Loneliness and a Chiptune

Several years ago an old friend and I made a chiptune together. He was very into making chiptunes and had, on several different occasions, called individual friends over to partake in making chiptunes with him. And this was my personal contribution, which he just emailed to me today.



Said friend and another were featured a few weeks ago in a post I put on here—the shitty iPhone photos post. I don't think they read this blog (I am quite certain that approximately zero people read this blog), but if specifically they (you) do, sorry for talking about you guys and I hope this isn't too terribly weird and overemotional and maybe you (and anyone else) should stop reading right about . . . here.

This photo exists because there was this bizarre crusty material on one of the amps and I was so utterly baffled yet not even remotely repulsed that I had to take a photo, which randomly ended up having a pretty good composition??

Anyway, this friend and the other recently departed from our dreary, lovely home in Minneapolis in fervent search of their dreams, and they're actually making crazy good music and connecting with people like Joey Bada$$, who is only slightly younger than me and has a Wikipedia page.

Lately, I have been listening to Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, which is an old favorite. It's a pretty drastic departure from my most recent music listening habits (mostly Vampire Weekend's first two albums, Panda Bear's recent album, CHVRCHES), and I'm a bit apprehensive of moving onto a quieter, sadder, more nostalgic and emotional phase of my life.

Each time I listen to Aeroplanes I end up feeling like an idiot. There is nothing I can do, short of chemically castrating my brain, to prevent myself from tearing up and sometimes full-on crying when I listen to the album. Like The Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize??", it explores the fragility of humanity and existence, and thus the fragility of my own humanity and existence.

Like the (mostly ironic) caption of this very blog suggests, I am, when happy, interested in comedy and art, and, when sad, interested in love and death. (Contrarily, I am interested in space and the deep ocean at all levels of my emotional state.)

I recall two winters ago making a "depressing music" playlist with music from Lana del Rey, Grizzly Bear, Radiohead, and The National. The playlist was on Spotify, and, forgetting that playlists and songs are publicly shown on Facebook, I titled it something horrendously dramatic and self-indulgently depressing. I created this set of images at around that time, images that hopefully encapsulate somewhat how I was feeling then—namely, confused, lost, resentful, existentially depressed.

I had just turned 18, and it was winter. I don't remember what classes I was taking or what I was even learning. Instead, sensations are all that I recall from that time—grey, bright skies; early morning fog; moisture that hung heavy in the air; the caustic scent of 11 am urine, pungent with digested coffee.

I had a single friend with whom I was very close, though we had a turbulent relationship that fed into each other's self-destructive tendencies. I was very lonely. All around me were extroverted humans interacting joyously with each other—bonds were formed and broken quickly, and drama was omnipresent. But all this was symptomatic of a deeper condition, a condition which I starkly lacked in my life.

I draw parallels between then and now. I have just turned 20, and I, suddenly, have no friends. This sounds so puerile and pathetic, but two close friends have left, and the only contact I maintain with them is over group texts. Even so I feel that I lack the deep connection we once had, and am having a very difficult time forming new bonds with others at my school. My innate emotional desperation and fragility cause others to treat me with less respect, which in turn causes even more emotional desperation and fragility. It's a terrible, endless cycle from which I find it impossible to break out of.

I've spent a lot of time lately wondering why I create anything at all. Without friendship, without respect, I feel as though I am forming thoughts and expressions in an echoless vacuum, devoid of reciprocity and, consequently joy. (I don't think joy is really felt unless there is someone to share it with.)

I am 20 years old, and I am lost and confused. I feel burdened with the obvious thoughts of inadequacy and passivity, but on a level that's deeper and more primal, I feel like I am . . . alone. My friends have physically left, but they had emotionally departed from my life long ago. And while I long for affection and mutual respect and excitement, I find it infinitely difficult to connect with anyone I know, because everyone already has those deeper connections fulfilled by others. And mine have broken apart.

Well, that was fun. Hope nobody I know reads this for at least a few years. Bye.