kevwriting

[kevwriting]

Which superpower do you think suits me the best?🥸

i noticed you asked everyone this so im going to say the ability of charm; to convince people to do the things you ask them to

[kevwriting]

change

the first part of changing yourself for the better is finding out the parts of yourself that you wish to improve on, and accepting them (and yourself) as they are. you can never be perfect, and that's okay. i've heard these sentences hundreds of times from different self-help sources, but you only realise that it's true when you actually feel it. you cannot hate yourself into being a better person. this ties into the conversations i've had about diets, and my personal belief that if you simply launch yourself into a hard diet (no scope for error, guilt when you can't adhere to the rules), a rebound is inevitable. love yourself, and change to a you that you wish to be (without hating the now). there's no better way. there's none healthier.

i've changed enormously over the past three years, and i don't believe i would recognise me of before too strongly, and i couldn't have done it alone. as i thanked kriti for the part she's played in this, she just told me: “it's just friendship”, and i'm always reminded of the massive debt we would owe our friends if they weren't all strictly non-transactional. i wouldn't have changed this much without my friends, and i would definitely not be the me i am. i hate all my friends that will call me out in an instant if i say something wrong, and yet i would be nowhere about them. there's no space for my ego there.

i can tally up my progress over the past three years, and almost none of it is academic. true, i did learn one very big thing: how to love what i learn, but the seeds for that already lived in me, germinating whenever i had the fortune of a good subject or a good teacher. i have learned much, much more about everything outside the classroom, challenging my understandings and beliefs. at the end of the day, a holistic me is who will be there to deal with the world. i hope i've done well with him. i hope he never stops learning how to live.

[kevwriting]

optimisation

i've been thinking about this for a while, and i even wrote about it as more of a rant, but maybe i've stewed on it enough to be able to talk about it in a more refined manner. i'm watching a video about conformity in social media and books, and it mirrors my thought process in a sense. i've been frustrated by how everyone seemed to read the same books, and even though i was once a part of that crowd, as a means to be a part of the excitement, a part of everyone, it felt eventually a bit too monotonous. the disadvantage of appealing to everyone's tastes is that you regress towards the mean. please overfit your books, and the readers with the right amount of noise will find you perfect for them. i've leaned into my tastes and the weirdness of them, and i truly do love absurdity and surrealism in my art. what's art without some boundaries being pushed?

in the video, she talks about the hesitation to ‘try’ something new, to find, seek, discover, and instead the appeal of choosing what the masses have approved, and enable yourselves to get a decent, palatable, and risk-free experience. the one thing i have learned from finance is that there is no return without risk, and in that case, money is quite an important thing to risk. i don't believe a few hours of your time are too much to risk for a piece of art that may affect the way you view the world.

this optimisation problem can stick in your head, as a way of desiring to maximise your experience in the world. i want to achieve the most i can, have the most fun i can, live the most i can, and there's no better way to ruin all these goals than this thought process. there cannot be any enjoyment with this feel hovering like an omen, reminding you to enjoy experience live more more more. breathe, listen to the air flow, feel your arms and legs, and remember that we exist here. we're lucky to. (quite literally, do you know the probabilities?) imagine everything you've ever experienced, and know that most people will not have felt what you have, and that it is you here. trust yourself, nobody knows you better. what do you want to do tomorrow?

[kevwriting]

other ask games are too sexual or romantic and i dont like that so im making my own, bitch

🫂 - i wanna hug you

🧠- i love hearing you talk. you should ramble to me more often

🫀- i love you in a deeply concerning platonic way

💿- i wanna listen to music with you in a treehouse in a summer night

🌷- i wanna shittalk people with you and just be haters together. it would be fun

🪻- you are so so cool and awesome oh my god

🌻- im proud of you

🍄- you didn't deserve what happened to you

🌵- you could stab me and i wouldnt mind as long as its you

💧- you are an important presence in my life

🍬- id go to a candy store with you and steal all the candy

🕹️- i wanna go to an arcade with you

🕰️- ill love you until the end of time, dear friend

🥊- id beat someone up with you

🌑- you worry me sometimes. just remember im here if you ever wanna talk about anything <2

♟️- you, me, board games.

🍁- im so glad you're my friend

🐚- our souls are linked in ways i cant put to words

[kevwriting]

just saw that in our last convo in this blog we were both in 11th grade. you are graduating college this week...where did the time go

wow .. dont say that to me im still not sure i believe it

[kevwriting]

See what your followers think!

