the evil things that lurk here begin to close in also, but I’m just so tired of this whole charade. I stay put and the shadow grows ever heavier, something somehow pulls me out of it and I begin a new but ultimately futile journey which ends with me once again alone in a cold and dark pit. Is my goal to get free, to escape from this place? If so why would I ever have come here in the first place, did I stray from the right course by accident or deliberately? It seems a mix of both choice and circumstance led me here, but I don’t know how much of a role either played. I don’t remember anymore, all memory of my time before being here is a blur.

I remember what it was like early on though, my spirit was weakened very gradually. It didn’t happen right away, I believe I even thought that in some way I was better for having ended up here. Like it took something to end up here that most people didn’t have, pride and delusion go hand in hand. Stupid people and boring people never end up in such places, but I see now that the boring one is me. I’ve done nothing but aimlessly wander around not developing at all, and the point at which I diverged from everyone else gets further away every day. Let’s say I can find my way back, if that’s even what I want now, and that alone takes some time. Well even then I’m at a place most people have long moved on from, and therefore still just as alone.

I’m not just talking about the thing I was talking about last week here, although I suppose that is what has brought all these thoughts up again, I’m talking about every aspect of life. It’s funny though, I talked about PUAs last week and this metaphor is quite appropriate for them in a way. You know, because the thing with PUAs is in many cases they’re chasing after the people who left them behind long ago. Even the ones who go on to be incredibly successful with women are eternally unsatisfied because they will never experience young love. If you look past the greased back hair, stained leather jacket and ripped jeans you’ll see the same lonely kid who spent too many summer afternoons indoors. It’s really quite sad, and I know I can’t ever end up like that. There aren’t many other options though, I mean where can I go from here? I’m really not sure, I just feel so hopelessly lost and not only does it seem like no one cares it’s beginning to feel like I’m actually resented for being such a loser.

I’m struggling to even stick to a coherent point, I’ve just been hit over the last week with this sudden influx of bad thoughts. It’s like you get on a train of thought and within a short few days you’ve seen all the usual scenery from the window. I’m just having a hard time right now, and I’ll try to make a better post next week. It’s a shame, I really have felt like I’ve been on a roll the last month. I think this is just going to happen sometimes.

Volcel gang manifesto

So, I said I’d talk in more detail about online dating. I’ve been told, a few times, that I’ve never actually made any effort to get a girlfriend/ lose my virginity. Mostly by “helpful” normalfags online but also once in person. A lot of the time online it isn’t specifically aimed at me, because I rarely ever moan or whine about not having those things anymore for reasons I kind of talked about in the last entry. Rather it’s aimed at “robots” or “incels” and similar kinds of people in general, who I do associate with. There was one specific post I read, unfortunately it was a while ago now so I don’t have a screenshot and I have no idea what thread it was so I wouldn’t be able to find it in the archives. The guy had made this thread, one of those ones you see fairly regularly or at least used to, saying he was the one who had the right advice that would help us out of the situation we’re in. It’s the kind of thread, the kind of person, who the whole bee urself meme was originally made to mock. Anyway, of course people reacted accordingly and insulted/ berated him and were just making jokes about the whole thing and I was going to give up on it and find something else to entertain myself with but then an actually rather interesting exchange happened.

At some point someone made what I think was quite an insightful comment, he said that this advice never worked before with incel/ robot types not necessarily because it was bad advice generally speaking. Clearly it worked for some people after all, but it assumes things that are true about the person giving advice are true about everyone. Now I’ll try and explain what he meant, or my interpretation of what he meant anyway, using the most well known of these little nuggets of normie wisdom “Just be yourself”. What they really mean by this is, stop being so inhibited (as if it’s so fucking easy) around other people, especially those you don’t know very well. Which there’s some truth to, it seems like when you’re shy or awkward people sense that you’re hiding something. Which I suppose in a way you are, you’re not being yourself dare I say and people can sense how contrived everything you do is.

The problem again, is that it’s not something you can just turn on or off. I can’t just act how I do around my close friends or on my own when I’m around other people it’s physically impossible for me. At least for the moment, although it’s starting to feel less and less possible that there’s much I can do to change that even in future. More importantly though is that underlying assumption that if you are somehow able to get over that, you’ll just be accepted and liked for who you are. There’s no reason that someone wouldn’t still be ostracised for their political beliefs, their social attitudes, etc. Given the tendency of people like me to gravitate to extreme ideas I’d say it’s actually fairly likely. The important thing to remember here is the assumption, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s not just this one example either, all the usual advice these kind of people share has it’s own because of course it’s all sold as universally applicable, which really means it applies to no one.

If you want to find out what it is specifically they are assuming is universally true, it’s the thing that actually makes these hot tips and tricks they have work. So of course in the example I chose it’s actually being likeable and not frightening to normalfags with your weird views on things. You might think I’m being unfair, that of course no one really thinks that everyone is a boring normal faggot like them. After all, they are aware that extreme beliefs exist so naturally people also exist to hold them. Fair point, they would agree with that if pointed out probably, but I think on a day to day basis they underestimate the amount of people who they would consider weird and feel uncomfortable around hugely. I could be completely wrong, but I genuinely believe they think of such people as a tiny fringe group. Of course this specific “be yourself” (and of course all similar statements) line is given by a particular type. I guess they’re what people might call a turbonormie, at least that’s one term I’ve heard used for them. This is most people, who just engage with the world in a very superficial way. People who talk about the weather and wear fast fashion. Yes that’s kind of a strawman or caricature, a modern archetype even, but that doesn’t mean it’s inaccurate. It’s a composite, so obviously it’s not going to describe any one of these people that well but don’t pretend you don’t know the type.

The thing is, people use advice that worked for them. So for someone who was kind of always one of these people but just was maybe a little socially awkward or shy as a kid being themselves worked. Maybe they were part of a certain clique or social niche while at school, even one of the ones who pride themselves on being different like the goth kids from southpark. See they think that because they were different in a very shallow way from most of their peers, that they’re similar to the incels and actual social rejects who remained that way into adulthood. The difference of course being that what made them different was fashion, and I’m not using that word to necessarily mean clothing (although of course, oftentimes that was a part of it) but rather something that can be taken off at any time, rather than something fundamental.

