Too Bad You're Beautiful

Journal #5 – Return to RSS

Let's rewind the clock to a much simpler time: 2006. The internet was starting to mature from where it was in the 90s, social media barely existed, and most people were using RSS feeds to keep up with blogs and other such websites. RSS (Really Simple Syndication), for those of you who aren't familiar, is a web protocol that aggregates updates from websites like blogs, news outlets, and such in a simple, easy-to-read format. In the early days of the internet, RSS was a fucking godsend as it spared us all the trouble of bouncing between several websites at once; you'd instead load up your favourite RSS reader and just scroll through the feed. Of course, RSS nowadays is borderline irrelevant as most people opt to get updates on whatever from social media.

While I was never that big on RSS when I was younger, I did find it useful when I was in middle/high school because it gave me a leg up on my current events homework while also letting me follow a bunch of other websites like RuneScape fansites, art blogs, flash game websites, etc. Of course, my RSS reader gradually fell out of favour once I started getting more and more absorbed in social media. After all, why would I bother hopping between my web browser and my RSS reader when I could just as easily follow the blogs, news outlets, and such on Facebook? As time went on though, I started becoming more and more dissatisfied with the “quality” of my Facebook feed.

It all started when Facebook got rid of the chronological feed, which made it borderline impossible to keep track of the latest updates I from the stuff I was genuinely interested in. I can't recall exactly when that happened, but I'd like to say it occurred somewhere between 2011-2013. Then came the (now-discontinued) trending bar that showed what the latest talk of the town was on Facebook. While I welcomed it at first, it quickly wore off its welcome as I noticed the Trending section was a hotbed for flame wars and clickbait. As we fastforward into the modern era, social media has more or less become an anaethema for me. Most of my favourite pages were either getting flagged and eventually shadowbanned by fact checkers or were constantly getting taken down due to some arbitrary violation of the community guidelines.

Given the algorithmic editing of my feed, my favourite pages constantly being in jeopardy due to inconsistent moderation, and the general state of discourse on social media being a radicalised free-for-all where outrage and hot takes are the norm (among all the other reasons why Facebook is fucking awful as a company and as a service), I made the conscious decision to abandon Facebook altogether in mid-2020. While abandoning Facebook has been great for my overall mental health, there's one glaring problem that I've been dealing with for months: I've fallen so far out of the loop with current events to the point where I feel like an ignorant old man.

At first, I tried using stuff like Firefox Pocket and Brave Today but I found that they were grossly inadequate for my purposes. I understand that there are fans of Pocket, but I've always found it to be nothing short of an infuriating clickbait aggregator that compiles updates from websites that I don't like. Brave Today is marginally better in this regard, but I found that the articles it recommended me were completely out-of-touch with my own interests. On top of this, there was always the underlying debate over whether or not I wanted my browser to aggregate content on my behalf. The convenience is nice, but it didn't make much sense to switch from Facebook to my browser if I was trying to avoid centralised entities algorithmically aggregating content for me. The same logic also applied for entities like Google News.

A few days ago, I was watching a YouTube video on self-hosted Raspberry Pi projects. One of the projects that CensiClick used his Raspberry Pi on was a self-hosted RSS reader. That's when I finally decided to reject modernity and embrace tradition by returning to RSS. I won't lie, it was a bit of a “eureka” moment for me because I had otherwise completely forgotten about RSS as a concept until very recently. Either way though, installing Feedbro and Awesome RSS in Firefox was definitely the right call to make. With that in mind, there are a few quirks about RSS in the modern world that tick me off.

One of the great things about Feedbro is that it's generally able to pull the full contents of almost any web page I'm subscribed to. As it would happen, this is a feature that's sorely lacking in other apps like Feedly and Inoreader; most websites nowadays opt to provide a brief synopsis of the article before forcing you to click on the article for the full text. At that point, you gotta deal with all the other nonsense that most modern websites have: garish banner ads, trackers like analytics and browser fingerprinters, maybe an arbitrary limit on however many “free” articles you can view before having to buy into the paywall, etc. This isn't really a problem for me on a PC or a laptop, but mobile is where the real headache comes in as ad blocking technology is nowhere near as robust (especially if you're an iPhone owner like I am).

Another annoyance of trying to use RSS in the modern era is that almost every website that has a feed goes out of their way to obfuscate it; gone are the days when you could easily click on the “follow RSS” button to add the reader with ease. Even worse, some websites like Bloomberg decided to abandon RSS altogether which means that there's no way to add it to your reader even with an extension like Awesome RSS. Granted, this is a relatively minor gripe in the scheme of things but that doesn't make it any less annoying. If I were to get into how some RSS feeds are poorly formatted while others are perfectly legible, I'd be here for hours writing a fucking thesis on the subject.

All of these grievances aside, I cannot underscore how much I missed using RSS. There's something so immensely satisfying about being able to scroll through a feed without fear of algorithmic editing of any kind. The privacy benefits with my specific configuration are also insurmountable (at least while I'm on my PC/laptop). More than anything else though, returning to RSS gives me that nostalgic feeling of returning to a simpler web where I don't have to worry about paywalls, tracking, clickbait, and maintaining my engagement with the platform. If you're a disenfranchised internet user who's sick of getting news from social media, I can't recommend RSS enough. Just do yourself a favour and avoid the dodgy readers like Feedly and Inoreader and you should be fine.

In Defence of Firefox

I've been using Firefox since the 3.x days, so a little over a decade at this point in time. Over the years, I've watched it rise and fall, lived through several UI “refreshes,” and dealt with the myriad of controversial changes that Mozilla decided to implement. While I have no shortage of vitriol built up to Mozilla for making no real effort to keep Firefox competitive with Chromium, that isn't necessarily enough for me to override my love of Firefox as a web browser. Even after having lost all my faith in Mozilla's competence, I still cling to Firefox because I begrudgingly accept the fact that no other browser can really accomplish what it manages to do.

