An update on this site: I have already published a few artworks unto the art page of this site. There will be more art—especially digital art, which I hope I can publish by today.
But for now, I have published traditional oil pastel and acrylic art. I combined these two mediums to ensure that I get the quality that I wanted, but the quality is admittedly...not the best. But hey, friends and relatives liked it, apparently.
I also attended my QPP’s birthday party, and today is the birthday of a close friend of mine. During my QPP’s birthday hangout, the same close friend felt like it was fitting to reassure me that the passage of time won’t wither away my friendships with everyone. And perhaps, that is something that I should be glad for. I felt a lot of guilt for letting a couple of friendships fade away, but perhaps that is simply the way of life.
Another event that happened was...apparently, my mother apologizing to me through my messenger, sms text, and even my email. In that email, she detailed that she finally realized the damage I had taken from her lack of prioritization for my well-being in my youth. And that she’ll respect my space from now on.
I honestly am really hesitant to approach her. Despite the sincerity in that email, a large part of me is hesitant to simply accept it and talk to her again in fear of getting more damage and further getting groomed. I can’t handle that while I’m about to get into the industry with a job. I’ve already forgiven her for my own sake, but I can’t allow myself to let my guard down around her. I might trust no one from her side.
I’ve dealt with a lot. But I still have those limits, and I can’t afford to break them any further once again in risk of further damage to my psyche and even general health. Sure, there may be a lot of benefits, but I wish to stand on my own without feeling like I need to depend on anyone.
I’ve always been capable of my holding my own fate in my hands. She once made me feel like I needed to put my fate on hers.
I've been resting since the last journal entry on this website. I admittedly overworked myself just to execute this website properly, but I have plans to improve and add more pages to this site so I may be able to display my portfolio.
I'm still trying to get a hang of the javascript and css texts. Perhaps I can edit the divs and turn the button into header 2.
To make sure that my body doesn't degrade, I made sure to do frequent stretches doing my rest days. I wasn't able to get proper sleep due to my inability to rest as I worked on the website. it was also tricky to get the javascript to work properly.
On another note, I have been experimenting with listening to more music—one of the bands I'm trying to experiment listening to was Fleetwood Mac. It's one of the bands that my QPR had been interested in.
Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" has a certain feel to it that I like, even if it's one of their more well-known songs. It has that feel of marching down the hill after storming out of a food establishment, post break-up or emotional fight. I'm admittedly a sucker for these types of songs. Though, perhaps it is a little unhealthy for me to listen to "desolating songs" when I run the risk of reminding myself of my past experiences, delaying my need to move on.
"The Chain" might end up becoming one of my earworm songs. Might go akin to my daily listening to Dirt Poor Robins' "It Tore Your Heart Out"
I'm also a bit closer to creating my cyberdeck, but I still gotta figure out a case for it. If all else fails, I'll try and remove the spyware on my larger tablet and build a new case. The temporary fix, for now, is getting a new case for my tablet since its current one is breaking down. I had that case for two years now, so I guess it's in need of replacing.
Currently, I'm listening to an old favorite song of mine, "Dear Arkansas Daughter" by Lady Lamb. According to most reviews and theories, it's about heartbreak, emotional desolation, and an unrequited fading love. Although I do not disagree with these pre-conceived meanings, I admittedly associated this song with my constant turbulet relationship with my mother.
I…can't really clarify nor truly delve unto the specifics about the last paragraph. But to keep the picture a little more vivid, she's the reason why I lost the ability to feel literal physical pain and exhaustion for quite a long time, and also the reason why I became a workaholic. The therapy I'm receiving is attempting to deprogram that, but I'm sure that my therapist is going to start telling me to not call it "deprogramming" since he does not want me to dehumanize myself further.
…At the very least, the professors and perhaps quite a handful of people comment about my strength. Obviously not in the physical sense, but rather in endurance. Buuuuut there are also a few friends and acquaintances who call it "borderline masochism", so take that as you will.
Now, I'm trying to get back onto the swing of things, and start working on both my portfolio's and resume so I may get hired as soon as possible. I desperately want to fund my tech obsession and start eating more indulgently with more money, but I admit that it's a little backwards that I'm using art as a corporate job while my hobbies remain in tech.
So, It has been 5 days since I picked up website coding, most of it done offline. I mostly picked this up because I had a dopamine rush from being able to "debloat" my old phone that was full of adware and spyware. Felt quite badass using cmd, installing access commands, and succeeding with doing something that would've gotten me permanently locked out of the phone. I sure as hell ain't logging back into my OEM account from that company.
