_Intro:

Reflecting on yesterday's post, I'm left with three main ideas.

[01]_Tailoring without mutilating: I expressed the need to feel connected to others through my work and the main obstacle there was choosing to focus on art that's not only lewd but self-gratifying. Instead of building bridges off of a need to be validated, it's best to pursue a balance. Meaning that I will keep doing what I'm doing. Every writing, drawing, so on, must be authentic to me whatever that may look like. Rather than ask "what does the world want with me" the better question is what do I want to give the world? But as the world changes, so do I. Right now I'd rather not think of myself as letting go of ideals but making room for change.

[02]_Identity: Staying aware of my surroundings, observant of myself, it's...sobering. However, the difficulty comes from retraining a habit that I've built for the better part of 20 years. I think when you're conscious of your own ego trauma hurts less-or more...I'm no expert. I can't change my desires but I can work through them, build off them, take inspiration where it's necessary. In the same Kyle Hill video of free-will, someone wrote, "You've already made your decision, what you're supposed to do is find out why".

[03]_Not too late: It's still a hard pill to swallow, the autism thing, but at the same time I think I just never wanted to be an active participant in the world and that meant not being an active participant in my own life. Being alive is confusing. That's why everyone finds something to ground themselves with, it's awkward chaos otherwise. With all the news coming out about tariffs and bleak outlooks for the US, it's no wonder to see just how easy it is to fall into a recession of your own. But what good will it do to say we're all fucked, anyway? The absurdist thing to do is pick up and move on. I've already spent a lot of time being worried.

_Closing Thoughts:

Don't think. I'm not saying don't evaluate, strategize, critique, I mean don't be so hyperaware of things. That's why they say ignorance is bliss. It's especially true if you need to ground someone else. There's something I forgot that I learned earlier in the year-When you imagine that all the good in life is the baseline, every misfortune feels like a tragedy. But if you accept that all the bad is the baseline, all the good that happens feels like a rare, precious gift. That's good enough for me.