I'd like to state first and foremost that I'm not talking about Firefox in its default configuration. If I had to be perfectly honest, I find the default settings that it comes with to be absolutely appalling, especially for a browser that's trying to make a name for itself with “privacy-first” marketing. By default, Firefox uses Google as its primary search engine, enables (supposedly anonymised) telemetry out of the box, enables Pocket (an awful content aggregator that shoves clickbait right in your face) out of the box, and its ETP settings (analogous to Brave Shields) are quite lax for the sake of not breaking web pages. The irony is that Brave would be a much better browser for you if private defaults are your priority, as most of its contentious “features” are disabled out of the box.

With all of that said, Firefox manages to trump Brave (and other such Chromium derivatives) in one critical way: it's insanely customisable! Aside from being able to configure your preferences in the settings menu, there's also the about:config panel. I understand that Chromium flags are a thing, but Firefox's about:config flags are so much more robust and allow for much finer control over the exact minutiae of what you want the browser to do. If you're willing to spend the time and make some compromises in how you view the web, you'll be greatly rewarded for your efforts. That's not even getting into how much more mileage you can get out of extensions.

While Chromium has long since eclipsed Firefox in terms of extensibility, I'd argue that the few exclusive extensions that Firefox has are “killer apps” in their own right. The biggest one that comes to mind is Multi-Account Containers (and other such spinoffs like Mozilla's own Facebook Container and the community-driven Google Container). In short, the MAC extension is a robust utility that separates cookies and other such browsing data from the websites that you visit. Originally, this was intended to specifically allow for mutliple accounts to be used in the same browsing session without having to resort to using private windows or other browsers to accomplish the same effect. However, the tangential privacy benefits ended up eclipsing the original purpose.

By isolating your cookies and other such browsing data from different websites into separate containers, it becomes significantly harder for ad networks and tracking companies to build an accurate profile of you. This, in conjunction with some hardened presets (like the tweaks listed on PrivacyTools.io), custom ETP settings that block all third-party cookies, and the usual array of extensions like uBlock Origin make Firefox one of the best browsers out there for preserving user privacy. While you can accomplish a broadly similar effect on Chromium, the lack of Multi-Account Containers and the differences between about:config and Chromium flags are more than enough for me to stick with Firefox.

Now comes the part where I have to mention the compromises one would have to make if they were willing to go down this rabbit hole. First and foremost, Firefox isn't the best when it comes down to overall website compatibility; it's no secret that there are websites specifically configured for Chromium in this day and age. When you combine that with browser settings, tweaks, and extensions that manipulate your browsing data directly, you have a recipe for broken web pages. Obviously though, your mileage will vary depending on your overall threat model looks like.

I'm a fairly paranoid person despite leading a fairly mundane existence on the internet. A fair chunk of my logic stems from the fact that I've had my information compromised in data breaches, so I'm all about minimising my risks wherever I can. On top of this, I've found that the same websites that don't work well with all of my security measures in place aren't necessarily websites I'd want to visit anyway. Why would I ever want to visit Cnet if all I get from that website are shoddy tech reviews and awful autoplay widgets, for example? For the few Chromium-specific websites I do need to make use of for whatever reason, I just make use of Brave in those situations.

Now you might be wondering why I didn't permanently switch over to Brave if I do need to make use of Chromium-specific websites in the first place. Well, I did migrate over to Brave for a few months and while I do genuinely enjoy using the browser, it just doesn't cut it for me. Brave's fingerprinting resistance is amazing, but Firefox's fingerprinting resistance tweaks literally come from the Tor Uplift project. Plus, the underlying anxiety that I have of supporting a Chromium derivative in an overwhelmingly homogeneous market never really sat right with me in the first place (especially when Manifest V3 drops, if it hasn't already).

It might seem like an exercise in self-attrition to browse the web in such a fashion, but honestly? I prefer my hardened Firefox configuration over something more lax because it gives me some much-needed peace of mind whenever I go about my day online. Aside from the privacy and security benefits, another benefit to the way that I browse the web is that there's significantly less “noise” that I have to deal with. Often times, the “broken” web elements that my browser's configuration causes are the elements I would've tried my damndest to ignore (i.e. autoplay widgets, infinite scrolling, social media integration, etc). Again, it's not a perfect solution, but it's still infinitely better than the alternative.

Firefox isn't a perfect browser by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still something worth using. I understand that I'm in the minority of internet users who care about such a thing, but meaningful systemic change always starts at a grassroots level. I'm not saying that you have to use Firefox in precisely the same manner that I do; rather, I'm saying that you should give Firefox a chance to shine to its fullest potential. Plus, if Firefox ever dies, countless other projects will die with it (the Tor Project being chief among them). Mozilla does a lot on its own to generate awful PR, but that still won't stop me from trying to promote one of their diamonds in the rough to the best of my ability.

Shouting into the Void: Why I Have Little Faith Left in Mozilla

I'd like to say that I'm not the type of person who likes to complain about things on the internet, but that's so patently false. As a 20-something adult who spent the better half of his life growing up with the internet, I've gotten into so many flame wars and arguments over the most trivial bullshit. Over time, I've learned that sometimes it's better to not get mad on the internet. This was arguably for the better as there's this new calm that's overtaken my life ever since I decided to delete social media. However, there's still this latent urge within me to rant about stuff that gets under my skin. Since I've been struggling to make any meaningful progress on some of the short stories I've been working on, let's take a deep dive into something that I've been meaning to rant about for a while now: Mozilla, and their ever-maddening foray into mediocrity.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of why Mozilla pisses me off so much, I'd like to state that I wasn't always this bitter and jaded about the company. Hell, I still primarily use hardened Firefox as my go-to browser of choice. I'd also like to mention that I've been using Firefox as my daily driver for browsing the web ever since the 3.x days, so a good 10+ years of my life at this point in time. I honestly wouldn't have such vitriol built up toward Mozilla as a whole if I didn't care so deeply about their products or even the company for that matter.