Then you have failed normies or alt normies or whatever other of these silly little terms you want to choose, people who can blend in reasonably well but are a little “off” maybe. Think of someone who has always been able to make friends, has had a few relationships, etc. but also has a few “weird” ideas. Of course “bee urself” didn’t work for them, but another little chestnut of advice these people will give is “fake it till you make it”. Again, because it worked for them. They were able to stay composed and appear normal long enough for it to happen naturally, so of course everyone must be capable of that. You know, and on and on it goes for all the various different kinds of people who think they’re helping you by just repeating what worked for them. They obviously don’t really care about you (not that they should care about people on the internet they’ve never even met, but they shouldn’t pretend to either) and are just looking to feel good for “helping” people. I got so sidetracked I completely lost my train of thought..

Right, the thread I was talking about. So in response to this comment, about how his advice might not be universally applicable and in fact might actually only work for quite a small group of people, instead of having a moment of self reflection he decided to double down. They were going back and forth for a while, and as these people always do when slightly pushed back on start calling you things, incel, loser, etc. So much for the whole good samaritan routine. Honestly the fact that they’re so quick to jump to those specific kinds of insults makes me think they’re there really just to feel less pathetic for a little while, and the contempt they really have is revealed in these moments. It doesn’t really matter though, what I’m trying to get to is a particular thing he said at one stage in this whole thing. I don’t remember the exact wording, but essentially it was something like “you’ve never even asked a girl out before, you’ve never even tried, it’s not my advice that’s wrong you’re just a coward”. The reason this particular example of something which as I said in the first paragraph is something people like me are accused of often, is the last part. I’m not going to try and disagree that I’ve never actually tried, because it’s a fair point, but I will disagree that cowardice is the reason. Well, maybe it plays a role, but it’s definitely not the main reason that’s for sure. See, I myself used to agree with that. I have for a very long time seen myself as a coward, but I think over the years there have been a few situations that I would have handled quite differently were I one. With anyone I was willing and able to be honest with, I would have openly referred to myself as a coward maybe even as recently as a year ago.

Which finally takes me to what I actually was intending to talk about when starting this, online dating. See we now have a way of getting into the “dating game” or whatever you want to call it, with the risk or scary part removed. Yes you still might be unsuccessful and be rejected indirectly by having no one “like” or match with you or whatever, but it’s all totally impersonal. The actual genuinely scary, terrifying even, prospect of asking out a girl you barely know or even a total stranger and very possibly getting shot down and/ or humiliated is completely done away with. By the time you get to any kind of interaction it’s been established there is a mutual attraction between the two of you, and by the time you get to meeting in person you’ve established you get along and have had time to get a little more comfortable around them. I don’t need to explain this, it’s the selling point. I’m just trying to stress what I was saying as much as possible, that we have an example of a way to bypass the scary part.

The thing is though, I’m not on any online dating site/ app. In fact I’d be more likely to cold approach a woman in public like the PUAs do than sign up for online dating. Both are very fucking unlikely of course, I’m not saying cowardice doesn’t play some role, but it’s clearly more than that. I’ve been thinking for a long time about what it could be, but it’s a tricky thing. What I think, is that it’s not so much that I have a problem with the modern idea of “dating”, but rather that there’s something different about the first relationship you have starting somewhere like that. I’m talking about on online dating especially, but also just asking a girl out in person. See the modern idea of “dating”, of serial monogamy if you prefer, is unbelievably cynical. The entire premise is that you will have several failed relationships, it’s not just expected it’s literally a given. Now people who have become cynical can get on just fine in a cynical system, but those of who have yet to lose our idealism not so much.

Now what makes online dating different, other than the safety I already talked about? Unlike other spaces for “dating”, it is explicit about it. Sure you had speed dating events and stuff like that but they’re a novelty, most people go to clubs and bars and places like that. So online dating managed to make the entire thing seem even more contrived, and there is the real issue I think I and presumably some other people like me have. See, the other way people meet as adults is they might ask out a colleague, or someone they share a hobby with. Sure, they still have to ask and that’s a scary prospect especially if you’ve never done it before, but the idea doesn’t feel wrong in the way that “dating” whether it be online or irl does. Going into the world with the express purpose of finding a gf, feels really wrong to me and I can’t explain why and that really bugs me. I think I even may have spoke about this before.

In fact I definitely did, I don’t remember exactly which post but it was not too long ago. I think the phrase I used was it gets under my skin, and it really does. People don’t say “I want to be in a relationship with this particular person” they say “I want a girlfriend” or I want to be in a relationship”. I don’t want to repeat myself if I’ve already talked about this, but it’s something that keeps popping back into my thoughts. Modern dating, the phenomenon that is taken to it’s ultimate conclusion with these shitty dating apps and sites but has existed in some form since the 20s, feels unnatural and of course like I said cynical. Even the example of the more naturally occurring relationships have that cynicism, the culture at large unfortunately also asserts this idea of the inevitable failed relationships for all, but that’s just the way of the world I suppose.

I also was about to go in a different direction there, so I’m going to go back a bit and do that. See the idea of being part of that whole cynical world might seem bad enough, but for that to be your first experience of romance is even worse. Most people’s first experiences, their first relationships, happen in their youth. Of course, these fall into the natural side of this dichotomy I seem to have set up here today. Kids and young teens can’t go to clubs and bars and they’re surrounded by each other all day because of school so they just do what they’re designed to do naturally. Most of them anyway, and those who don’t never seem to be able to get over it. Young love is almost universally seen as something special, it’s held up as this fantastic experience that can’t ever be replicated later in life. Nothing lives up to your first they always say, it’s the rite of passage for our current age. To know that you will never experience this is really fucking hard to accept. To know that the options might very well be either remain alone or join in with the bitter charade of modern dating is never going to go away. Especially because I can think of a few times where I got rather close, in fact there’s one particular memory that might stay with me until my dying day where I was literally only a few words away. I know from my time talking with similar people that a lot of them have similar memories.

