8 June 2025
I often find myself opening up a browser on my laptop with no real aim or goal in mind except that I’m following a feeling I haven’t been able to explain.
Tonight, I think I pinpointed what it is I’m looking for.
I’m looking for the rush that came with the mid-00s experience of having a Xanga, Myspace, Livejournal and other such sights; what it felt like to post on there, read comments, view likes, etc. Before influencers were a thing, back when we were dramatic and emo (just me?) and honest.
Some of the most painful memories I have from high school come from experiences with these sights. I wasn’t always the most responsible internet-goer and lost some quality friendships in my folly. Still, I learned so much about myself, about the world and existing in it, about expression from those sites. They were an experience that I feel can’t be replicated in this day and age—a golden era, if you will.
And yet, here I am, writing a blog post to a substack no one reads but that I also don’t post about. I know I’d get traction if I posted under my own name, as I have random followers on that one even though nothing is on it, but that’s not the point. The point isn’t to be heard, the point is to have the place that feels safe enough to pretend it’s something similar to those early days. To write and pretend like someone, somewhere might feel the same and come across my words and feel a little less alone.
Maybe that person is just future me, who knows. You’d think I’d fill this void enough with all the journaling I do, alas, here I am anyway.
The world is a messy place tonight. Trump has sent National Guard troops to peaceful protests in Los Angeles, even though the local authorities do not want them there and the protests are peaceful. The flotilla heading to Gaza with 12 people aboard, including Greta Thunberg, has been intercepted by Israeli police and they’ve arrested all on board, subjecting them to who knows what unimaginable terrors with an uncertain future ahead. Gaza’s people are starving. Israeli’s are in the streets protesting, walking with photos of Gaza’s dead children. People are protesting all over for Gaza. American’s are gearing up for protests against our president and the spectacle he’s got planned for his birthday, which also conveniently is the 250th anniversary of the United States Army. I’m in a very red state in a rather red city. I’m watching all of this unfold from so many different angles and wondering how extreme things will go before the tide turns and how safe those I love actually are, how safe I actually am. I can convince myself all day long that it won’t get as bad as I’m afraid it will, but isn’t now the time to be taking action? Except I won’t have the ability for 3 years yet. Will it be too late then? Or do my many privileges protect me? Is it even safe to be writing this? Though this blog has no readers now, it’s still on the World Wide Web, making it the most public thing possible in this day and age.
But, even so, how can anyone stay silent in a time like this?
Who knows what news tomorrow will bring? We must continue on the purest path, the kindest road, the journey that helps the most people. That is the purpose of existence. If we’re not helping, what good are we?
1988- 