Bluesteel:2048 takes the viewer on a visual journey through fashion in the year 2048.
In an era of nuclear war, climate change, and rapidly-developing technology, how will humanity adapt?
Drawing inspiration from Alexander McQueen’s 2010 Plato’s Atlantis, as well as a 1980s-through-now conception of what the future is, Bluesteel:2048 is an homage to what the future could’ve been
– and could be.
Presenting: my most pretentious idea of all time.
“Slutty Future”.
What do I deserve?
I think I have a weird tic for feeling like I don’t deserve things.
It could be as simple as not buying the nice bread at Trader Joe’s and getting the cheapest one. Not picking out the best slice of pie.
At times I’ve gone the complete opposite direction and overdone it. Whole bottle of wine? I *deserve* it. Going out when I have things to do? DESERVED.
It’s an exhausting back and forth that doesn’t have a clear end or goal in mind, but speaks to all aspects of me.
There’s a part of me that’s ascetic, that will sit on the hardwood floor and type this out before getting into the shower, that will forego breakfast.
There’s also a part of me that’s indulgent too, that’ll drive for miles to save 5 cents and satisfy in my own mind what’s good and right.
I’m afraid to change these aspects of myself because I’m afraid I’ll be changing an essential part of who I am. Even typing that down seems insane, but it’s true. I tell myself I have value because I can figure things out, I have self-control, I can save money, I can be right.
In reality, I’m probably fighting a Pyrrhic battle with myself to approximate enjoyment.
So when good things happen to me – I get a new car, job, love, whatever – after the five seconds of joy wear off I spiral into thinking how it could go wrong, how I don’t deserve this (what have *I* done that has any positive consequence on anyone’s life, what karmic benefit could *I* have effected?) and if I don’t manage to fuck it up immediately, I’ll probably fuck it up eventually.
It’s at this stage someone would probably tell me to not be so hard on myself, but I have to be. I’ve effectively removed everyone else from that responsibility, and now I’m basically running it like a bubble level on a Sybian.
Nobody said it was easy to stop myself from getting in the way of myself.
Caring about someone means compromise. It means having to sacrifice a portion of yourself because you believe in the other person. A portion of your energy goes into them.
Your energy may be small. It may be insignificant in a larger sense. But to another person, it may mean the world. And you should hold onto it. You should embrace it, and wield it. It could make the difference.
We all go through life with few people believing us and in us. To find someone who gives a shit, that’s really something.
So believe in your friends. Tell them their art is good. Their performance is worthy. You know it is and you know you couldn’t do better. Make the difference when it matters. It could make all the difference.
Caring about someone means compromise. It means having to sacrifice a portion of yourself because you believe in the other person. A portion of your energy goes into them.
Your energy may be small. It may be insignificant in a larger sense. But to another person, it may mean the world. And you should hold onto it. You should embrace it, and wield it. It could make the difference.
We all go through life with few people believing us and in us. To find someone who gives a shit, that’s really something.
So believe in your friends. Tell them their art is good. Their performance is worthy. You know it is and you know you couldn’t do better. Make the difference when it matters. It could make all the difference.
For much of the past two years, I’ve felt like I needed to catch up to life.
Events just keep cascading and everything was a state of emergency. You could get a phone call that could change everything.
And it did change everything. It changed me. I’ve become angrier and more pessimistic. More bitter, hardened. Anxious. Unfocused, exhausted.
But the past few months have seen some changes. After hitting a wall enough times, I basically had to isolate myself and, for once, just stop everything.
I told myself for years this wasn’t possible, I couldn’t just *stop* everything, life’s a runaway train, how could I?
But I realized that once I stopped, everything else stopped. I stopped receiving the emails I dreaded, asking me to do meaningless things. I stopped having to force myself into unreasonable schedules that would burn my candle at both ends. I stopped feeling like I was just a marionette being swung through life.
In this process, I’ve regained my intuition which was drowned out by a thousand voices. What I want is no longer impossible dreams, but tangible steps. To-do lists are not to be feared, but they help remind and I’m able to attend to them as needed. I’m actually able to *do* more – all because I stopped.