My reasons for staying with Firefox over the years have varied. When Google Chrome was first released, I liked the browser but I hated how little there was in the way of extensions (oh how the times have changed). When Chrome started to overtake Firefox in terms of market share, I was deep into my Linux phase. Firefox was (and still is) much easier to come by than Chrome, since I didn't need to manually download a binary. When Quantum was first released, the loss of XUL-based extensions fucking sucked but the browser became noticeably faster and lost that shoddy Australis interface that I loathed so deeply.

These days, I stick with Firefox for two reasons: the ethical reason for there being a competitor to an overwhelming sea of Chromium derivatives and finally, the fact that a hardened Firefox installation with the correct set of extensions is arguably one of the best tools to maintain some semblance of privacy on the internet. These are arguably noble reasons to continue using Firefox as a browser, but the parent that created this browser in the first place is ultimately what I take umbrage with.

It's no secret that Mozilla has been on the decline ever since Chrome entered the market. However, things back then never felt as dire as they do now. Back in August of 2020, Mozilla laid off 250 employees citing COVID as the primary reason why this happened. I'm no stranger to mass-layoffs, but Mozilla decided to lay off most of (if not all) of their Op-Sec team and the entier Servo team (if I'm not mistaken). This was shortly followed up by a blog justifying why they did what they did (linked below)

https://archive.md/bc5gf https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Message-to-Employees-Change-in-Difficult-Times.pdf

Layoffs are an unfortunate part of business, so you know what? I can't get too torn up about that. More to the point, Mozilla is infamous for its countless failed projects (i.e. Firefox OS, Firefox Reality, etc) so cutting back on superfluous development staff could be justified as the right move to make. However, laying off the entire Servo team along with the bulk of their Op-Sec team just fucking screams “bad optics,” especially in a landscape where Mozilla can't afford to lay off critical staff for the sake of making money. Granted, I understand the importance of Mozilla breaking free from the Google deal that has been a constant thorn in its side. I'll even go out on a limb and say that I haven't noticed any slowdown in the pace of updates since these layoffs happened.

Still, I wouldn't take such umbrage with the cybersecurity layoffs if Firefox as a browser was you know... actually better than Chromium in terms of overall cybersecurity features. I've seen people say that InfoSec is a useless department to invest in considering how most of the industry is based around fearmongering. At the same time though, I'm a privacy and security-conscious internet denizen who's deeply concerned about how Mozilla intends to push forward following these layoffs. The fact that there wasn't even so much as a blog post justifying the layoffs of their InfoSec/OpSec/(insert proper nomenclature here) team is even more maddening when you realise what Mozilla has been investing their resources into as of late.

Recently, Mozilla decided to launch their own VPN which is basically a front-end for Mullvad. Granted, Mozilla's not the first company to do this (that dubious distinction goes straight to the Brave Foundation), but I sincerely question why Mozilla thought this was a good idea. The Mozilla VPN is nowhere near as robust or feature-filled as Mullvad and you lose out on the key benefits that Mullvad provides you directly (i.e. anonymous signups with cash/crypto payment options, multi-hop, robust apps across a myriad of platforms, etc). Granted, Mozilla VPN is an attempt at branching out into alternative revenue streams so I can at least respect it on that level.

However, the whole Mozilla ecosystem of products (i.e. VPN, Lockwise, Relay, Monitor) are overwhelmingly mediocre in their implementations compared to other FOSS projects. Why should I use Mozilla's VPN when I can just as easily pay for something like Mullvad, IVPN, or ProtonVPN? Why should I use Lockwise when Bitwarden is infinitely more robust and is capable of being self-hosted if I'm so inclined? Similarly, Relay's functionality is already duplicated by Bloody Vikings (which Mozilla explicitly recommends in their list of extensions to turn your browser into a privacy powerhouse; linked below). Monitor is a nice service and the convenience of having it in your browser is always welcome, but again: websites like “HaveIBeenPwned” and even most password managers like Bitwarden already offer this feature.

https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/make-your-firefox-browser-a-privacy-superpower-with-these-extensions/

Instead of innovating, Mozilla's focus right now seems to be building and eventually monetising redundant efforts that are done better by countless other products and services. Instead of doubling down on Firefox and Thunderbird and really building them up to be as robust and competitive as they could possibly be, Mozilla wants to shout into the void about how deplatforming isn't enough and how there's a decentralised web of hate (linked below).

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/fellow-research-decentralized-web-hate/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/

While the social advocacy is definitely well-intentioned, I think I can speak for some people when I say that I ultimately care more about a company that's renowned for making a once-fantastic browser actually stick to its guns and focus... on the fucking browser! Seriously, why aren't the presets from the Tor Uplift project standard across all installs of Firefox at this point? Why isn't DuckDuckGo the default search engine like it is on Brave? Why not implement strict ETP settings by default? Hell, pull another move out of the Brendan Eich playbook and make it so that ETP also blocks advertisements by default like Brave Shields do! If Mozilla's newest rebranding campaign is focused on privacy, they damn sure aren't doing a good job of showing us this commitment.

Ultimately, I know I'm just shouting into a void here but I seriously can't be the only one who feels like Mozilla's direction in recent memory has been nothing short of aimless and fucking infuriating.

Journal #4: At World's End

Despite my adoration of post-apocalyptic games like the Shin Megami Tensei series, Dark Souls, and so on, I'm at a loss for words about how I think the world will end. Truthfully, I don't think I have any predictions on how the world will end because I'll be dead long before it'll ever happen. A simultaneous blessing and curse of living in the internet age are how the free flow of information everywhere at any given time shows us what happened in the past along with what's currently happening in the present. When you have such information readily accessible at any given time, speculating about the end of the world seems rather ludicrous because it'll always seem like the world is about to end at any given moment.

Countless generations of people before me thought that the world would end with events like WW1, WW2, the Cuban Missile Crisis, or more recently, with how much of a shitshow 2020 was. Meanwhile, some people are going through absolute hell right now in countless parts of the world. Aside from big-name atrocities like the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya of Myanmar or the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, there are other, smaller atrocities happening right under our very noses. Take a look through Soft White Underbelly's YouTube channel and see how many stories of incest, rape, prostitution, drug addiction, and/or mental illness you can stomach before you have to turn the video off and get some air.