There’s this film, Whatever, which is based on a book of the same name by Michel Houellebecq. I haven’t read the book, or any others of his although I’ve been told I should. In fact I was recommended some of his books by the girl I was talking about in my last post. Anyway there’s this scene in the film which is set in a nightclub, you can find it on youtube really easily if you’re interested, and one of the two characters (an older man, speaking to the other main character who is basically an incel) gives a short speech talking about the same exact thing. Of course it’s put much more poetically than in this post, and it’s a good film, so that’s why I’m mentioning it. Think of it like a wound, or more accurately just a hole, and after a certain point there’s nothing that can be done to heal it.

Think about the PUAs, people always say they’re trying to compensate for something or they’re broken in some way, all these platitudes without ever really saying what it is. I think it’s this, I mean I like to go on about modern archetypes and the PUA who was a loser/ really unsuccessful with girls in his youth is a huge one. Maybe it’d be more accurate to call it a trope even. More importantly though, are the audience for this kind of thing. Because the pick up artist community, is essentially maybe at most a few hundred men selling some kind of variation of the same scheme to millions. These few hundred, are in many cases an example of this late bloomer trope. Now the lesser known faces, the guys who just pay for the online courses or go to conferences of whatever these people do and then go out into the world to “pick up”, they’re who I’m really talking about. See, what they’re paying for and what “pick up artistry” is when you really think about it, is a revenge fantasy.

By calling it a fantasy I’m not saying it’s unrealistic, I’m reminded in particular of this one short video by one of these guys I saw a long time ago when I would occasionally listen to these people. I don’t remember exactly which one, and they all look and talk and dress the same anyway, but it was a video by this famous PUA talking about why you should cold approach. Now maybe I’m too trusting because anyone can go on the internet and tell lies, but for some reason I actually do believe that a lot of these men are telling the truth about the level of “success” they have with women. I mean sure I expect they’re embellishing somewhat but I don’t doubt that they’ve had lots of hook ups with very pretty girls. So anyway quick summary, the guy described himself (rather short, average looks, high pitched voice, etc) and said that he has been with various models and actresses and “10s” and YOU CAN TOO IF YOU FOLLOW THESE FIVE SIMPLE STEPS! I’m half joking, but no he was trying to sell his course or something anyway I’m sure.

There was one insight I got from this though, see he said that before you got to that point you had to get rejected a lot. This isn’t unusual, they all say this, but maybe this is a trend with me I’ll have to hear something many times before I notice it. What stood out to me, that for whatever reason hadn’t the other times I heard this, is that it’s exactly like a certain rather common cult practice. See in order to become the “new you”, you need to break down everything about who you currently are. You need to lose every aspect of your current identity, like I said you need to be completely broken down and humiliated, in order for something new to be built in it’s place. So, you can either force yourself through the gauntlet of rejection until your pride is completely smashed or you can refuse to take part and not lose who you are. I always like to bring these full circle, so often the conclusion these accusers make is that if you never made the effort that means that you’re not actually an incel, you’re a volcel. I’m not sure because I’d be happy to have a relationship if it were to occur naturally in the way I was talking about earlier, even if it’ll never be the same as what could have been, but if that’s not an option then I guess you can call me volcel.

A story

It’s been a really long time since I felt “tfw no gf”, in an abstract sense I mean. Of course I’ve had oneitis, recently in fact, which indirectly led to me starting this blog. That general feeling though, not since maybe a couple years ago or longer even. I think actually it’s around the time I developed a friendship/ weird thing with this girl online. Funnily enough we met on /r9k/, just before both of us turned 18 because we both have a birthday in the same month. This was in late 2014, so a bit more than a couple years actually. I remember the thread, it was one of those ones where you fill in this template. If you have spent a significant amount of time on the board you would probably recognise it if you saw it. You fill in some basic information about yourself and then the bottom half about your “ideal partner”. I never actually filled in the template, I was just scrolling through the thread and seeing if there were any girls. Of course there always are a few, their posts stick out like a sore thumb because they have ten times as many replies as the normal posts. We had a brief interaction in the thread and for whatever reason got along well enough that she gave me her e-mail address and we started talking there.

Now I have to say I would never do something like that now, not because I’m any less lonely but something about that behaviour feels pathetic to me. It felt pathetic then too to be fair, so maybe I am a little more content with loneliness now idk. The point is, I was younger (not even 18 yet) and while I had been visiting the site as a whole for a while I wasn’t really a regular on /r9k/ yet. I still felt kind of like a newfag, I was still careful before I made a post and generally probably posted way less often. I still hadn’t fully been immersed in the “culture”, if you can call it that. I certainly hadn’t got to the point I was in early 2016, when I left the board entirely for almost a year (around the same time as I stopped talking to this girl actually), where I felt like the board had almost become a home to me. I had to leave, because I knew it was having a really toxic effect on my state of mind, but it was difficult. I stayed away for a good year as well, and while that feeling remains it’s not quite the same, though neither is the board. I’ll always have quite fond memories of that period of time, of 2015. Although that might have something to do with the fact that it followed 2014, which was a really shit time for me.

I’m getting distracted though, what I’m saying is that this behaviour was something uncharacteristic of me. In fact I engaged in a lot of similar behaviour like it that whole year honestly. There was a period of a few months where I would go on omegle every night, and while it wasn’t really so I could try and talk to girls as I more enjoyed just chatting with the anons there, that was definitely also a motivator. I exclusively stuck to the r9k tags during the period of time I was there, and these threads would regularly hit bump limit so there was a small “community” and familiar faces I would speak to often. In fact there were quite a few creepshots taken of me and posted in those threads, and one or two ended up on the bigger graph images from the period. Occasionally I check the threads when I see one (they still appear from time to time, but never live long), and one with me on it was still being reposted a few months ago, so it’s not just me who remembers that period of time fondly. Regular compliments were nice too, I’ll be honest, I kind of pretended I didn’t but I really liked it when people would say nice things about me. Of course, I was incredibly insecure, and that definitely was part of why I spent so much time with these people. Even then I felt a little separate though, sure all of the regulars eventually got to recognise me but I still felt apart from them all in some way. It was like I was kind of forgettable, I was on the periphery of that whole scene. It’s weird because you’d basically go on and have a series of one-on-one conversations but the entire time the thread would be up and this more meta conversation would be going as well. You’d be talking to someone and then see a post by them in the thread. It was strange, for me anyway. There was also drama, and a lot of people wanted to talk on skype as well. I added a few of them, but for some reason there I was much more awkward and everyone gave up bothering and ghosted me as soon as I stopped going on omegle every night and being part of that whole scene.

