Ani Mevushal

 Damn dude, Last year, after few listening sessions, I had decided:

- More Than Just the Same is the weakest one of the discography of Infected Mushroom.

- It's actually less of the same T.T what the fuck you guys!

- More of just the same is the only banger.

Today for some reason, Ani Mevushal finally clicked and I have had it on the loop for the clearest part of the day and I need it in my car and I want it as a writing/editing background and what the fuck dude, do I have to revisit every album periodically until shit makes sense now?

To be fair, TO BE FAIR, I have done that over the years unconsciously with Hirasawa's creations and Uematsu, but these entities are in their own goddamn leagues. If could shoot their music up my blood stream and tattoo the melodies and lyrics in my bones and be buried forever in their acoustics, I'd fucking do that.

So.

Ani Mevushal is a bangers as well and the album is not so bad and I take some of what I said back S. and A.

 Somehow, these days have held life affirming discoveries.

Latest being an old connection and friend from the engineering days sending me these pictures from a time where I couldn't believe how lucky I got to study the discipline of my choice in the engineering school of my choice.

Looking at these pictures and remembering that first semester of that first year being incredibly grateful for being present in my engineering school, to study mechanics and to be finally free to authentically pursue the STEM field that makes all the bullshit of this world seem worth it.

I am at a point of my PhD journey where the dark thoughts are often more pronounced than the inspiring ones. I caught myself lately cussing at my PhD and my research and STEM and all the fucking bullshit of this world. It's the first time I come to find out what used to bring me joy, affirmation and motivation and inspiration and... and... and... had become a bitter and sour part of my life, to the point of being alienated from science altogether.

Then, Z. sends these pictures and it just takes me back to a place of gratitude and simple things.

I'm telling you, I still can't process there used to be a time where I studied/researched/worked on projects out of the cheer pleasure/motivation/gratitude the practice itself was providing. I truly was in an ouroboros state with my academic and professional aspirations. 

I stare at myself and summon back those days to my mind but I can't connect with the innocence or the simple love. It's fine. It just helps to see that this used to be my mindset at some point, nay the mindset that allowed all of this, all that I have done and went on doing after, what brought me to goddamn Wichita in the first place.

There was also something that came with these pictures, something that keeps popping up whenever old acquaintances and old friends reconnect, out of the blue.

I wasn't a 'liked' person per say. I wasn't a person with friends and group of friends and whatnot. I didn't care and didn't think twice despite all the negative talk and the violent statements of the youngsters around:

"You're such a dogmatist. You're so aggressive, you're so impolite, you're so rude, your humor is so risky, you lack social skills, you..., you..."

I didn't care, still don't. If anything, I used to dismiss these words and move forward. I didn't connect with this shit, and I wasn't about to take some idiotic stranger or an acquaintance's advice over how to be me.

Now, most of them send me some frankly sweet words, sometimes apologies, other times epiphanies or regrets. And I think to myself "damn, if I had listened to these people at those days, if I had let them in or allowed their words to be spoken into me, what a dynamite idiot I would have felt today."

So that too in a certain sense is life affirming:

When some teenager learns a fancy word like 'dogmatist', uses it however then comes back a decade later to tell me how 'they have always admired your focus and you commitments to your vision and your plans'.

When 'aggressive' becomes 'assertive', 'impolite' becomes 'honest', 'risky humor' becomes 'vulnerability and authenticity', 'social skills' become 'genuine'...

It's not so much a boost of my ego (sort of unfortunate at this point) as it is a time to reflect on those gone days and the ones of right now, where it seems the whole world is fighting me at times for the mere things I find either personal (so how the fuck dare you in the first place, mind your own fucking business) or irrelevant to me.

It's not like it's new, it's not like this shit hasn't level up made time while here and at my age. It's just that I sort of miss my absolute indifference from my early age.

Now, I fight at almost every goddamn turn. Granted, I know more and better and from the experience, I know better where and where not to fight. But now, there is this push of fighting, or making the person pay well and good enough so that the next headscarfed/woman/minority/international/STEM/Ambivert doesn't have to fucking withstand the WHOLE weight of ignorance.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just babbling through it. I haven't thought it through yet.