However, even in the thick of all those atrocities, geopolitical drama, societal unrest, and so on, humanity as a whole seems to find a way to keep going. For all the problems that society has caused, like climate change, pollution, deforestation, the extinction of countless species of flora and fauna, and so on, we've always found a way to “right” the wrongs of the past. Singapore has no shortage of flora growing all over its skyscrapers as they actively work to combat the effects of their (justified) urbanisation. Similarly, we have smaller-scale projects like the Billion Oyster Project in New York Harbour or Groundcycle in Brooklyn that promote environmental awareness while also trying to restore life to now-desolate parts of the city.

On an international scale, we have NGOs like Doctors Without Borders and One Acre Fund that actively provide medical treatment and humanitarian aid to areas of the world that are either impoverished, underdeveloped, geopolitical hotbeds for conflict, etc. Hell, Akon went out of his way to use his fame and money to help bring electricity to his home country of Senegal. I understand that these ventures, NGOs, and such have their limitations and that they're not without vitriol. However, to deny the benefits that these things have provided would be sheer lunacy.

To tie back in with the central question of “How do I think the world will end?” I think the world, for me, will end whenever I die. That's the ultimate truth for all of us, really. The physical world has existed for billions of years, and it'll continue to live in some form or another long after we're dead. However, our perception of the world around us is what truly matters. That only has a fleeting lifespan as long as our own, and it's liable to end in any number of ways. It's so easy to forget that amid the sea of constant information, there's a light to be found at the end of the tunnel. That light is our own lives, and how we can use it to benefit ourselves, the people around us, and the world that we live in. We may be limited in our capacity to make tangible change, but as the wise John Witherspoon once said: “You do what you can.”

Journal #3: Mortality

A little over two years ago, my grandfather died due to complications from dementia. That was the first family funeral I ever attended as an adult, and it was the first time I had to carry a casket. While the rest of my family was mourning, I remembered thinking to myself that his casket would be the first of many more I'd eventually have to carry in my adult life. I didn't shed a single tear, nor did I express any outward manifestation of grief during the whole service. That whole experience remains surreal because though he was my last surviving grandparent, I remember feeling indifferent throughout such a solemn occasion. Everyone reacts to grief differently, but I thought that I'd be more torn up at the death of my last surviving grandparent.

Then again, my grandfather and I weren't necessarily close when he was alive. He was absent for most of my childhood, and by the time he did become a consistent presence in my life, I was starting to enter the throes of adolescence. Most of my memories of the man were neither pleasant nor unpleasant; we both mostly kept to ourselves and seldom interfered with one another's business. He always wished my family and I well, but that was the extent to which we'd generally interact with one another. When he got diagnosed with dementia back in 2014, my parents, aunts, and uncles all unanimously decided to put him in a nursing home. I did occasionally visit him with my father, but otherwise? We seldom visited him until his condition gradually worsened due to his ailing mind.

From a logical perspective, it makes sense that I wouldn't be so torn up during my grandfather's funeral. However, there was always this underlying twinge of guilt that existed underneath my indifference. I felt guilt for a multitude of reasons: guilt over not attempting to bond with him more when he was still alive, guilt over being so indifferent to the death of a man who meant a great deal to my entire family, guilt over not noticing the telltale signs of dementia while he was still living with us, etc. I know that my guilt can't change anything, but that still doesn't stop the nagging feeling that his life would've been marginally better if I did something different.

My grandfather's death also signalled to me some grave implications for how I might be treated if I ever end up like him. Would my children leave me to rot in a nursing home? Would my grandchildren feel indifference toward my death? I used to pride myself in having a photographic memory but is it ultimately meaningless to take pride in such details if I'm genetically predisposed to dementia? These were all thoughts that kept me up at night, with no easy way to express them. At the time that my grandfather died, I started working retail full-time. I was given a couple of weeks off due to bereavement, but that time was spent organising and preparing the funeral, cremation, and wake.

My closest friends readily expressed their desire to talk to me about what I was going through, and I did take them up on their offers. However, I never talked about those exact thoughts I was having. Instead, the conversations were focused more on being jovial in the face of such a tragedy. We shared memes, talked about upcoming plans, met up at odd hours of the night to eat junk food and bullshit around, that kind of thing. I greatly appreciate my closest friends for bringing me comfort in an otherwise tense situation, but looking back, I can't help but feel like that time could've been spent talking about the root of what kept me up at night.

Ultimately, while I can't say that I felt sorrow when he died or during his funeral, I can say that I feel sorrow over what could've been. I'll never know what my maternal family name is. I'll never know what my grandfather went through to come to the USA all those decades ago. I'll never know why he had such an odd fixation on maths, nor would I ever know why he was such a religious man. To this day, no one in my family knows what his favourite foods were, what type of music he liked listening to, or even what his life was like before he met my grandmother. I'll never know how my grandparents fell in love, nor would I ever know what he felt when my grandmother died all those years ago.

There are bits and pieces of a fractured past that were archived, like photos of him cradling my sister and I when we were born, him and my grandmother crying tears of joy during my parents' wedding, and scattered family videos where he was dancing around and having a good time decades before my sister, my cousins, and I were ever born. However, that's the extent to which our insight on his past goes. Everything else, for all intents and purposes, remains a mystery that will never be solved. That, more than anything else, is the most tragic part of this entire story.

To paraphrase one of my all-time favourite YouTube content creators, life is a thing that happens to us all. From the day that it begins to the day that it ends, it encompasses an entire spectrum of experiences unique to every person. When I'm as old as my grandfather was before he died, I can only hope that I left a positive mark on everyone that I remain in close contact with and that someway, somehow, that I'd be remembered fondly. Whether or not I'll rot in a pile of my own filth in a nursing home while suffering from the late stages of dementia is to be determined. At the bare minimum, I can definitely say that I feel much better getting these thoughts that have been haunting me for the last couple of years out on paper.