Importantly, I feel feelings again. I’m looking forward to the future. And instead of feeling like I’m catching up to life, life can catch up to me.
Eleven people woke up this morning to go to Temple on the Sabbath. It was a normal Saturday. Parents had to corral their kids to get dressed, everyone had to be up early. There were probably kind words and a few arguments along the way.
Hours later they were mowed down by an evil gunman. Thoughts, prayers, and takes spill forth from across the country and around the world. Some friends and family won’t learn of the news until sundown – it is the Sabbath after all.
It doesn’t matter who the individual is. His name will be splashed across the news and every trace of his life will be dissected endlessly by a media hungry for content and your attention. He doesn’t matter, but the meaning of the act does. It was very evil, and very real.
Jewish families in the Middle East have to deal with this reality every day. Decades ago, Jewish families in Europe went into hiding for years or fled for their lives, fearful of suffering a similar fate simply because of their lineage, of their belief.
A horrific atrocity like this should bring us together, but won’t. It’ll fall from the headlines before the weekend concludes. It’ll briefly resurface during a trial. Angry words will be spoken and further acts will potentially be committed with this one in mind.
It may seem counterproductive for us to go about our daily lives, but that’s all we have left. We should relish the small battles of the day, the arguments with loved ones, getting ready for work or school, the Saturday mornings. After all, any day it could end. We may speak a bit kinder, or take each other into more consideration, but knowing us, it will be fleeting.
Tragedy serves no purpose other than to perpetuate the chaos of the universe. It could be a car accident. It could be a terminal diagnosis. It could be a house of worship coming under fire. There will always be crazy. There will always be evil. And there will always be tools to facilitate it.
We cannot afford to upend our daily lives because the headlines change. We can afford to live them to the fullest. To love, even when it’s difficult. To be positive. To combat isolation. Individuals who feel a part of their community don’t commit mass tragedies.
It starts with reaching out into the enemies of our own lives. We all have one person we greatly dislike but would weep over if suddenly, they were gone. We may be that person to them. They may have hurt us. We may have hurt them. Personal battles could rage for decades at great cost, and to no good ends. It may be difficult for us to let go of that enmity, but we could start by being positive. Wishing that person better. Letting them know we’re there.
If we do that enough, we may be able to make things a little easier for everyone.
At the end of the day, no one wishes they hated more.
The following was sent in a text tonight:
The last time I saw him, 2 weeks before he died (never told anyone this before) I had to make sure he drank his kombucha and we watched westerns. he expressed surprise that the new tires for my BMW he told me to get were so expensive. he forgot that fact and I had to remind him, which allowed me to experience both parents at once suffer from short term memory loss. he’d yelled at me earlier in the day that I purchased tea tree oil Dr. Bronners soap (which as an avid proponent of tea tree oil I thought he’d enjoy) instead of the standard peppermint. the day I left (since I had to be at StartEngine the next day) he was upset that I was leaving (he’d likely forgot) for a $15/hr job instead of taking care of him. as I walked out the door I have a mental image seared into my brain of him telling me to just leave as he could barely lower himself into the chair. our last two conversations were about Fourth of July fireworks and how we couldn’t experience them together and that I’d called into Stanford to get him approved for the clinical trial that was a moonshot at saving his life. we didn’t speak July 6th and on July 7th I woke up to a missed message from his best friend that he couldn’t reach him. I jumped out of bed with Joe, dressed, and started driving to Fresno.
My biggest regret? That I never got to say goodbye.
It’s worse than anger, because it’s anger that you’ve allowed to sit for awhile. It’s anger you’ve given a platform to, anger that’s fermented like kombucha, anger that’s been given time to reside within you and take hold.
Resentment is anger that we ultimately hold against our own selves. It forces us to be embarrassed at our own shortcomings in a totally unproductive and unfixable way.
