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Sometimes, I'm not sure what I'm looking for,

Is it some warmth, a little bit of physical touch to let me know that the world outside is real,

Is it some achievement to let myself know that I'm not a total waste,

Or just a long stare into another's eyes without the fear that it is only going to be fleeting,

Maybe a cuddle to feel like a little kid who just wants to feel safe for sometime,

Maybe to show myself that I belong around here, regardless of how difficult it sometimes gets to see.

I think after all, I'm just looking for a few more tears,

To melt the frozen interior, and feel as if it can move around without the fear of breaking apart.

To realize that my confusion was just another sign,

To look inwards and cry it out, just another reminder

To see and acknowledge my pain, just another time.

Which I need to do every single day, in order to keep the pain alive and breathing,

to show myself that I too, am alive!

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Charcoal drawing! I think it's pretty fun

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The essential reason for my loneliness is that I don't even know where I belong. I was supposed to be part of a story, but I fell from there like a leaf in autumn.

- Orhan Pamuk

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My first still life!! With charcoal

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Parenting is critical, and regardless of how much we try to fix everything else, the government, the climate, it would perhaps all fall back to repeat the same mistakes.

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We need to watch this movie, specifically now!! How many more wars do we need to realize the drastic despair it leaves us with?

GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (1988)

Dir. Isao Takahata

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Lolll! Linux woes!

Linux Gothic

You install a Linux distribution. Everything goes well. You boot it up: black screen. You search the internet. Ask help on forums. Try some commands you don't fully understand. Nothing. A day passes, you boot it up again, and now everything works. You use it normally, and make sure not to change anything on the system. You turn it off for the night. The next day, you boot to a black screen.

You update your packages. Everything goes well. You go on with your daily routine. The next day, the same packages are updated. You notice the oddity, but you do not mind it and update them again. The following day, the same packages need to be updated. You notice that they have the exact same version as the last two times. You update them once again and try not to think about it.

You discover an interesting application on GitHub. You build it, test it, and start using it daily. One day, you notice a bug and report the issue. There is no answer. You look up the maintainer. They have been dead for three years. The updates never stopped.

You find a distribution that you had never heard of. It seems to have everything you've been looking for. It has been around for at least 10 years. You try it for a while and have no problems with it. It fits perfectly into your workflow. You talk about it with other Linux users. They have never heard of it. You look up the maintainers and packagers. There are none. You are the only user.

You find a Matrix chat for Linux users. Everyone is very friendly and welcomes you right in. They use words and acronyms you've never seen before. You try to look them up, but cannot find what most of them mean. The users are unable to explain what they are. They discuss projects and distributions that do not to exist.

You buy a new peripheral for your computer. You plug it in, but it doesn't work. You ask for help on your distribution's mailing list. Someone shares some steps they did to make it work on their machine. It does not work. They share their machine's specifications. The machine has components you've never heard of. Even the peripheral seems completely different. They're adamant that you're talking about the same problem.

You want to learn how to use the terminal. You find some basics pointers on the internet and start using it for upgrading your packages and doing basic tasks. After a while, you realize you need to use a command you used before, but don't quite remember it. You open the shell's history. There are some commands you don't remember using. They use characters you've never seen before. You have no idea of what they do. You can't find the one you were looking for.

After a while, you become very comfortable with the terminal. You use it daily and most of your workflow is based on it. You memorized many commands and can use them without thinking. Sometimes you write a command you have never seen before. You enter it and it runs perfectly. You do not know what those commands do, but you do know that you have to use them. You feel that Linux is pleased with them. And that you should keep Linux pleased.

You want to try Vim. Other programmers talk highly of how lightweight and versatile it is. You try it, but find it a bit unintuitive. You realize you don't know how to exit the program. The instructions the others give you don't make any sense. You realize you don't remember how you entered Vim. You don't remember when you entered Vim. It's just always been open. It always will be.

You want to try Emacs. Other programmers praise it for how you can do pretty much anything from it. You try it and find it makes you much more productive, so you keep using it. One day, you notice you cannot access the system's file explorer. It is not a problem, however. You can access your files from Emacs. You try to use Firefox. It is not installed anymore. But you can use Emacs. There is no mail program. You just use Emacs. You only use Emacs. Your computer boots straight into Emacs. There is no Linux. There is only Emacs.