Luna

Typical for any January night, sleep doesn't come easy to me. Ordinarily, I'd binge YouTube videos until I fall asleep. However, nothing I watch seems to occupy my attention; my mind is adrift in a stormy sea of thoughts. After an hour of failing to watch anything to completion, I grab my jacket, pack of cheap menthol lights, and shoes so I can go out for a smoke and maybe a nightly stroll through my neighbourhood.

After lighting my penultimate cigarette, I grab a seat on the stoop and stare up at the night sky. Sunrise is almost on the horizon, but for now, the starlit sky remains as dark as ever; interrupted only by the faint glow of the full moon. That's when I get a notification on my phone. I notice that someone wants to follow me on Instagram, and she's an old friend of mine from college: Luna. I chuckle as I approved the request and followed her back in response. That's when I take another drag off my cigarette and start walking toward 7/11.

I first noticed that her old account was gone when I tried to send her a meme. I won't lie: a part of me was genuinely afraid that she blocked me. Of course, that wasn't the case at all. If I had to guess, she probably deactivated the old account and made a new one for whatever reason. Either way, I'm glad to know that my neuroses were wrong this time around. With that in mind, I do question why something as trivial as a social media account belonging to an old friend of mine would make me smile.

As I'm walking up Straight Path, I can't help but muse on Luna. I shake my head and laugh as I flick the ashes of my cigarette before taking another drag. It isn't often that I find myself thinking about anyone in particular, much less an old friend that I haven't seen in a few years. Even so, my mind keeps wandering back to her: how she's been since I last saw her, the types of music she introduced me to, how we met, how long it's been since we last saw one another in person, that kind of thing.

I met Luna at one of the countless bus stops near the college. It was a hot September afternoon, and my mind was craving stimulation since the bus wasn't due for another 10 minutes. That's when I noticed a henna pattern on her hand and struck up whatever bit of idle conversation I could muster. Funnily enough, we didn't really “click” the first time we talked. In fact, we were more like acquaintances than friends for the first few months we knew one another.

We were both in different classes, had completely different schedules, and never really saw one another on campus all that often. I won't lie; I was expecting us to never see one another again after one semester. Of course, that's not what happened in the slightest. In fact, the exact opposite happened, and I'm still awestruck that we still stayed in contact all these years later.

I ash out the last bit of my cigarette on the sole of my boot before flicking the butt into a nearby gutter. Aside from the harsh, fluorescent lighting and the sound of late-night radio playing over the intercom, 7/11 looks completely dead as the cashier is just sitting on a stool browsing through his phone. I wander over to the coffee and pour myself a small cup. I also pick up a pack of gum and make my way to the counter.

“How's it going, boss?”

“It's going alright. Can I get these, plus a pack of Newport 100s?”

“Sure thing, just give me a second.” He grabs a pack of cigarettes off the shelf behind him and scans it in, along with my coffee and gum. “That'll be $14.66. Cash, credit?”

“Debit.” After a few seconds of awkward silence, my card goes through, and I'm free to leave with my stuff.

“Get home safely.”

“Thanks, you too.”

I grab the last cigarette out of my old pack and light it before tossing the empty pack in the nearby bin. Cheap coffee and cigarettes aren't the world's healthiest combination, but it gets the job done. I wonder what Luna would think if she knew I started smoking... or if she knew that I'm a loser who stays awake through all hours of the night. I let out a deep sigh as I start the long trek back home.

The first time we hung out together happened by pure chance. I was going about my business as usual and got a message from her saying that she was distraught. I offered to hang out with her, and thus the plan was in motion. Since I finally got my driver's license, that gave us much more freedom to visit any place we wanted. We went into Queens to visit the Queens Museum of Art, we walked around Corona Park, talked about all kinds of stuff, before ending the day with a cup of coffee at some new place that opened up nearby.

Of course, there's a small catch here: that was the first, and probably the only time we ever truly “hung out” as friends. Granted, we did share a couple of classes the following semester, and I offered to give her a ride to class whenever I could. However, that's basically the extent to which we really interacted with one another. After she graduated and I dropped out, we drifted apart. I began getting wrapped up in work, and she advanced her studies.

However, there was still a light at the end of the tunnel: we still talked on Instagram now and again. Maybe she'd respond to a story I posted, or maybe I'd send her a link to this song that caught my ear that I thought she might enjoy. Little things like that often brought a smile to my face as I worked gruelling shifts at FedEx and Target. Those moments weren't often, but my mood would do a 180 whenever they'd happen, and I'd finish the rest of my shift with a happy grin on my face.

Eventually, I made my way back home and grabbed my seat on the stoop. The sky's already starting to lighten up, so I figured now is as good a time as any to watch the sun creep past the horizon. I take the last drag off my cigarette before flicking it to the curb. I let out another deep sigh as I scroll through her new Instagram account. There's only one post on it: a selfie of her sitting in a meadow while holding a white flower in her hands. Her eyes are closed, but there's a warm smile on her lips as the breeze gently lifts her hair.

“Made a new account for family and close friends only,” reads the caption.

After reading that, I immediately start breaking out into a big, goofy grin, and I start chuckling. Even after all this time, after all the distance between us, and how little we really interacted with one another, she still thinks of me as a close friend. I'm sure there's going to be yet another point where I'm worried we aren't friends. More to the point, I'm sure there will be another time where I'm overthinking every little detail in our past interactions that might lead to her not wanting anything to do with me.

Maybe it's selfish to want to be a part of someone's life. Maybe it's stupid to try and pin significance on almost every little thing. Hell, I'm sure I might come off as weird or creepy, given how much thought I'm putting into this situation right now. At the same time though, I'd like to believe that I meant enough to her that she still wanted me in her life in some capacity just like how she means so much to me despite only spending a few fleeting moments with her. As the sun rises and the twilight of the night sky slowly fades away, I take the last swig of my coffee before opening up Instagram again.

“Hey Luna, it's been a while since we last talked. How've you been?”

