I brought my weed to work today so I could sit in the office and work while stoned. I’m feeling so antsy right now, I just want to pause, reflect, and experiment. There isn’t much interest in work per se, mostly because work is the default mode of existence. I want my freedom more than anything, the tiny sliver left at the end of the day for me to feed on, the one that no one sees.
My apartment is dirty right now. In the kitchen the blender is still plugged in and whatever is left of last night’s smoothie is sitting out in the open. I have to clean my floors. There are clothes on the couch, a small pile of mail that I dropped near the front door, and an unmade bed with clothes scattered around it. Last night I slept for 12 hours in black sweats and my contacts in. Sleep has been happening a lot, and in unimaginable amounts. When I woke up this morning there was something weirdly thrilling about tip toeing through the chaos and then stepping out for work. I guess I feel like I’m returning to my more feral self.
I keep studying Jungian psychology. It’s an ongoing obsession that I’ve been cycling through for the past few months. Jung talks about the extensive socialization that occurs throughout life which diminishes our true self. My ex was aware of the conditioning that occurred en masse and taught me to keep a comfortable distance from the external world, to let it play out with minimal interaction. I remember talking to him about buying something because I liked the packaging. He raised his eyebrows “Oh, so they get you that easily?”
Street meat is a term I recently came up with. I was talking to a friend that had spent too much time on dating apps. He was feeling frustrated by his romantic encounters so I tried convincing him to stop using them. “You should take time out for yourself, go to therapy, emotionally heal, enjoy life.” My proselytizing was useless though, he messaged me the other day and mentioned a Pakistani girl he started seeing. It’s easy to get lost in the endless emotional withdrawals of modern day dating. It’s like playing the slot machines, you’re always putting in a coin and hoping to win the next round. Another friend recently underwent a huge energetic drain that she is recovering from. I messaged her back “Have you tried MDMA? It helped me a lot.”
But Street Meat is what we risk eventually becoming. I liken it to a piece of sushi that’s been rotating too long, its sides crusting over. Dating is a corrosive social experiment. If it’s not carefully managed, our life can fall into the hands of someone well skilled in dismembering us while feeding on our remains. It was my foray into film during the pandemic, specifically East Asian ones from the 90s, that altered my perspective. The concrete sterility of New York faded under my projector. Soft wisps of human emotion emerged in the dark, carrying with them the memories of a rich inner world we have forgotten.
a soft death 