It’s been a while now, so I don’t know if I have the timeline exactly right, but from what I remember I started going on omegle and chatting with the people there (often with my webcam on, of course) almost immediately after promising this girl that I would speak to her on camera/ video chat. See, going back a little, after a few days of talking over e-mail we eventually started chatting on skype because it was easier. I actually created an account just to talk to her, because up until this point I was really not into any of that kind of thing. I had been going to 4chan for years, but I never had any “online friends”, I never joined a forum where you have a username and recognisable identity, etc. I didn’t have a steam account, I only played vidya on console and mostly only used party chat and spoke to people I already knew irl from school. I did use social media while at school, but I deleted all of that the day I finished secondary school and still haven’t changed my perspective on it even though it has only become a far bigger thing in the life of your average westerner since then.

Oh, yes I remember now. At first she didn’t actually have a webcam, she had an older computer without one built in and had never bought one separately. So it wasn’t until after quite a couple months of chatting fairly regularly (I’d say that for the year or slightly longer we were talking we’d speak for an average of maybe five or six hours a day) that she was able to get one. Of course, we’d already sent a few photos of ourselves to each other at this point with messages and stuff. This is where I have to admit something that I really even now feel shitty about. See even though the original thread we met in was explicitly about finding a “partner”, very shortly after we first started talking and the subject came up she told me she wasn’t interested in finding a boyfriend. Now, I didn’t say anything about this and mirrored the sentiment. “Yeah, me neither” or something like that. Of course this wasn’t true, I was a 17/ 18 year old boy who had ruined every opportunity for intimacy ever given to him, but I did genuinely enjoy talking to her and while I until that point had been under the assumption that there was some kind of “thing” like that implied because of the circumstances of our first meeting, I didn’t mind that much. I had someone who was genuinely nice and who seemed to actually find me interesting and would go out of her way to talk to me. I was happy to have an actual friend especially as I was feeling like I was being left behind by the few friends I had irl. This conversation also happened after we’d been talking for a couple of weeks, so if I’d really cared so much I should have been more forward, but of course I didn’t yet.

I did eventually start to develop quite strong feelings for her though, shortly after this, despite not even knowing what she looked like yet. Then one evening after she had supposedly been drinking with her friends she half “confessed” her feelings for me over a bunch of skype messages and I did the same a few days later with this really long and looking back very cringy message to her. I didn’t explicitly say I wanted her to be my “internet girlfriend” or anything like that, it was more vague, but amazingly she responded saying she felt similarly and had after all been being honest that evening while drunk. So after that we shared some photos of ourselves and she decided to get a camera. This was also the first year my dad started this trend of leaving for a holiday for a few weeks so I can have the place to myself. He’d been away for a few days at a time, but I remember this time in particular as he was leaving for a few weeks which was longer than ever before.

It sounds like it was all going perfectly well for me, I’d have the place to myself so I would feel comfortable talking to her without anyone around to listen in on me. Because of course I never told anyone about this, well that’s not true I did mention her later to one friend but that’s it, something about the whole thing felt quite shameful to me. Kinda how I was saying earlier how it felt pathetic. Like I couldn’t get a girlfriend or even friends in real life, and I didn’t want anyone to know that I was talking to people online. I could write a whole post about this aspect of my psyche honestly, I’ve tried already actually. My pride I suppose, it’s the same reason I’ve never even considered online dating despite the fact that I know it could probably get me (anyone really) laid within a week. I don’t know why, but I guess at least unconsciously I’d rather remain a virgin than openly state that I want a partner/ relationship. To have to admit and ask for something, not just a gf but even help in any area of life, is incredibly difficult for me. I’m going to have to talk about this in much more detail some other time, because I’ve got so much more to say.

I know how it sounds as well, the paragraph above I mean. It reads like total cope, like something someone would say rather than admit to themselves they’re just unattractive. Maybe it’s true, I’ve got a lot wrong with me but being lacking in self awareness is not one of them. It’s very possible that the real unconscious motivation is for me to just avoid potential rejection. Again not just in “dating”, but in all areas of life. Like how I stopped going into school, and didn’t show up for all my exams, perhaps because I knew I was too stupid to pass them anyway. Or at least that I was scared of that being the case. I don’t think so though, well actually I do think that also is part of it but I don’t think my lack of success with girls/ women is because I’m unattractive. I hate talking about myself like this, because it’s easy for it to seem like I’m saying something about myself that I’m not, but I can think of several examples of females who were definitely attracted to me. Superficially I mean, but then after actually interacting with me and experiencing my criminally vulgar shyness as Morrissey once put it, they lose all interest. In fact tying back in to the actual topic of this particular entry, after we swapped photos the girl became noticeably more warm and friendly. Not that she hadn’t been before, but it’s funny that the opposite happened in my case. Which takes me back to what I was actually saying, the thing that I still feel bad about.

I know this is going to make me look like an awful person, but the moment I saw what she looked like I lost some interest. Speaking of superficiality right? I just wasn’t attracted to her and I couldn’t get past that. It’s not even that she wasn’t pretty, because she was and I said that to her at the time, but she was just quite different than I had imagined and it felt weird. I don’t mean I lost interest in talking to her, this was a couple months after we first started talking and we kept talking for a year almost after this. I know it might seem like I overuse the term, although it’s really more accurate to say I experience the feeling too much, but the oneitis I’d developed was before I even knew what she looked like. It really was because of the person herself, and so in my head I had naturally created an image of what she looked like. Kind of the exact reverse of the case from my first post on this blog, where I knew what the person looked like but created an imaginary personality. I’ve already told that story, but of course I knew some things about her and similarly I had a basic description from that original graph and some conversations about what this girl looked like which is what I used to manufacture this image in my head. Now ironically, I would say that the girl from more recently is probably less good looking, but something about being there in person makes that matter a whole lot less. I suppose it was more disappointment that she didn’t look like this imaginary character I’d made up in my head, than lack of attraction.

