it's never as bad as i think it is, but i always think it is. 09/06/22

note (warning?): unedited stream of consciousness below

i wake up an hour before i need to so i can suffocate the anxiety in my chest into the mattress.

i know there isn't actually anything that should cause me to feel this way. but... it happens still. something about trying to figure out how i should navigate adulthood. there are so many possiblities, in theory. in actuality, i'm on one very specific path right now. and it's mine. and i can't tell if im fucking it up or not. and i dont know if i even can fuck it up. but waking up brings this terrible dread that im just about to fuck it all up. i dont know why i find it so difficult to frame it as something prettier, like... a new day... a new world of opportunity and possibility... haha... i don't know. something about me feels like it is expiring. like if i don't go fast enough now it will eventually be too late. but how can i go fast enough when i don't understand where i'm going? if i go too fast, without proper consideration, will i then run head first into fucking it up without even realizing it? or it's possible it's already fucked, and i haven't slowed down to realize it. or maybe i have realized it, and im mourning what isn't and couldn't. i can spend an entire day spinning in my head like this.

is it too much of a jump in thought to say maybe all of this is because i'm ashamed of my own inaction and passivity? lack of confidence?

i think it's super cringey to post this on the internet. truly i do. but this is how i genuinely feel. this is what i think about. i don't know how to act in a way that seems acceptable for the internet. too sincere to be a shitpost and too depressed and weird to be self obsessed (thats not to say that it's not self obsessed, because look at this. i'm at least somewhat aware of how self absorbed this all is. i mean that it isn't in a cute or aspirational way. i couldn't do a day in my life vlog. it would start with suffocating my anxiety into the mattress for an hour.)

thats the thing right? how do you make a life commodifiable online when it's so fragmentary, flawed, and undecided? how are you supposed to expose these parts of yourself for everyone and no one, feed yourself to an algorithm, but also supposed to maintain an air of professionalism? you have a 9 to 5 to be concerned with here. you cannot go about spewing self depricating nonsense on the internet, you'll never get a job. but that is who you are at this moment. how do you embraxe that? do you sabotage your corporate future to be weird on the internet? because you'll miss out on the goldrush if you dont. didn't you hear, tiktok is still a growing platform. it's the wildwest. if you could be brave enough to figure it out. learn who you are so you can post.

there's something so unsettling about feeling not well informed enough to have conviction in your own opinions. my opinions change daily on so many subjects. are you expected to have fully informed opinions on every topic to enter the public sphere? this is where passivity is so soothing. you can get stuck consuming, and consuming, and consuming... thinking you're continuing to learn... but there is so much to learn. too much. i can't possibly learn everything. nobody can. although i wish i could. i could blame my isolated childhood for my lack of experience, maybe. i could blame a lot of things for the way i am. and i do. it's not productive to do so, not in the slightest. but my past informs my present, there's no getting around that. i can't change the fact that i've been naive for the majority of my life, the fact that i'm still naive now. i can identify it. i can see it and recognize it. but i can't change the way that informs how i look at the world.

so i look at the world around me, and i think i see so much wrong. but what if i'm wrong? what if i'm reading into things that i just couldn't possibly understand? maybe this is just the way, and my sheltered existence up until this point has just left me ill-prepared to cope with the complexities of life. so i don't say a word, and i move through life silently, constantly anxious that one day my being ill-informed will blow up in my face, even if i try to maintain a quiet existence.

so where/how do i begin trying to address any of this? maybe just by being honest about it all. pretending i think i know what i'm doing is exhausting. maybe the morning anxiety is prompted by recognizing that i'll have to spend another day trying to convince myself/others that any of this makes sense, that i know what is going on at all. i know what i like. i know what makes me happy. i know what makes me sad. i know what i value. i know what i reject. i can't predict the future. i can't recognize the importance of the moment while i'm living in it. i know how i feel about the past now, but i don't know how i'll feel about the past in the future. what terrifies me is being caught in a lie about any of these things i know. acting as if what i do not respect is something that excites me or brings me joy. acting like im indifferent about something from the past that i still feel passionately about. etc. etc. etc. but these lies are often necessary to move throughout society. well, they are. what scares me is that i can't tell if everyone else is keeping up the same mask as i am. if there is an unwritten rule to keep it on... but why? i can't fathom that this is everyone's truth. but maybe it is. at the same time, if it is all masks, i find it equally as terrifying. who are any of you people if you never let the mask down? how do i know how to interact with you? is there nothing sacred, genuine, personable left? is it all just corporate nonsense for the rest of forever? do we derive pleasure from any of this? i can't tell. i'm wondering if one day i will. if i fake it for long enough, i'll no longer be so terrified by doing it/confronting it. but like i said, i can't predict the future. all i can do is be honest with myself.

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