You! Internalize that you do not always need to "improve your art/craft" now! It's great to learn and develop your skills, but you do not need to come from a place of hating where you are now! You certainly do not need to force yourself to improve if it is coming in between you and enjoying the things you do. Improvement for improvements sake does not have to be the only goal, nor the only one that "should matter"

You are allowed to have motifs, enjoyment, ameturism, and "less skill." Kill and devour the capitalist in your head that dictates that you must always improve for everybody else's sake and your "productivity."

Danie’s Dilemmas Ep. 27: Hiatus Over

This is probably the third time that I am re-writing this episode, because the two previous times, finishing my thoughts felt close to impossible. Don’t ask me why, because I won’t know what to actually tell you. The wifi is down right now so I’m drafting this on notes first before I actually end up publishing it. Anyways, there have been a couple of things that I wanted to talk about. Boys being one of them (‘cause when does that not get talked about), and life in general, which are both pretty much on brand with everything else that I have written about in this series. I haven’t been feeling all that inspired to write as much lately because of how quickly the first month of summer has gone by, without me actually feeling like it ever was summer to begin with. It’s weird… it’s as if a lot is happening, but nothing too, all at the same time. I suppose it’s because this is the first summer break where I’m actually employed and can’t always say yes to hanging out with friends or staying home all the time. I’m gonna just write in accordance to whatever comes to mind, since it’s been a minute from the last time I wrote and formed proper, cohesive thoughts (and apparently I’m less to-the-point today too so u might be reading fruitlessly for a bit, be warned).

I almost have no idea where to begin talking about this whole “guy stuff” anymore because it always seems like there’s so much more to say about them in the summer. If you can recall every vent I had about one specific individual from last summer, I both question and congratulate you for coming this far. THIS summer and the experiences I’ve had with guys so far haven’t been all that bad, seeing that firstly, I’ve been spending a lot of time with some of my guy best friends, whether that be through FaceTime or actually hanging out in person, there has never been a dull moment. It’s worth the sleep deprivation. Actually, you know what, fuck this. I still have nothing to say about this one guy, mainly because we haven’t really talked much despite the countless snaps and I promised myself that I wouldn’t start feeling anything towards them unless the signs were pretty definite on which end of the spectrum it was pointing to (friends <————> relationship), which to be quite frank, I’m not even all that sure still if I want that. A relationship, I mean. Some part of me keeps trying to convince the other that all I really want is a summer fling, while the other part argues that all I actually wanted was a guy best friend, basically. They’d be able to tell me all about their girl problems openly, there’s far less drama, and it’s just a funnier experience overall. For awhile, I actually felt hella confused about how I felt towards certain people. Eventually though, I realized that I should at some point break the vicious cycle because it always turned out for the worse and needless to say, it made things awkward for a time. I’ve shot my shot in that type of situation last year and it didn’t necessarily go as planned so to prevent history from repeating itself, I’m taking a lot more precautions. I have no time nor patience to pick up the broken pieces of my heart after wearing it on my sleeve again, so instead I’ve resorted to keeping it hidden, not letting too much out at once, reserving it for the people in my life who actually deserve my undivided love and affection. Does this mean that the point I arrived at after this whole ass paragraph is that hot girls summer is still on?? possibly. But who knows. After spending this much time with a handful of specific people, I’ve become more accustomed to going with the flow and taking risks. Perhaps now’s the time to start making them, considering I practically missed out on all this dumb teenager stuff up until last summer. And still, there is so much to experience.

Like I said in the beginning, I feel as if so much has happened, but at the same time, nothing at all. Since the beginning of summer, I’ve spent a handful of my time with friends, some more than others but it’s time spent well all the same. If not, I’m at work for four hours, 3 days a week. It’s pretty light work compared to some of the hours my friends get with their jobs, but I’d consider it good still ‘cause I’m not as exhausted and the hours are fairly flexible. As I did before the beginning of last summer, I’ve put together another bucket list of the things I want to do or achieve this summer. Naturally, a lot of them I want to do with my friends, some of which require the mastery of a whole new art: sneaking out. I can’t disclose much about how difficult it is to sneak out of my house but put shortly, it is comparable to the level of security in Area 51, however the atmosphere inside feels a lot like what I imagined Alcatraz was like. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit,  but you get the point. It’s difficult. All my friends know it’s difficult.And it makes me feel a lot like the Spongebob meme where Squidward’s looking out of his window, watching Spongebob and Patrick have fun blowing bubbles. Who would’ve thought that my own household would serve as such a MASSIVE cockblock, damn.