Anyway some part of me gave up on the idea of anything more than an internet friendship with this girl, but she didn’t feel the same way, or at least that’s how it seemed. I could very well be wrong and perhaps she was never interested in me. It doesn’t matter now. I think that part of my motivation for going to omegle in the first place was the same as it was for me checking that thread with the charts. So I kept putting off talking to her on video chat because I was worried it would be really awkward or something, in fact I never did in the end.. I never was going to initiate it and she never would either, but she did go in those threads and see people posting the creepshots they’d taken of me from omegle. Which she understandably was bothered by, and she’d get really upset and I would feel awful. The whole situation was a fucking mess, also after a while the conversations became less enjoyable too. The format, text messaging essentially, is really limiting and you can’t express emotion or humour well at all over text. There was a language barrier as well, she spoke/ wrote English well but as a second language (she was from Italy) and so while that wasn’t a problem at first, when trying to talk about more complicated things it became difficult. I know that I get people who read these blogposts that aren’t native English speakers, I wonder sometimes if some of the points I’m making are missed and how I can best prevent that while still expressing myself the way I feel works best.

I also started drinking quite a lot in this period, I’d just turned 18 after all and I started because it made it much easier to relax and be normal when on omegle. My dad went away three times that year, I remember I brought my mattress into the main room and basically only left it to get food or go and buy alcohol. I would stay up until 5 or 6am, because a lot of them were from the US and a different timezone, and wake up after midday the whole time. I was still in school at the time, but I maybe went in for four or five days over the entire few times he was away. Also, when I was drinking I would also be more relaxed talking to her, and we’d talk about meeting irl and her visiting me here. I never really expected it to happen, after all a flight nowadays is pretty easy to arrange and cheap, if we wanted to do something like that we would have. It’s not that I didn’t want her to visit, in fact I thought about it a lot and thought that it would be the thing that would save whatever it was we had. I suppose even then I was aware that my weird issue would disappear if I met her in person, because it would almost be like seeing her for the first time again.

I don’t need to go over every little detail of that period of time, my original plan for this post was actually a look back at last year, because we started talking again and I realised that without the context of who she was and what had been things wouldn’t make sense. I then started the post writing about something else, but maybe because she’s on my mind it ended up being about her anyway and now this has just become a look back at 2015 instead. I don’t know if I’m still going to do the one about last year, I don’t really like how this one came out, but I’ve written so much I don’t want to go back and start something completely new now. See, after a while it must have become clear to her I wasn’t as interested in talking. In fact one of the last important events from that whole situation illustrates it perfectly. She asked me one evening about that long post I’d made right at the beginning expressing my feelings for her, the one I’d sent before I even knew what she looked like. Out of the blue when we’d been talking about something entirely different, she just asked if I still felt the same way. I said I did, but it must have been obvious to her I wasn’t telling the truth because I just said something like “yeah sure, whatever”. Shortly after that, maybe a few weeks or just over a month, she stopped replying mid conversation. I’ve got to be honest I felt relieved, because by that point it had become a chore to talk with her. While at first I had really enjoyed it, gradually I realised how limited the scope of potential conversation was with her. Now ghosting someone is rather cowardly, but not even being able to do that and just continuing to talk to someone when you’ve begun to hate doing so like I did is even worse. So, I’m glad she did and it should have been left at that.

So going back to the start, I think after this point in my life I realised that a girlfriend wasn’t really what I wanted. I mean, the platonic ideal of the “girlfriend” is far from what I want. I’ve been trying to explain what I’m getting at here for nearly an hour and deleted all of it, I’m really struggling to explain myself. Here’s my best attempt, imagine an alternate universe where after sending me her photo for the first time she had turned out to be exactly the person I had originally pictured but in all other regards was exactly the same person. Of course instead of losing interest my feelings would have only intensified, but the person would have still been the same. Eventually it’d still be just as boring to talk, the greater effort I admittedly probably would have made to try and meet her irl would have been in spite of that. Who knows what might have happened, but if I had somehow ended up in a relationship with her I wouldn’t have grown to enjoy the conversations we had I’d have grown to put up with them. And this is the person I’ve probably been closest with, out of everyone I’ve ever known. If even talking to her became boring, then there might be no one for me. Because of course I’d rather have a girlfriend than be the lonely loser I am, but I haven’t daydreamed or fantasised about having a girlfriend since then. It’s not something I pine for like so many guys in similar situations to me do, and I know that while I’d feel better I’d still feel unsatisfied. That is what I’m trying to say, I think I finally got it. The thing is, after hours and hours every day for months eventually you run out of things to say.

There were a few other important things that happened that year, things that affected the development of my worldview I mean. Like a brief period where I became rather obsessed with Elliot Rodger, I’d read My Twisted World in early 2014 right after the shooting became international news, but then kind of forgot about him for long time. Then on /r9k/ he was talked about constantly and I kind of got pulled in to that world. Very close towards the end of that year there was a series of threads with a few hundred never before seen photos of him being dumped, and those threads (while they were active) are some of my favourite memories ever. I know, my life is a joke. Some other stuff as well, I just want to get this out now though. I’ve been reading through all my posts, from the start of this whole little project, over the last few days. I’m surprised by how good I think some of them are, usually anything I write sounds really cringe/ embarrassing even only a few days later. None of them are perfect, I think all of them have one or two things that are a little annoying, but generally speaking I’m really proud of some of them. In fact I feel a little like I’ve lost something, that there’s nothing quite as interesting or well written as the best few from the very start. This post is a total mess. I might try and put some kind of archive or something like it so that scrolling all the way back through everything I’ve written here isn’t the only way to see the older stuff.

