If you’ve had a period of basically dissociating from a hard time of your life, you’ll know that doing even the littlest thing that has an effect in the real world vs on a screen can be so profound. Something as little as you doing a favor for someone, or someone noticing something about you that you didn’t think anyone would even pick up on bc your brain is all messed up about being perceived. Your living footprint is all muddied and murky. It takes a lot to even feel like you’re inhibiting your body. So consequences that come as a direct result of you just living, whether big or small, blow you away on an inexplicable level
if you’ve ever lived an isolated life, knowing that you’re making a mark in the “real world” can feel so wonderful and strange. you mean i exist, outside of this weird liminal space i inhabit? i get so hungry for that validation. you know my favorite color!!? you think i have a sweet voice?!! you remember that thing i said ages ago!!? because of these seemingly inane things, i get to affirm, again & again, i exist, i exist, i exist. im a real person!! i do things that have consequences!! i won’t disappear off the face of the earth if you remember me in these big & small ways.
i come from the 8tracks generation where you weren’t allowed to just dump three and a half twee indie folk/tswift records into a fanmix and call it done. on 8tracks you had 8+ handpicked songs in rigid chronological order and an accompanying mission statement and thesis defence detailing exactly why each one applied to your derek x stiles coffee shop au AND cover/track-list art hodgepodged from stolen pinterest/tumblr aesthetic photography, and all of this was done under constant threat of death because it was the DMCA wild west and the site was in a constant state of gradual collapse.