Now that it’s summer again, Snapchat’s been a doll with reminding me that everything from last summer is slowly but surely reaching its one year anniversary. The one that stood out the most was the meteor shower, and I bet you that if you don’t even know me all that well, you’d know that this meteor shower hit different. Even to this day, it’s annoying to talk about the memory because it reminds me of what once was but no longer is, yet I still can’t help it. I know that sounds fucking cheesy, but surely some of you know about the feeling I’m trying to get at here. As much as I hate to admit it, I would still consider it one of the best summer nights I have ever spent. Now it is merely a matter of watching the meteor shower again, only this time with people that won’t leave my life so readily and soon. I suppose you can take that last statement metaphorically as well, for any of the other endeavours you’ve got for the summer. Just make sure that you’re doing it with the people that are worth your while and who see you in the same way as you see them. Don’t fucking halfass it.

I’ve been creating all kinds of scenarios in my head of what I want this summer to look like. In a low-key kind of way, I would say that I’ve been on track with a majority of it. One of the most vivid, re-occurring scenarios go like this: long drive to a small town just on the outskirts of the city. The music blasts from the speakers and the windows are rolled all the way down to let the breeze fling your whole head of hair wildly. You reach the town at the point of the afternoon where the sun’s not quite right above you, but gives you that pre-golden hour lighting. You and your friends grab ice cream and take it with you along your stroll around the town, anything but shy about taking endless photos. Then finally, you sit on a bench facing a vast landscape in the direction of the sunset. The clouds come in slightly for the sun to reflect its pink and orange hues off of, in contrast with the rest of the clear blue sky. It cools as the night falls. You drive to another part of town for a quick McDonald’s run, which you take to-go, to find a spot some place else to watch the stars, devoid of any kind of light pollution and the buzz of people. You’re on top of the car, if not inside it with the seats reclined as far back as they go, and the sunroof wide open to a clear view of the twinkling sky above. Deep talk ensues naturally, and in the silent moment in between, you feel nothing but absolute peace. Shit, I forgot about the part where we ordered McDonald’s enough to feed a whole village and ate it all in no more than ten minutes (knowing how my friends and I are… it’s the truth). Anyway, the instruments come out, whether than be guitar, ukulele, or both, and you sing all kinds of songs. Hell, you could even make one just right then and there. Finally, you had home just before dawn when the roads are empty and seemingly endless. For the rest of the time before you and your friends decide to sleep, you reflect on the day’s events. Ignore the fact that I said “you” when really I should’ve been saying “I” since it was a scenario that I had in my head but I guess you can benefit from it cause it allows you to put yourself in my shoes while imagining this.

Fuck dude. There’s still so much to do. And I want to so badly do them all. This whole simulation is going by too fast, and it still blows my mind how practically everyone feels the same way about all these specific aspects of the simulation. Everyone’s living the same life.

I’ve been having so many fucked up dreams too lately. It just reminded me of them because yesterday, one of my friends said that he had a dream that he was sleeping in his dream but when he woke up he thought he woke up in real life, when in actuality, he was still dreaming. Just today, I was taking a nap on the couch and apparently, in the dream, a smiler thing happened where I thought I woke up in real life. Except the biggest indicator that I wasn’t awake in real life yet was that somehow, there was some sort of voice, sounding like it was coming from an intercom, and it said “welcome to universe *insert bunch of numbers here cause I can’t remember exactly what the numbers were*”. The another time, it was a far simpler dream, where someone and myself were just on a couch, and I had my head on their lap, while watching something that was playing on the tv. All I remember from that dream was that I felt an overwhelming sense of calm. I used to be able to remember my dreams thoroughly, but for some reason, ever since I hit my head on my racquet in badminton (don’t ask how I managed that - I don’t wanna talk about it - it was an all time low), I’ve only remembered snippets. It’s unfortunate… I feel like a majority of the one’s that I’ve been having for the last few days seem to hold some kind of meaning. Would’ve been a lot easier if I’d recall it all past 2 minutes after waking up.

Okay, I think this is more than you bargained for. I still have so much more to say but that’s for another episode. Keep up, will ya

For now xx