It’s funny, she always encouraged me to write but I don’t think I’m a very good writer, I would just do an even worse job of expressing myself in any other medium. On the other hand she was always drawing, and I actually had some art of hers as my desktop background for a long time even after we stopped talking the first time. I thought about using it as the header image for this entry actually, but I’ve decided to do so without asking her wouldn’t be right, so that’s why I left it without one this time. See I’ve been tempted to send her a link to this blog a few times since starting, to show her that I finally decided to start writing like I said I wanted to, but now after this post that would probably be a really bad idea. I’m conflicted, maybe I’ve completely misunderstood things and the only way I’d find out would be to hear what she had to say. I don’t know how good her memory is, or if she’d be honest. Maybe feeling insulted by what I said about her, she’d just say whatever to try and hurt me back. I do think that she’s a good person, for the most part, certainly one of the nicest people I’ve ever known. I really do wish the best for her, she was always a little troubled. When we started talking again it was clear she was no longer interested either, in that way I mean. She clearly has feelings for someone else who she met since the first time we were speaking, and they actually lived in the same city so had met in person, and I suppose it was obvious I had some feelings for my co-worker even though I never said it to her. She would talk about him a lot, and when I got really upset about my co-worker leaving she could probably tell why it hurt so much. The conversation was more like something between two old friends, and at first it was really nice catching up and hearing about what she’d done in the time between talking. However, the exact same thing happened as the first time and after a few months it became a chore again and I started making excuses to not talk some days, and so did she I think. Then soon after she stopped bothering to reply, clearly sensing I had stopped enjoying talking to her again or because she had become equally bored with me.

A humble but durable legacy

The previous two evenings I’ve come home from work with the intention of relaxing by getting to work on a new entry and then after writing for a couple hours I’d read a little and head to bed. Yet both evenings I came home and ended up just scrolling through the catalogue right up until it was time to get some sleep and finding maybe one or two interesting threads the entire time, staying up later than I planned yet achieving less. There’s this image I have in my head of myself sitting by the glowing heater otherwise in a dark room, with a warm cup of chamomile and my laptop in front of me. Crafting a new entry that cleverly weaves several ideas together in a way that is both intelligent and poetic. Yes, I know it’s rather silly. It keeps me going while I’m there though, dealing with the various characters that come through the shop. It’s fair to say I have a romanticised idea of what it is I’m doing here, in a weird way I’m kind of aware of it and see it as being not entirely “truthful” yet at the same time I can’t shake it off entirely either. It’s in my nature, I’ve always done this. It’s more than mere “cope” as well, because I did it back when life was good. When I was a small child, when the world was still mysterious.

It’s hard to give examples of this because it’s more than just how I describe things, although that is of course a huge aspect of it. Even if I were to force myself to use the most mundane language when talking, in my mind there would still be a certain beauty to all the more mediocre things in life. Well, until I actually get around to being personally involved in them that is. Take this other example, my job. I’ve described it as a shop, and that’s close but not entirely accurate. There’s two different locations and the office, I’ve mentioned this before. What I haven’t mentioned is that the smaller shop, the one I’m still sent to most of the time is really more of a box/ kiosk. Here’s a drawing of the layout, to give a better idea. It’s a simple sketch, of course it looks nothing like the actual place without the colour and things all over the walls and in the front, but it gives a good idea of the size and shape.

So, as much of a big deal as I made in that one post about why I was always being placed at the smaller shop I actually much prefer this place. I have a stool to sit on and a small heater, and I can listen to whatever I want to. Lately I’ve been listening to The History Of Rome podcast for a good couple hours at the start of my shift there before it gets busier later in the afternoon and then I’ll just put some music on. I think I mentioned I was restarting that in another post here, well I’ve just got past the point I got to last time which was the end of Marcus Aurelius’ reign and the transition of power to Commodus. I can have free hot drinks from the machine, coffee (which I only drink in the morning) or hot chocolate or a herbal tea. I’ve spent days in there when there were thunderstorms and heavy rain, or pretty dense snowing (not that it ever snows that heavily here), and in the middle of the summer when the sun was beating down, all while reasonably comfortable. I even had a conversation with one of the customers the other day about this. He said he saw me sitting there with a bored expression and that I should be glad boredom is the worst thing I have to worry about while working. He was right, I’m really glad I found this job honestly. The worst it gets, at least at this smaller place, is a period where not much happens and I’m just daydreaming. Amusingly enough also recently I saw a poster on a wall while walking to work advertising some kind of scheme or something and it said “Want to get paid to daydream?”. My immediate thought, given I had had that conversation the same day, was that I already do.

So I’m not saying I don’t enjoy the job, in fact after I’ve had a good few days not working (which happens often because the schedule changes weekly and I only do four days on average, so often I’ll get three or four days off in a row) I look forward to going in and not being stuck at home anymore. At the same time, when I’ve been working for five or more days in a row because I have days at the end of one week and the beginning of the next it does start to become a slog. My point anyway is that for wageslavery, it’s pretty fucking /comfy/. When I write about it it makes it seem even better, and that’s really my point. Because of course when I’m there while I am aware of how fortunate I am I still feel like a wageslave of course. As soon as I leave though, every time despite being there for over a year now, I can’t picture the place without the romantic lens distorting things.

In the podcast I’ve been listening to there’s an episode called A Day In The Life, where Mark Duncan (the narrator/ writer/ guy behind the whole thing) goes through an average day for a citizen of the eternal city itself during the Pax Romana. The height of the empire, the period you probably think of when talking about the glory and prosperity of Rome. Well the picture he paints in some ways resembles my own life. I sit there in what is essentially the modern equivalent of a market stall and receive coins for what I sell. It really hit me when I was counting up the coins at the end of the day, see when we finish we take the coins out of the till and separate them into various plastic pouches to bring back to the main office. I just realised that two thousand years ago, not just in Rome but in cities all over the world there would be plenty of people just like me counting up the coins for the day and putting them into pouches. Pouches of leather rather than clear plastic, of course. Whether I like it or not as well, the city I live in also has a very “international” character. It’s like those posts people will make, with the meme arrows. Ywn be X person at Y point in history living an easy but /comfy/ simple life. Except, I actually kind of am doing that. I’m still a fucking loser, but in this one regard life is pretty good. I suppose, and see this is me doing that thing again, I’m continuing a legacy that goes back millennia. A simple unskilled city worker, it may be an ignoble profession but it’s outlived many more prestigious ways of making a living.