But as usual, with old connections reaching out, I always get confronted with the drastic change of their perspective over younger me and wonder whether there is a chance I could find some way back to that indifference and living by my example should be enough of proof and fuck it.

I don't know man, I'd better get back to work.

 

Another Round on Rewatch

 Today is the Oscars, and what a beautiful sad way to keep awake after the 5h00 a.m. breakfast following a nihilistic dive into the Indie watch during Saturday, than by watching the one Indie movie of the year that brought me emotional payoff, catharsis, closure and a bittersweet sad elevated then gorgeous joy and life affirming touch.

God I haven't been elated by a scene like this from a movie in a long time.

Only thing that comes close to it is the dancing ending of Jujutsu no Kaizen and even that is its own flavor.

This one is a completely different thing and it makes me so happy I am scared of overusing it.

There is plenty of context to this dancing scene both in the movie and outside.

Trashy ass Air at 5h30 am

 Wake up at 5h00, have breakfast, decent french pressed coffee, some baguette with cheese and raspberry jam, watch few episodes of 'I May Destroy You', remember Issa Rae exists, check the latest news about 'Insecure', find out the season 5 is due this year and will be the finale, wonder what Michaela Coel has got cooking, browse up her latest info, drink water before the imminent sunrise, drink some fiber (oups was about to forget that one), contemplate some writing, decide to go to office to take care of some homework and maybe do some editing, remember poetry that needs to be read for evening writing group, think of poetry collection that needs to be reread because too dense for one read, wonder when to reread 99 Francs again without it being too obsessive, remember the Arts news magazines forgotten at D. and S.'s place, try to plan for the day ahead, but no avail -mind is just not still enough for this shit-, think of making time at lunch break to come back to the apartment and meditate and put some stillness inside already, think of advisor ignoring emails for two months and half now and go through the wearisome anger/frustration/surrender motion, wonder whether it's worth it to buy those caffeinated energy bars, think of random things and never focus enough to go through with ONE thought, think you need grounding but you choose to hit the streets instead of sitting at the apartment and meditating for some.

Go outside, and motherfucker this just reminds me of more reasons to fucking leave.

The air is nasty as fuck. How the fuck can a place have nasty ass air like this at passed 5h00 in the morning? There is no fucking trash bin or waste burning field around. There is a fucking park nearby and university's premises and scattered domesticated pseudo gardens. Traffic is nonexistent or low, especially at this time of the day. How the fuck does it still manage to smell like shit at such an early hour?

I think it may be the construction sides sandwiching my apartment building (you can guess the reason I went back to working at the office. The noise is just... Wow wow wow, and the landlord has the guts to ask for a rent raise too.). But I have been around construction sites, I have lived next to them, and none of them polluted the supposedly fresh air of the morning the way this shit smells right now.

On the drive to work, I tried to shift my thoughts and let the anger just go. There is nothing I can do about much of what is going wrong right now. I can't control the weather, can't change rentals, can't control constructions, can't make my advisor answer my emails.

All I can do is escape to fucking work at 6h00 in the morning instead of meditating at my house, and take the window of the two hours before the madness resumes as an opportunity to do something within my control: vent here, do some homework, help with some exam, edit some of my writing, maybe re-edit some other, maybe advance in more.

God fucking damn it, it's like everytime I  come to terms with the idea that leaving this shitty place is not within my full control, something comes up and fucks up with the little things I still sort of enjoy to ignite that fire under my ass all over again.

My Office for the Next few days

 

The attitude

Woke up at 4h28 at a DYNAMITE IDIOTIC dream.

Lately, my dreams have been fucking idiotic, like what the fuck????

So I wake up, check Signal while trying to get back to sleep. 

Got news of a new birth, congrats congrats congrats.

Then saw this on reddit and I froze for a moment; now that's the attitude I have been having and the outcome is just there.

A hissing rattlesnake that confronted the fires of California.

Damn, so that's how it's gonna look in the aftermath XD.

Damn