I decided to debloat my phone because I saw a Tiktoker give a short ramble about how these really cheap phones can work like mid-tier phones if we removed the bloatware ourselves. A few days, or maybe a week later (I often lose track of time since I finished my college degree), I received a feed of recommended videos and tiktoks talking about the state of tech. Specficially, the fact that OpenAI's CEO struck a deal with the American Military to essentially "unchain" the bounds of their AI. This admittedly pissed me off quite severely. Then I received even more news that Windows was starting to become predatory, and so was Android.
By then, just like many of us that use neocities and other similar platforms with similar hobbies, I proceeded to act out of spite through experimenting with tech.
Oh, and to add more onto this, I got into the "fad" of cyberdecks. The wonders of creating such a useful contraption using available parts intrigued me. That mermaid-themed cyberdeck girl broke any pre-conceived notion I had about tech having a barrier via college and course degree.
As a result, I made a small step-by-step plan of turning my old cheap phone into what could be a part of a cyberdeck. Did I mention that I got that phone for less than a hundred dollars? Figured that if the phone locks me out, I can scrap the entire OS and learn how to install Legacy.
Then after I successfully debloated my cheap-ass phone, and added more privacy to it. And, like being rewarded with dopamine and given another challenge, I encountered videos about The IndieWeb. Neocities, HTML, and similar coding galore.
I just had to chase after that dopamine rush, even if it might delay my progress of making a cyberdeck. (I might be procrastinating on finding a job but I'll get to that later.)
So, I looked up ways on how to build a website, watched a few videos about html, and proceeded to get my grummy hands on offline coding as I attempt to build my website.
My first (and potentially abandoned project) was an attempt at making an ARG-like website that was inspired by those old point-and-click webgames from the late 90's-early 2000's. I experiemented with the borders, images, hierarchies, formats, and more that I don't think you have the patience to read. Learn the nitty and gritty as I problem-solve and scourge the internet for solutions to every issue that I encounter. It's quite educational if I say so myself.
But then I was oh-so-tempted to make a website that essentially acts like my own personalized social media. The possibilities of personalizing something that is purely mine was so tempting, and the videos on Youtube were absolutely not helping.
So, I made the foundations of this very website that you are seeing. Witness the jankiness galore. I will say, though, I learned quite a lot about overlaying images on this website, organizing code, and simplifying some of them.
Admittedly, I do not enjoy the fact that my options for the unpaid version of this account limits me from playing music. I had plans to make a "Song of the Week" section on the sidebar of the home page. But, I guess some sacrifices should be made in order to execute ideas.
Oh, and just today, I decided to talk to a friend of mine about his ideas fo a story and one of his characters. I pointed out some important narrative/lessons his characters would end up fulfilling (he asked me for help with fleshing out his story), and it eventually devolved unto me spouting philosophies about how those who refuse to see and listen to history will eventually find themselves lacking, and reasons why I feel that nihilism is never a viable philosophy to have about life.
What I said essentially went like this:
"If we keep a pack of dogs barely fed in order to train them to eagerly maul our enemies, never be surprised when they break the chains and eat us in return as a result of a singular, forgetful mistake."
"This is a pattern, time and time again, that has repeated and shown itself throughout history. As usual, when we withhold ourselves and each other from learning history, we are doomed to repeat it. Systems after revolutions are unstable because people will eventually refuse to acknowledge that the victors are often the ones who control the history, and do not listen to the narratives of those who lost and the evidence of cruelty."
"Therefor, people ignore cruelty, maybe bask in the glory of it as the ones in power sees fit, and remain confused as they wonder why the world never seems to improve around them. They ignore the fact that they, themselves, are what fuels the problem."
"I don't like nihilism as a result. It feeds unto the narrative that we should simply let things be, when the world can truly improve by simply opening both our own minds and the minds of others."
And after I processed everything I had said, I essentially realized just why senseless vengeance will never be the solution, and what my father had meant during our early lunch a week before. Cruelty feeds cruelty, ignorance feeds ignorance of others, and nothing ever truly gets solved. This does not mean we let those who hurt us get away with it, but we must overcome and adapt as we think in advance and learn the world around us. Thinking of only vengeance consumes, both in government and ourselves, and letting that overwhelm logic will weigh every person and resource down.
So, dear reader, I implore you. Learn everything you can, for yourself and what you care for when you have the time. When you are open and interested in learning everything, you will eventually adapt. You don't have to believe in me, you are free to take this entry with a grain of salt, but I implore you to keep this in mind.
Thank you for reading. -Milo