I know this is a shorter post than usual, I just can’t really think where else to take this subject. I think I got across what I really wanted to already, and hey it’s still about as long as a usual post on most of the other similar style blogs I’ve seen around. Not that that means I intend to usually have shorter posts like this, I enjoy the longer ones. Again sticking to the whole idea of this post, I have this nice image in my head of someone spending an evening with my newest entry, getting /comfy/. I know I don’t have many people regularly coming back, but I like the idea that I’m giving someone something to look forward to. Not that any of my posts are quite long enough to take an entire evening, at most maybe the longer ones might take half an hour if you’re really taking your time. It could be a nice part of it though, and if you stop to think yourself and respond in your head (because no one ever actually responds with a comment unfortunately) to what I’m talking about it could last longer. Anyway I’m rambling, which I know is what I do here but it’s not really leading anywhere interesting. I suppose I could quickly talk about one thing, just because I got reminded when typing that out. I’ve been thinking more about the title of the blog, I’ve considered shortening it. Or, I’ve considered that perhaps one day I could. See I am admittedly rather neurotic and I don’t see that changing, and I do ramble a lot which I also don’t see changing, but I do believe that one day it will no longer be fair to refer to myself as “a mess”.

There have been some setbacks, the shrooms I was growing have been contaminated with mould for one (the photo I used for the main image is of what became of them) which is a real shame because I thought they could have given me some interesting insights and also inspiration for this new hobby of mine. I suppose I could try again, but if I do I’ll wait until the spring because the cold weather also caused a lot of problems. It was tricky keeping it both warm and well lit, and I think that also led to the failure. I’m also considering the peyote cactus, which is even easier and less tricky legally to get here. It will take much longer to grow and prepare though. I haven’t been reading as much as I wanted to be, I’m reading the book Travels In Nihilon at the moment. It’s a novel telling the tale of a group of travellers sent into the fictional country of Nihilon in order to write a travel guide and how they get caught up in an insurrection. The country is a kind of hypercapitalist/ libertarian fantasy, but of course unbelievably corrupt and spiritually desolate. It is bordering a heavily militarised and equally shitty socialist state called Cronacia, with whom it is locked in a seemingly unending war. When I finish, perhaps I’ll make a post regarding my thoughts on the book. I’m enjoying it though, it’s a nice easy read to get back into the swing of things with and fits well with the kind of things that have been interesting me lately. Oh, and I’ve been listening to Still by NIN a lot lately. I avoided it when going through the whole band/ project’s discography because I thought it was just another one of their many remix albums with more recycled material. The second half is all new, and pretty good too, though. Plus the redone songs are also quite a different experience this way. I’ve got some good ideas for a couple interesting posts too, so that’s something for us all to look forward to as well.

and a happy New Year

I spent New Year’s Eve alone, for the most part anyway. I did watch a film with my dad earlier in the afternoon/ evening, but he went to sleep several hours before midnight. So when the time came, I was in my room on my own. I had my “friends” on r9k to keep me company, and this isn’t the first time I’ve been alone to witness the year’s end, but it was nevertheless quite sad. Most years I’ve spent the evening with these family friends I think I may have very briefly mentioned in a post from a couple months back. After I went to dinner with them and then my co-workers the night after that. It was a pretty bad entry, but the original plan I had for it would have been quite good I think had I been able to pull it off. Oh well, not everything goes according to plan. Anyway while this is the third time for me (last year I just went to sleep before the clock struck 12 so maybe that doesn’t count), I think it was the most upsetting. I don’t mean to be melodramatic, it’s just another night people will say and they are half right. It wasn’t that bad, I’ve had far more upsetting moments just this year. Of course the most obvious being the whole situation around which my early posts revolved. I didn’t have an emotional break down, but as I was sitting there leaning against the forest green wall in my room listening to John Frusciante’s The Will To Death and waiting for the year to be over I did get a real sense of despair. Weirdly it hit me as I was reflecting on a feeling of hopefulness I’d had all day.

Going back a bit I mentioned how people will say “oh it’s just another day”, etc. Talk about how it doesn’t matter, there’s no significance. I remember speaking to my friend about the idea of having a New Year’s resolution last year (or two years ago I suppose, you know what I mean), and he dismissively just laughed at the idea. Because it is indeed just a day literally speaking, no divine being floated down to tell us otherwise, the decision to start anew here is arbitrary. Nevertheless this is where we start, and this starting point has a long history going back to republican Rome. So while maybe in January 153 BC when an uprising in the provinces led to new consuls being selected earlier than the usual date of March 1st, the day did indeed have no significance, now two thousand years and several calendars later I think it’s earned some.

People are lazy, me especially so, and people like order and ritual, again me especially so. If they need to make a change in their lives, however small, they often look for a significant point to both start on and also to track with. The day they can point to years down the line as the turning point. So, the first day of a new month, or just a new week even. Maybe a special date, their birthday perhaps, or the day following some significant event in their lives. Maybe something bad happened as a result of their bad habits, and the following day they decide to put it behind them once and for all. Or they choose an easily memorable date, and give themselves the time until then to indulge for the last time. So with all this understood, is it any surprise that the start of a new year is so commonly chosen as the time for such a change. So common is it in fact, that the idea of the “New Year’s resolution” is something we all are aware of, especially in the west but in some way all over the world. Something that has it’s own Wikipedia page, for what it’s worth. These people who dismiss the importance of this date are in a way being so cold and rational that they’ve taken an irrational position.