Journal #2 – Ruinous Nostalgia

I lost my job a couple of weeks ago, so I've had far more time on my hands than I'd like. Because of this, I've been binging quite a bit of Dark Souls 3 content, like unabridged game dialogue and useless data. Recently, I watched a dialogue video about Karla; the “hex” tutor that you can rescue halfway through the game. There was one quote in particular that resonated with me, more than anything else:

“There is one thing that you should know: there is a darkness within man, and I am afraid you will peer into it. Whether the fear will spark self-reflection or a ruinous nostalgia is up to you entirely.”

The phrase “ruinous nostalgia” stuck with me for a lot longer than it probably should have. With that in mind, I feel like it's the perfect description for this abstract feeling I've had ever since this pandemic began. Then again, I suppose it's not correct to refer to this as a single “abstract feeling” either. It's more like a culmination of smaller thoughts that coalesce into a bigger, more abstract whole.

I turned 24 shortly before the pandemic began. My birthdays aren't usually something I pay much attention to. However, this happened right at the turn of the decade. At that point, I realised that I was a high school freshman 10 years prior. A hazy and otherwise fractured past was then made vividly clear through all the social media algorithms reminding me of stuff I posted back in 2010.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't be hung up on such a thing because there are 10-year milestones that I've otherwise never cared about. I didn't shed a tear or get paralysed in my boots at the thought of entering middle school 10 years ago back in 2016. However, I think the big differentiator here is that I didn't get into social media until my freshman year of high school. Without an archive of my past from that point in time, I wouldn't necessarily have an attachment to it.

Obviously, digging through my posts from that point in time is useless. Before deleting my Facebook account, most of what I found were forgotten petty squabbles, complaints about homework, and the occasional meme. The posts that caught me off-guard reflected ideals or goals that I once held dear to my heart; things that I'd later abandon for one reason or another.

Shortly after deleting my Facebook account, I started having this nagging thought in the back of my mind. Just how far had I fallen from the vision I once had for myself? Being completely honest with myself, I know for a fact that my goals back then were coloured by my perception of what is and isn't possible. Getting older naturally meant that I'd have to abandon some of my loftier goals when logistics became an issue.

While that little rant explains why I abandoned my goals, it still doesn't explain why I abandoned those ideals I once held onto. Thus, the nagging thought continued to pester me. It wasn't something that I actively paid attention to; though, upon retrospect, I did notice that I lost the joy I once took in minor things, like video games or writing. It took so much effort to put my mind at ease that I lost the ability to take joy in the activities that I ordinarily took pleasure in. This mental struggle happened for months as this pandemic dragged on. Of course, every dam has its breaking point.

It all came to a head for me a few days ago. One of my friends hit me up at around 10:30 PM, asking if I wanted to smoke a blunt with him. We cashed his paycheque, went to our usual spot near the cheque-cashing place to pick up some weed, and drove back to his place to roll up. He had to leave shortly thereafter, but it was no problem for me (or so I thought). What I'd later experience would be one of the worst highs I've ever had in my life.

The last time I rolled up with that same friend was during the summer. If I were too high to drive, I'd relax in my car watching whatever I wanted on YouTube until I was sober. While I still opted to do that this time around, I did so in the dead of January, in the middle of the night, where the temperature was at 0-1 degree Celsius. It was fucking cold, and I was shivering the whole time. In fairness, this was a self-inflicted problem because I was paranoid about idling my engine for fear of attracting attention from cops and/or nosy neighbours.

The combined stress of the cold, the paranoia about cops/nosy neighbours, and the fact that I was too high to drive home meant that I couldn't enjoy anything I tried to watch on YouTube. So, I sat in silence, staring at the few stars I could make out that night. That's when I asked myself the following question out loud:

“Is this really what you aspired to be 10 years ago?”

That's when everything started flooding for me. I decided to record myself speaking so that I'd have a frame of reference if I ever decided to transcribe that stream of consciousness. It sounds weird when I say it like that, but I have a habit of recording my thoughts that I picked up from a fiction writing class I took a few years ago. But, I digress. Amid the stutters, awkward pauses, and unintelligible static caused by dropping my phone in my car, there were four underlying issues that I ranted about in the recording: my dissatisfaction with the way my life is right now, my inability to be a consistent person, how I'm a slave to my emotions and impulses, and this idea that my self-loathing is entirely justified.

The first point is something I'm sure everyone has to deal with at some point or another. It's easy to pin the vast majority of the blame on the pandemic at large. However, there are some things that the pandemic can't be blamed for. Even before the entire world went on collective lockdown, I was dissatisfied with my life. I'm a college drop-out who worked minimum-wage jobs for the vast majority of his adulthood. Before that, I was an underachiever in high school whose habit of cutting class made it impossible to enter college without taking remedial courses.

I know that social media is fundamentally designed to make us feel psychologically inferior to our peers by creating a culture that glorifies small accomplishments. I'm sure some part (large or small) of that feeds why I'm dissatisfied with my life. However, that dissatisfaction with my life also extends into other parts that I'm not usually conscious of. My (current) inability to be an adult with consistent, healthy habits and healthy relationships with the people in his life was something I ranted about in painfully self-aware detail during that recording.

Here I am, well into my 20s: I'm fairly overweight, I'm lazy to a critical fault having missed deadlines and goals both at work, school, and home and feeling no real sense of urgency despite how dire my circumstances might be, I'm inconsistent with how I take my psychiatric medication, the list goes on and on. I can't even say “in fairness,” because these are problems I've been dealing with for much longer than I should be. That's not even getting into the utter trash fire that is my interpersonal relationships.

The pandemic at large has been a strain on everyone's relationships; I understand that I'm not the only one dealing with this. However, that still doesn't explain away how I shrugged off social gatherings before the pandemic began. Oh, I'm exhausted from another 9-hour shift at my dead-end retail job? So are all of my other friends, yet they wanted to put aside their collective exhaustion to enjoy one another's company, and they were gracious enough to invite me. The least I could do in that situation is stick around for an hour or two before going home to rest.