Anger and hate are important emotions. They are the engines for us to change and do better. They can right an unjust situation, force us to see clearly.
Resentment is counterproductive, because that’s when anger and hate simmer quietly in the background because they consume the self.
It’s comfortable to hold onto resentment. If I’m angry at myself, I’m protected. Who could criticize more and deeper than you?
I’m still filled with resentment that I forgot the word Bucharest in a conversation in 2003. To anyone else that’s – nerdy as all hell. But at that time and in that moment I felt ashamed for…what exactly? A brain fart?
Everyone remembers something irrationally, but nobody remembers everything. In fact – nobody remembers much of anything. You could have shit your pants at a party in 2003 and nobody would remember it – and if everyone remembers it then hell, might as well laugh at it. Why hold resentment?
Or, well, you don’t hold it. It holds you. Comforts you from the realities of the world. Resentment is easy to hold onto because it’s hard to change. To cling to feeling wronged, to a place and time that no longer exists, to a moment of carelessness, a flaw of a second.
The cheapest therapy is to let go.
Being (don’t start a sentence with a gerund, IDIOT) authentically you is a weird, elusive concept. An axiomatic concept. A(n) (adjective) concept. God I hate my writing voice sometimes (always).
I was having a conversation with a high school friend of mine (I mean, we went to high school together, I don’t have any friends currently in high school, that’d be strange) about putting yourself out there, or putting a version of yourself out there.
I think I’ve always been good at putting a version of myself out there. As an only child whose interior world is vast yet outwardly silent, you realize that most of your esteem comes from essentially being a dancing monkey – “he’s smart, did you know he knows all the state capitals?” or “show them that grown-up book you’re reading!” I’m sure for other kids this manifested as actually doing a jig or playing the flute or something.
Meanwhile, so many parts of you aren’t affirmed and they fester in darkness. And they have to, I mean, it’s impolite to have a kid who’s super into obscure Russian comics or ethnic jokes.
The part of you that’s most hidden is the vulnerable part. That you could get a B on a test, be bad at a sport, not know what you want to do when you grow up, play notes wrong. Imagine a world where kids were celebrated for their vulnerabilities equal to their accomplishments – the pharmaceutical industry would be plunged into bankruptcy.
Our course correction for that has been participation trophies which is a homogenization of kids. “You’re all the same and you’re all equal” is just as damaging, because you get mowed down like a tall weed for being different.
Growing up with a fear of judgment for being different leads to putting on a mask, creating a character that’s not the actual you. I’m learning that doing things, however poorly, is really the only thing that matters. Even if you make mistakes, you’re still doing. We’re wired to respect *doers* – they help the tribe succeed as a whole because they’re expending energy at something.
Doing this (writing one of my shitty brain farts once per day) doesn’t matter in the larger sense, but it helps me do one thing. Helps me be accountable. I’m putting myself out there – all of me, not just a version – for the first time.
So you can be you, I’m being me.
Letting myself feel things is something.
For years and through traumas (I don’t like that word because I don’t think things I’ve experienced are traumatic necessarily but people have told me that’s what it is so whatever, let’s roll with it) it’s been easy to stop an emotion in its tracks before it becomes overwhelming.
I mean I don’t know what I’ve been thinking is going to happen, like a giant sinkhole’s going to open up and swallow me whole, but “feeling” has always been limited, like there’s an emergency valve before I get too far down that road.
Today I got into bed and I started crying – not a sad, pitying cry, but a joyful and surprised cry. I felt grateful. I felt grateful that I have people who care about me. It’s been so easy to look at people and fear where the road’s going to end, feel like the rug is constantly being pulled out from underneath me, like I’m constantly ceding territory to the destructive and all-encompassing forces of fate.
But I’m happy, and I don’t know what it’s like to feel this way for extended periods of time. I know what it’s like to be functional, and distracted, and fleetingly joyful, but I’m just gratefully happy. It’s a little scary.
It’s an emotion that, for once, I don’t want to stop in its tracks. I’m feeling it. And it feels – well, it feels.