BLACK = I would date you. GREEN = I think you’re cute. BLUE = You are my tumblr crush. GREY = I wish you would notice me. PURPLE = I don’t talk to you but I really love your blog. TEAL = We have a lot in common. YELLOW = I don’t know you at all. ORANGE = I don’t like your blog. BROWN = I don’t like you. PINK = I think you are unattractive. RED = I hate you with a burning passion. WHITE = You scare me. RAINBOW = BED PLZ. SCARLET = You have influenced my decision/thoughts on something. MAROON = You taught me something new. CINNAMON = You’re a really cool person and admire you from afar. PERIWINKLE = You make me laugh MAUVE = You are really talented BLUSH = Seeing you on my dash makes my day a little better. CYAN = We have very little in common THISTLE = I only just started following you INDIGO = I’ve been following you for a long time FUCHSIA = Your blog content is gold COPPER = Your blog content is trash (and I love it) VERMILION = You make me feel passionate HONEYDEW = I want to call you by a nickname LAVENDER = You inspire me CORAL = You’re a meme UMBER = I want to know more about you FORGET-ME-NOT = You remind me of somebody RAZZMATAZZ = I would share my favorite food with you ARSENIC = I don’t know how to describe the way I feel about you WINE = You make me feel kinda funny, like when we used to climb the rope in gym class SAFFRON = I love your ideas TIMBERWOLF = I trust you FALLOW = I want to run through the Northern wilderness barefoot with you PLUM = I’d like to chat with you TANGERINE = I love your aesthetic SAGE = You make me cry CRIMSON = We should collaborate on something! VIRIDIAN = I wanna hang out on your blog CHARTREUSE = You’re my homie BURGUNDY = I get excited when I see posts from you

[kevwriting]

i'm holding you to that orange !!!

new pfp ❓️❓️ ORANGE ❓️❓️❓️❓️

I've had a Halloween matching pfp since the last 2 or 3 years now so i figured I should change it at Some point 😭

[kevwriting]

it's been in the pipeline for a while so i got around to replying to it now actually

ohh okay thought we were in the same board haha. best of luck to you too!! you'll do great i'm sure of it <33

(also realised i wasn't following you?? weird. anyway hope it's okay to send asks here)

we are not in the same board if it helps

[kevwriting]

ohh okay thought we were in the same board haha. best of luck to you too!! you'll do great i'm sure of it <33

(also realised i wasn't following you?? weird. anyway hope it's okay to send asks here)

we are not in the same board if it helps

[kevwriting]

meditation media

even though it's so inextricably linked to spirituality in the way i perceived it at first, i've begun to wonder of meditation and how i'm performing it. up till recently, it'd been a while since i'd been lost in a piece of art, the way i used to spend most of my time as a kid: buried in a book, and it's beginning to happen again, to my relief. art just horrifying enough (requiem for a dream) or perplexing enough (it's what's inside) or just weird (kinds of kindness) have been engaging in a sense i'd forgotten how to feel.

i'd call engaging with such art a weaker form of meditation, provided a certain degree of 'artiness' to the art as well. we see parts of ourselves in characters we see, and it teaches us things about us. would i have felt the same paralysing fear arjun felt on the battlefield? very likely, indeed. would even the geeta have helped me overcome it, could i have killed family for dharma? who knows! i was part of a conversation about reading the mahabharat at a certain stage of life (not mine), and the introspection it provides you with through the characters.

i have learned many things about me through art, it is awfully convenient to have people who are very good at verbalising feelings do the job for you. even though there is nothing new under the sun, and to a certain extent, i agree, there's always a new combination of existing stories that finds a nerve you didn't know existed. the bones may be the same, but the skin always morphs and changes and adds a certain quasi-citrus freshness to any story. maybe one day i'll graduate to actually introspecting, but for now, i'm very thankful for art for being my gandalf through middle earth.

[kevwriting]

sincerity

we are in an irony epidemic. there is such a loss of sincerity and everything has to be a joke at all times.

 -ethel cain, on tumblr

i've written about this before, but i saw this video that mentioned this tumblr post and it reignited my feelings about the subject in question. it's terrifying being vulnerable. when i write about anything i feel and send it out into the world (even though it is just my handpicked list of people who watch my close friends stories), i am satisfied, or sometimes, even proud of the writing i have done, and i do feel i often get iteratively better, but it is absolutely nerve wracking to think about the event of you reading this.

[...] the people that do offensive stuff like to [...] pretend like what they're doing is fringe and cool, you know, but i've started, at least recently, started to feel that like offensiveness and edginess is maybe the most mainstream thing that you could possibly do and [...] it, sort of, is thriving on the illusion that it is this sort of, like, fringe thing that no one will— “i can't believe you went there!” oh it's like everyone is going there. isn't like everyone going there nowadays? and nowadays, i feel like the edgy stuff is sentimental, or if you're being emotional or honest, that's the stuff.

 -bo burnham, [...] responds to youtube comments

this quote ended up being longer than i expected, but i didn't feel like i could trim anything from it without losing information that i felt was necessary. as a child, a lot of decisions are made for you, and many work out, because the people making them care about you and want you to be well. i believe it is our responsibility to continue to make choices that work out for us when we have that power. maybe this illustrates where i really lie within the free will vs. determinism debate.

for a while, i only had three movies on my letterboxd profile, and i couldn't figure out what the fourth should be. and one day, as i was going through my mutuals' diaries, i saw that alia had logged words words words, and it hit me. it had to be inside. bo eschews honesty and sincerity in a way that's gripped me since the first time i watched it, and the rawness of his words hits you like a truck, to use an internetism. there's nothing as powerful as a word from the heart.