Of course, that would imply I have a modicum of self-discipline to put my own desires and emotions aside for the sake of others. Yes, I know for a fact that I'm hyperbolic here. I've gone out of my way countless times to be there for my friends, and I don't think anyone I know personally would contest that. However, the times where I decided to say “fuck this important thing I should probably be doing” and indulged my hedonism is still significant in quantity for it to be a problem. Do I really need to pass up a social gathering because I was planning on beating my meat to porn for the umpteenth time in a row? Do I really need to bail on a Discord call 10 minutes into the conversation because I just felt the urge to watch YouTube videos? Do I really need to lay about the house all day like a brick when I could go out for a short walk and get some fresh air?

I know it sounds like I'm harsh with myself here, and I'll concede that I'm probably not as bad of a state as I think I am. However, the question that made me start sobbing in the recording was when I asked the following:

“If you had the opportunity to go back in time to sit down and have a conversation with yourself from 10 years ago, do you think that teenage you would be happy with the way your life currently is? Can you seriously talk to that kid, knowing exactly what he'll go through in the coming decade and tell him that he'll grow up to become a goddamn loser? I didn't have any strong ambition growing up, but I never once thought my life would end up like this.”

I know self-love is an important aspect of becoming a well-adjusted adult. However, I can't love myself. Not as I currently am, anyway. I know I have a lot more going for myself than what I give myself credit for. However, there's a fine line between self-love and enabling your own worst habits. For so long, I've been enabling myself in all the worst ways. Maybe that abstract conglomerate of individual thoughts was some metaphor for me trying to sweep all of my problems under the rug.

To tie back into the Dark Souls 3 quote that I started with, I think that this darkness I'm currently peering into has sparked meaningful self-reflection. However, I'm hoping that this won't lead to me being stuck in the reflection phase. Reflecting is fine, but actions speak louder than complex thoughts.

Journal #1 – The Writer's Paradox

In my adult life, writing has become both a prison and an escape. It's an escape in that the only limit to what I can put on paper is my imagination. However, that was once a metaphor for boundless potential. Writing became a prison for me when I started thinking about the potential negative criticism, my limitations as both an author and an artist, potential implications that people can read from my works, and so much more.

Writing can be just as natural or as forced as breathing. There are days when I find myself able to write for hours on end. Maybe I've made good progress on a passion project that I was neglecting for far too long. It's also possible that I just finished watching something and wanted to get my thoughts out on pen and paper. The flow of ideas isn't impeded for whatever reason, so writing comes naturally. Sadly, these days have been coming fewer and further between with every passing year.

All too often, I find myself lost in a deep fog. There are times when I can make out a beacon of light, however faint. It guides me to my desk where I'm able to eke out a few sentences, maybe a paragraph or two. However, that's all I can muster. Perhaps I'm rewriting sentences over and over again, or perhaps I'm drawing a blank at what comes next in this story that I'm writing. What if I'm in the editing stages and I find myself deeply dissatisfied with what I wrote? Could the gut feeling I trusted back then be wrong now?

When I was younger, I had no sense of shame when it came down to my creativity. Even if I cringe at the thought of it now, I was able to write down whole high-concept scenarios that were likely cobbled together from the TV, movies, video games, music, and books/manga that I read. I never thought about the implications of what I wrote at the time because I never felt the need to.

As I got older and began consuming more works across various genres, platforms, and mediums, I began to think more about the finer details surrounding the media that I consumed. That in turn, bled into my writing where now, I'm worried about coming across a certain way. Certainly, there were times in the past where I was told that my work comes across one way despite my intent being the exact opposite.

The beauty surrounding art is that everyone's able to experience it while coming to their own interpretations. However, that puts me in a weird place as an artist. I have my own vision that I want to make clear, but others might not necessarily share the same opinion. I get so tripped up in the minor details about something to the point where I lose track of the big picture. I suppose there is also the fear of failure, but that ties in with my fear of potential implications.

Despite all of the headache surrounding the writing process, I wouldn't trade it for the world. Even during my worst days where all I can do is rewrite the same 3 paragraphs over and over again, there's something oddly meditative about the process that I can't quite describe. There's also the pride I take in being able to create something rather than the usual loop of consuming and criticising. I might not necessarily create often, but the immense sense of gratification I get from creating and eventually finishing a project.

Crossroads

Son of a bitch, why’d this downpour have to start when I got out of work? I turn off my car and get the umbrella. As I reach for the door, I feel my phone buzzing in my pocket. Oh, it’s Laila.

“Hey jaanu, what’s up?”

“Hey Kaiz, just wanted to give you a heads-up: I’m giving Fatima a ride home, and we’re probably gonna get something to eat along the way.”

“Oh… okay. Wait out the rain if it’s bad, I don’t want you hydroplaning on the way back.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. Anyway, bye.”

“Bye.”

I let out a deep sigh as I unlocked the door and made my way inside. Wait, what’s that on the floor? Oh, the photo must’ve fallen over. I pick it up and put it back on the table with the ornaments; the photo being one of Laila and I on our first date at the church carnival. Fuck man… it’s been ten years since we first met and got together. I can remember the day I first met her with such vivid clarity to the point where it honestly feels like just yesterday: I was standing by the parking lot after school, and she asked me who I was waiting for. At that point in time, we were both freshmen in a school completely distant from all the people we knew in middle school. I was the introverted nerd who was deep into his metal phase, and she was the social butterfly who had a hard-on for electronic music. It was at that moment we became friends and then from that point forward, we were almost inseparable.

We would immediately seek each other out the moment our classes ended just to talk shit on our boring teachers, sit together during lunch while sharing music with only one pair of headphones between the two of us, gush about all the shit that we had in common, or even smoke some hash after school while munching on some White Castle shortly thereafter. Anyone who saw us, from passing students to the teachers who we talked shit on would often quip about how close we were. Eventually, we both decided to just say “fuck it,” and we officially became a couple. From that point forward, the rest of high school was effectively one giant, euphoric blur. We watched movies together, snuck out at midnight to smoke some hash and fuck, cut last period so that we’d have that extra hour to be around one another before her dad came around to ruin the fun by picking her up.