This is the first year that I’ve really seen things this way though, other than as a child I mean, I guess it’d be more accurate to say this is the first year after losing my teenage cynicism. It’s been a gradual process, every year I see my worldview as being different to the year before, but I mean in regard to this particular thing. So because of this I was thinking throughout the day about perhaps taking the opportunity to change some things in my own life. I should read more, maybe then I won’t be flailing around in the dark so much when I talk about complex issues and ideas. Reading used to be something very important to me, but I fell off as so many have. I should actually commit to doing exercise, even if I just do simple bodyweight exercises at home I should have an actual routine and goals rather then the irregular and unplanned sessions every few weeks I’ve been doing the last few years that have not really made me any stronger or well disciplined.

I should continue this blog, and try to have less shitty entries and more that are worth reading. I’ll try to get more regular readers, but other than outright shilling which I don’t feel comfortable with I’m not sure how best to do that. Not that I’m making any money from this, or ever intend to. It’s quite a shame really how unusual I seem to be in this regard, just wanting this as a small hobby. It seems once again I’ve fallen for a romanticised view of what blogging is. See as I never was a part of the “blogosphere”, until I started this I suppose (of course I’ve read blogs before, a certain post that I got a link to or found through a google search, etc.), I had this clearly completely false idea of what it was. Even that term, blogosphere, it’s just a relic of something that didn’t even really exist a decade ago but certainly doesn’t now. This image we have of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people with personal blogs where they share thoughts and ideas, just as a hobby maybe they work on a couple times a week, is not representative of reality. Sure there are probably plenty of those, but the overwhelming majority of “blogs” are just completely soulless attempts at making some extra cash. At least that’s been my experience since starting here, because the last half year or so I have been occasionally checking other blogs. Sometimes through the referrer thing, but also whenever I get a like or someone “following” me I will check their stuff.

In all but a few cases, they’re not even what I’d ever have called a “blog” a year ago. Of course, they are. They fit with the dictionary definition, but they don’t fit the cultural definition. I think it should be fairly clear what I mean by that term, given the context, but if you read my post about school shootings (it’s one of the first I ever wrote) you’ll get a better rundown of this idea of mine. I know that’s a bit cheeky of me, but I really don’t like saying the same thing over and over and I quite like the idea of there being a continuity or evolution in this blog, with my posts building on one another. Anyway as I was saying, this idea I had of the blog as art is a fantasy. I swear I’m not even sure if half of these are written by real people, they could just be using a bot to manufacture a new post every day and then putting an expertly crafted title on top to scrape as many people as possible off of search engines. There are also way more fucking daily recipe blogs than necessary too in my opinion. I don’t want to appear to be shitting on people, the people who make these aren’t really doing anything wrong, if there’s a gap in the market someone’s gonna fill it. What I’m saying is I suppose I have this sense of loss or longing for something that never existed, and you could also say that I’m trying to achieve it myself with this blog. I’m hoping for this blog to almost be an archetypal example of what I always thought blogs were.

I went on a complete tangent though, not that that’s a problem I was hoping for it, but I should try and finish what I started talking about at the beginning eventually. So, I was talking about what I could do to improve or make the blog more appealing to people. Not just anyone of course, I want the people who would appreciate what I’m doing now but might overlook it currently because it’s a little rough around the edges. Some pruning or polishing is fine, but I don’t want to lose the identity that I believe has developed. For example I don’t want to change what I was talking about just now about how the posts build on one another. I like the idea of “being there from the start” being rewarded, and also I think it gives a good reason to go back. There are a few things I could change that might make my stuff more digestible or easy to read, I could change the way I’ll type how I talk in some cases (how I talk when I’m comfortable that is) and then more like I would for an essay at other times. I can see how the inconsistent tone would make it annoying to read, even if people aren’t fully conscious of it specifically it will just “feel off” in a way. At the same time though I don’t want to lose the identity that I’ve developed for the blog, maybe the weird changing tone and style is appropriate because I myself (who this blog is supposed to reflect) often have quite sudden changes in mood and regularly experience feelings of awkwardness or things being not quite right. I don’t want to sound like an annoying pseud, this is just a crappy blog with only a couple of regular viewers at this point (back up from only one at least), I shouldn’t kid myself with this grandiose talk. Oh and of course I could have shorter paragraphs, I know these giant blocks of text are offputting and I am in fact already working on it a little in this post. It’s a weird idiosyncrasy of mine.

So this kind of stuff is what was going through my head, resolutions and new plans, things I should stop doing and things I should start. Then this scene in the film I was watching earlier in the evening came on, it was The Return Of The King and the scene in Mordor where Sam sees a star shining through the clouds. Light and beauty, hope, shining through in even the most desolate and evil places of the world. Tolkien’s world and stories are very dear to me, and perhaps I could write about that more in future, but I will say I think the LoTR films don’t deserve the shit they get from “purists”. Of course they’re not perfect, but I think one should view them as a love letter to the original book. There’s no major motion picture with a budget like that and a big studio backing it with anywhere close to the same passion and care put in to the project I can think of. I also think that the philosophy and depth of the original story isn’t lost like some people say, and even if it’s not expressed as beautifully or as well the films led to millions going on to read the books anyway who wouldn’t have otherwise. Getting to see the beauty of middle earth and experience the most touching moments of the story every year is something I’m glad for. I do plan to re-read the Lord of The Rings and some more Tolkien in future, but I wouldn’t want to every year.

So, that scene, I’ve always appreciated it but this year it really stuck out to me. Of course, I suppose because as I’ve explained I was feeling rather hopeful that day. Maybe hope is the wrong word, too strong, but I was feeling positive about the future. I often get carried away on a specific feeling, probably because there’s so little of anything good or bad in my life. I will seize upon any kind of change or potential change unthinkingly, and get wrapped up in a romantic daydream. So when in the cold light of day I realise this, it is always very unpleasant. Not only is there this disappointment or longing for something that never was (seeing a pattern) but I’m also ashamed to have fallen for it yet again. So after the film finishes I’m thinking about that scene, and I realise that while that star may be shining far above the clouds, down here I am still in the land of shadow.