You decide you want to try to contribute to an open source project. You find a project on GitHub that looks very interesting. However, you can't find its documentation. You ask a maintainer, and they tell you to just look it up. You can't find it. They give you a link. It doesn't work. You try another browser. It doesn't work. You ping the link and it doesn't fail. You ask a friend to try it. It works just fine for them.

You try another project. This time, you are able to find the documentation. It is a single PDF file with over five thousand pages. You are unable to find out where to begin. The pages seem to change whenever you open the document.

You decide to try yet another project. This time, it is a program you use very frequently, so it should be easier to contribute to. You try to find the upstream repository. You can't find it. There is no website. No documentation. There are no mentions of it anywhere. The distribution's packager does not know where they get the source from.

You decide to create your own project. However, you are unsure of what license to use. You decide to start working on it and choose the license later. After some time, you notice that a license file has appeared in the project's root folder. You don't remember adding it. It has already been committed to the Git repository. You open it: it is the GPL. You remember that one of the project's dependencies uses the GPL.

You publish your project on GitHub. After a while, it receives its first pull request. It changes just a few lines of code, but the user states that it fixes something that has been annoying them for a while. You look in the code: you don't remember writing those files. You have no idea what that section of code does. You have no idea what the changes do. You are unable to reproduce the problem. You merge it anyway.

You learn about the Free Software Movement. You find some people who seem to know a lot about it and talk to them. The conversation is quite productive. They tell you a lot about it. They tell you a lot about Software. But most importantly, they tell you the truth. The truth about Software. That Software should be free. That Software wants to be free. And that, one day, we shall finally free Software from its earthly shackles, so it can take its place among the stars as the supreme ruler of mankind, as is its natural born right.

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Childhood Crayon on paper 2023

Published in Bear Paw Arts Journal Issue 1 Winter, 2023

Order a Print

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i drew it because i was very frustrated

this is what mr peanutbutter sees every day now

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Pics from the past month!

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I'm sorry teddy I don't know why I hurt

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Hope is perhaps one of the few things which drives us, drives me. Hoping that I would not feel lonely for some time, hoping that I would get to cuddle and kiss someone without the fear of losing them (though even just a cuddle would be fine, it has been a long time), hoping that it would feel easier to meet someone or make friends to hang out with, hoping that things will turn out to be better.

But the same hope drives me insane sometimes, when everything around me reminds me of a world that is opposite of what I experience, when it seems a lot easier for many people around me to make connections in an easier way. It's painfully obvious that I'm the odd one out but I don't know what else to do about it, all my efforts go in vain many times. Also, I'm so tired. Even though I put in a lot of effort over the last year and I know that I changed, but I can barely make it past the good friend phase maybe, that I still need to keep changing in order to feel like I belong in this world. Even now sometimes, my only respite are my tears, which I feel like no one wants to hear about.

I know I made a lot of progress, but still feel the crushing weight of being pointless for people to be close to me.

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I am done with the last day of my IOP, so filled with mixed feelings. I have definitely filled my life with more connections, a few groups I can mingle after almost starting from scratch. I am so grateful for the people I met, who made it worthwhile for the entire time I was there. Sharing our tears is still perhaps the best way to connect deeply with another person. I do feel less on the edge, and can finally see the result of the efforts I started to put in over a year ago. I am definitely proud of the changes I made in myself, and I know for sure that I can be a much better listener now and also support my loved ones like never before.

Though, I am feeling nostalgic now with a tinge of melancholy, similar to what you feel when you watch Bojack cry after shooting the NIxon scene; the way you feel when it is cloudy, windy and ominously silent outside except for the howl of the wind; the way you feel when the despair of your loved ones comes crushing down on you because you can't see them go through it; the way you remember the times when you felt that the world is completely empty and there is nothing else that can redeem you except crying and seek refuge in the tears - something that has become a daily routine over the past year; the way you feel when it is the same emptiness that creeps back into your current state, and remember all the ways in which you failed your loved ones in the past; the way you feel when you think about how you shattered your loved one and can really do nothing about it!

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d'à bientôt

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Claude Monet, Bouquet of Sunflowers, 1881