[kevwriting]

effort

the most important step a man can take. it's not the first one, is it? it's the next one. always the next step.

-brandon sanderson, oathbringer

as a year begins, the jokes about how arbitrary it really is begin again, and it is! but i think we need this measure. for the same reason dark humour exists, comedy works to introduce things we wish not to talk about into conversation. the onus, then, is on you. how serious about it do you have the strength to be? i will try to be a little: as all of us do, i have struggled with constant stimulation, the perpetual onslaught it arrives with, and it has severely reduced my ability to read, one of my favourite companions throughout my childhood, and i've missed it for a while, only reading once in a few months for the past couple of years, and i always felt a bit— shit about it. but then kanaad got me ensnared in the cosmere just enough to get my momentum, and the rest is history, and i'll always be grateful. “look, mom, i took the next step.”

as you can tell from the opening line, i intended to begin this with the year, but i didn't know what to write in it, so we write it at the beginning of february, and consider it equivalent (they're arbitrary anyway). i've been thinking about the word ‘effort’, and the negative connotation it carries. yes, many things require attention, but is that really so bad? it took me effort to learn a more adept way to play the keys of a piano, it took me effort to start ‘a song of ice and fire’, an exceedingly complicated book, it took me effort to learn how to make friends when i first left home, but wasn't it fun, the effort itself? i didn't anticipate my stream of thought leading me to use another stormlight archive quote, but it is relevant, so:

life before death. strength before weakness. journey before destination.

 -brandon sanderson, the way of kings

sometimes, i get entrenched in the journey so much i forget the destination itself was a beautiful place, and when i realise the gift that awaits me, i think i understand what he meant. enjoy the ride, you will reach somewhere as beautiful as you are.

[kevwriting]

passivity

what are you waiting for? someone to grant you permission? the perfect and permanent emotion? a shooting star to magic away every problem you have or have ever had? alright, wait away then. but no one is going to live your life for you while you wait to become someone else.

-user @pollen

what's the thing you're most proud of doing in 2024? there has been a recent movement in the recommendations i have been receiving across my media consumption sites. (not the professional ones, just public sites). even though i've been off most social media for a while now, towards the end, i'd been receiving more and more stuff that just said: leave, take a break, breathe. the very nature of hyperpersonalisation states that i could be watching things that none of you have ever reached through endless scrolls. when any of those creators ask: “what is your hobby?” and before you can "answer" them, they quickly add a caveat. “media consumption is not a hobby!” and maybe it's not. but why?

what did you do this year? my friends asked me as it ended, and i paused for a second. what had i done? then i remembered, i've started writing a blog (semi-regularly), i've tried to start learning the ukulele, and as i string this thought process along, i've started realising: it's just action, isn't it? you have to choose to do it.

what question does the trolley problem pose at its core? would you choose to take one death on your conscience, or let five deaths simply happen, as deaths do? are you strong enough to make that choice within a split second? now, consider the inverse: are you willing to take action, choose to do something that's going to improve you as a person that's not simply passive intake of media, bearing the cost of effort? and if the choice sounds obvious, why is it so hard?

what do i want to say? i'm not always sure. maybe i just want to tell all of you: there's nothing like the feeling of having done something well, so please do it as much as you can. maybe i just want to tell all of you: i will be very proud of you if you try. maybe i just want to tell you: i care about you. i would be very happy if you were happy with yourself. you got this. i'm here for you.

[kevwriting]

i would 100% have done the same (i haven't heard of this game)

fun fact about me:

when I was a kid doing the "they loves me, they loves me not" it didn’t take very long for me to figure out that I should only pick flowers with odd numbers of petals, buttercups being my most frequent pick.

And then I felt like that was cheating so I picked flowers with numbers of leaves to many for me to bother counting, daisies, and then i went back and forth depending on my mood.

[kevwriting]

okay so i do see this too now

OHH it's because we're mutuals on my side blog

i am so confused

[kevwriting]

nice to meet you too !!! my aforementioned irl has started reading it so i'm waiting for him to get partway along so i can then start i'm very comfortable letting him find me fanart so i'm at no risk of getting spoilered

HAVE YOU READ WORM HAVE YOU HAVE YOU

HI YES I HAVE!!

[kevwriting]

omg skfkhsksls my irl got me to read it and i finished like a week ago but this is my first time encountering someone in the wild sllsksksks i have not read ward yet tho. so no spoilers pls

HAVE YOU READ WORM HAVE YOU HAVE YOU

HI YES I HAVE!!