These are crazy times down at Kostylo Music

I'm responding here to These are crazy times down at Kostylo Music

These kinds of challenges, these interactions aren't isolated, Joe/Jack. Where does this energy come from and where is it going?

The hardest part about this parasites experience is that we lack a concrete direction. We're trying to push, to grow, thus this desire to feel challenged by something, but we don't really have that in the sense that we are used to. @nanotext is dead and @the_author seems to be far more laissez-faire.

So we turn to each other. And we have all this energy -- and when I say energy I really mean ideas -- that we get from the books. These buzzwords that fly around like lightning strikes. But the thing about words is they're necessary. Each time you create something new, you need to also create a vocabulary for it in order to talk about it, describe it, know it. We see this in queer and feminist theory as they seek to push away from the patriarchal nomenclatures that limit their culture, the same can be said of the ontological endeavors of our work with parasites.

So we have all this energy, but where is it going? Into each other. We feed and grow from the interactions we have with each other. We channel this energy so it does something, otherwise so what? What are we learning?

Up until the point where I blatantly asked you (Joe/Jack) on wave to comment on some of my blog posts, I was feeling dissatisfied, unchallenged.

And then you rose to the occasion and asked some of the very questions I didn't even know I wanted to be asked, some of which hit me on a very personal level. And I still don't have a complete answer for you on those questions despite what I may have posted previously.

But the fact remains, we are crazy, all of us. But we're all crazy together.

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This next section I started writing last night before I went to bed.

The one thing that scares me most is myself. I have potential and that has always been one of my greatest strengths. But it is also a temptation. I learned this lesson through introspection, through the cultivation of a (mostly) transparent identity that leaves little to the imagination, through the few critically honest voices who have been (un)kind enough to call me on my shit.

I am arrogant. I am narcissistic. I am negligent of my own health and wellness when it comes to fulfilling the (over)burden of responsibilities I commit myself to. I refuse to admit to myself the honesty of my sexual and romantic desires.

These are what I know to be some of my greatest faults, but in consciousness I know them; I see them and recognize them for what they are. They are my faults. They are my faults. They are. My fault.

And for the most part, I try very hard to compensate. I project humility. I act interested in others. I take care of my body and mind in every other way possible. I speak quietly to the ones I trust. I'm not perfect at it, and every once in a while I get so caught up in what I'm saying or doing that the mask falls askew.

But I wonder how much of this act -- and I cannot deny that it is an act -- is me. Am I what people perceive me as, what I project? Or am I what I fight against in my core? Are these secret thoughts and desires the "real" me, or merely a psychic parasite like an id that won't submit?

I find that there is a balance between who I want to be (what I project) and who I am underneath that is likely the best portrait one could take. The lines are smudged and blurry.

"Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny."

You've probably seen this on some elementary school teacher's wall before. I could really care less about the last three lines. It's the first two that I want us to consider. What happens when our thoughts do not match our words? Do the words carry any kind of meaning anymore? Do our actions change?

After a point, the act, the disconnect between thought and action, becomes more than an act. It becomes reality.

Perhaps it takes a kind of strength to be able to disconnect and separate these two. And if I'm posting this, it shows how insecure I feel about my strength. I want validation that any of this makes a difference to who I am. And so I seek challenge. I seek discomfort and put myself in places I don't like to be, I put myself in front of temptation and see how much I can resist.

I use external stimuli in the form of interactions with my peers to authenticate my internal struggle with identity and locate where I stand socially. If I know myself, I become another tool in my arsenal. I become something that can be used to effect change, to channel some of this external energy toward something better.