When we graduated high school and started college, we both got married and started renting this flat as we lived out the fantasy: we’d get home from classes, or sometimes work and make dinner. She’d cut ass on me for not knowing how to sauté properly and I’d cut ass on her for not knowing how to mince an onion properly, laugh at all the stupidity that aired on MTV or cheer on the senseless violence that shit like Thursday Night SmackDown! or Monday Night Raw entailed. I’d get jealous when she started commenting on Edge’s body and she’d get jealous if I was talking about Tori Wilson’s ass. Ultimately though, it was all part of our shtick and we’d both go to bed happy. Great life, right? If I was looking from the outside in, I would say so too. At the same time though, that’s not the reality by any stretch of the imagination.

As I’m microwaving some leftover chicken soup, I hear the door unlocking followed by the sound of stiletto heels hitting the hardwood floors. Laila’s home. She briskly walks into our room and shuts the door, leaving behind the faint smell of her rose-scented perfume that’s almost completely overpowered by the smell of chicken broth. I let out yet another deep sigh and take out the bowl before the microwave starts beeping. I grab a seat and just start staring at my own reflection in the bowl.

I’m not sure when I began to feel this way, but now… I’m not even sure if I can say that I love her anymore. I mean, it’s not like I’m not attracted to her; we wouldn’t be fucking at all if I needed a pill to get it up. We’re still largely compatible and I honestly do care about her. At the same time though, there’s something that’s been off for the last few months, probably years if I think back far enough. We operate on two speeds: either we’re insufferably in love with one another and won’t leave each other alone except when we’re at work OR we’re just frigid – the only conversation between us being simple formalities, like letting one know the other is okay. One of us would get a hair up our ass about something, and the next thing we know, there’s a rift that forms between us. We’d stick to our own sides of the bed, one of us makes dinner, the other eats out, that kind of thing.

Sure, one of us would reach out and bridge the gap after some time passes but the rift is still there waiting for the next collapse which will take longer to fix than the last. When we fight, we both get ugly. She reaches straight for the stones and brings up shit from the past, the opportunities she passed up because of me, etc. and I follow suit. If either of our families gets involved in the matter, forget about it. We both hate our families and our in-laws, but they hate the people their children married even more. Venom from all sides and the damage is still there even after they leave.

I finished my soup and ran the bowl under some water before leaving it in the sink. I walk over to our room, and I see her trying to sleep; she’s on the far side of the bed with her back turned away from me. It’s gonna be another one of THOSE nights… I close the door and slide under the covers, lying down on the opposite side with my back facing hers.

“Goodnight, jaanu...”

There’s no response; she’s either knocked out or just purposely ignoring me. I let out yet another deep sigh, and try to fall asleep

We’re mutually paranoid about the other going astray. We’ve been married for years and neither of us have ever cheated, but that doesn’t stop her from getting defensive and protective of me when we go out to a party and I give one of my platonic friends a hug. What’s more, I can’t even say that I don’t do the same because I’m the exact same way. Doesn’t matter if it’s someone I’m also friends with, you’ll bet that we won’t get our arms off of each other if we’re both hanging around one of our friends of the opposite sex. Maybe it’s a good thing that we don’t have any kids.

She likes the idea of having children but she doesn’t like the idea of either of our parents trying to get involved in their lives. I, on the other hand, don’t want to have children, period. Yeah, I like being the cool uncle who plays video games and pulls pranks on my nieces and nephews or take them out on the town but I don’t even know if I have the mental acuity to put up with all the shit, the vomit, the noise, the teenage angst, the paranoia of not knowing whether or not I’m doing the same shit to my kid that our parents did to us, etc.

All things considered, there’s been more than enough dysfunction to match the affection we have for one another. Even if we leave this flat, move somewhere far away from our families and other such problematic relations, what’s left of our own daemons? What if we end up an old, dysfunctional married couple stuck together only because we’re in too deep to separate now? What will happen if I just straight-up tell her this? I want shit to get better between us, but at this point in time… I don’t even know if it can. As we’re both going through the motions of our morning routines, I turn on the TV to get the weather report. Fuck, I must’ve missed it. Wait, what’s this commercial? It’s an ad for…marriage counselling? An idea just popped into my head.

“Laila, look!” I exclaim.

“What is it?! I’m trying to find my purse.”

“An advertisement for marriage counselling, maybe we should go?”

“Pay $100-something an hour for some shrink to talk to us because our HMO won’t cover it? Fuck that.”

“Come on, aren’t you tired of all this bullshit? If we both wanted to leave, we could’ve left a long time ago.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!”

“I mean that I’m tired of us sleeping on opposite sides of the fucking bed after we argue. I’m sick of us ignoring one another after a long day of work. I wanna go back to the days when we were newlyweds still madly in love with one another.”

At that moment, she drops her car keys to the floor and just stares out the window. There’s a pit forming in my stomach, and I don’t like it one bit whatsoever.

“Kaiz… do you really mean that?” Her voice is soft and it’s quivering, like she’s about to cry. That pit in my stomach is just getting bigger at this point.

“Yes, a thousand times over. I want us to stay together, but only if we’re both happy. Otherwise, why are we still doing this?”

“You bastard, I fucking hate you for making me ruin my makeup after I just got out of the shower…” She has her head turned away from me, but I can see her tears mixed with mascara hitting the window sill.

“Is that a yes?”

“I… I don’t know, I have to think. I’ll let you know when I get back from work. In any case, get out of the way. I gotta wash my face… go warm up the car otherwise we’ll both be late!”

She runs to the bathroom and pushes me aside but as she’s going to wash her make-up off, I could’ve sworn she was starting to smile. But what if she wasn’t and I’m just reading her wrong? That pit in my stomach is still there, but there’s another feeling that’s matching the dread… something hopeful. Hopeful of what, though? Hoping that we’ll get better or some subconscious hope of becoming single again? Either way, this is gonna be one awkward drive to work.