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Are.na
J-Rod Nelson
on being
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being 25 is like: im dying. im living my best life. im a failure. my life hasnt started. everything interesting has already happened to me. im achieving my dreams. im cutting my hair with kitchen scissors. im starting a skincare routine. im a corporate professional. im a sellout. im out of groceries. i have too many groceries. i am never going to be successful. i am going to win a hugo award before im 30. im crazy. im boring. i need to finish this essay. i need to finish this story. i need to start a newsletter.i need to ghost all my friends. i need to tell my friends i love them. i need to find a new apartment. i need to take out the trash. i am the trash that needs to be taken out.

Vertiginously close? Can proximity cause vertigo?

It can. When the North Pole comes so close as to touch the South Pole, the earth disappears and man finds himself in a void that makes his head spins and beckons him to fall.

If rejection and privilege are one and the same, if there is no difference between the sublime and the paltry, if the Son of God can undergo judgement for shit, then human existence loses its dimensions and becomes unbearably light. When Stalin’s son ran up to the electrified wire and hurled his body at it, the fence was like the pan of a scared sticking pitifully up in the air, lifted by the infinite lightness of a world that has lost its dimensions.

Stalin’s son laid down his life for shit. But a death for shit is not a senseless death. The Germans who sacrificed their lives to expand their country’s territory to the east, the Russians who died to extend their country’s power to the west —yes, they died for something idiotic, and their deaths have no meaning of general validity. Amid the general idiocy of the war, the death of Stalin’s son stands out as the sole metaphysical death.

The unbearable lightless of being

When I was younger, I built a Lego model of the tower bridge with my cousin. I’ve always had it in the corner of my childhood bedroom, only until two years ago did I dispose of it. When I bus through the bridge now I would always suddenly see myself from a bird's-eye view, looking from above, whilst also shrinking to a point of vanish. I would see the details of the suspension rods in Lego form, and the inscribed imagery of how I used to fit each piece together. A monumental infrastructure is eclipsed by the most assertive dollhouse memory…I still can not comprehend its actual size.

Are.na is the new Whole Earth Catalogue

“God I miss my dad, don’t ever let her miss you.”

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∆ Jennifer S. Cheng, from So We Must Meet Apart
∆ Jennifer S. Cheng, from So We Must Me…
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20.tattoo-by-filip-leu.jpg
∆ Comfort Food, Ellen Van Neerven
∆ Comfort Food, Ellen Van Neerven
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