Phrases to study

They were not covering that schmutz with wallpaper.
No, sir!
They were covering it with BEIGE. The khaki of paint! Which is like the world’s greatest whiplash ever. All of those Gen Xers trying desperately to rebel against their childhoods covered in acid green atomic burst patterns. (And all of the builders doing the same. Not to mention that beige paint bought in bulk = economical AF.)

It lends itself to a multitude of other fears layered underneath, like a big scary Matryoshka doll: to be replaceable is to accept that we’ve come to see ourselves a commodity or a byproduct of our doing — we cherish the doing more than the doer. This is true both whether we’ve hit a big milestone or shared something from the heart online. It’s also to surrender to others getting bored with you, which, I think, is icky for any creative. Finally, most helplessly, it is to recognize that our very best attempt may just be somebody’s effortless afterthought. The “there’ll never be another you” perspective is stellar and indulging in theory, but it’s never offered me comfort — so what if there’s no one like me if there’s people a million times better? Please.

What shocks me is how many people forget that option exists.

Here’s the thing, though: when you find something you love doing and get good or even great at it, you’ll feel the best at it until you don’t. Being the best, by definition, is not just a subjective, but a transient state. And it’s not so much about skill, rather perceived excellence. You’re the trailblazer until you’ve paved the way to the accessible, evident surface. You’re inventing until somebody else steps in to do a better, more inventive job, and do it more effortlessly than you ever could. Any gain in expertise is a symmetrical loss in spectacle. This isn’t some high horse ideology or superiority complex talking — it’s just the cyclical nature of creativity, of nature, of discovery, of common sense, of life. 

The wind keeps putting the fire out and I’m disproportionately uneasy about it all

If you wait to feel rested, energised, and inspired, you might be waiting forever. Start where you are, in the middle of the chaos, with whatever scraps of energy you have. Creativity doesn’t need perfect conditions, it just needs you to show up, however you can.

And where I’m lacking, is it an error of circumstance or oversight? Am I fundamentally doing something wrong? If my satisfaction is conditional upon a sense of purpose or utility, then who’s going to help me shape that purpose, or at the least be kind enough to tell me what to do? It has to be somebody with authority and wisdom. I don’t know anyone with both.

If you’re constantly fleeing friction, you’re dying

I, too, feel ambitious and anticipatory at all times, as though something in front of me stands in between the current and everything I’ve yet to become, needs me to hold my breath with patience.

The last thing a woman on the verge of a birthday breakdown wants is peace

The more time you spend doing a thing, the more habit supersedes novelty, and you start to notice the reality around you: suddenly, you’re far from the most original, the most creative, or the most eloquent. You’re just one of. There’s a certain rhythm of repetition. The instinct then, of course, is to frantically lock in, work harder, and drop the pretense of preserving the ubiquitous ‘balance’. No balance to be found where you’ve self-reduced to profit margins

As a marketer, I know that if all goes to shit, I’ll reinvent myself, I’ll come up with something else out of necessity. As one does.
As a woman, I’m concerned about my fear of being replaced. Specifically, the lengths I’ll go to avoid it. I don’t want to be algorithmically tolerable — I want to be a forever sensation.

A stroll through memory lane and a balm for my very soul

just long enough to breathe in a way that didn’t sound like i was preparing for some invisible interview

Coach wasn’t struggling from invisibility. They were suffocating from their own success.

How to Write Clearly: A Deep Dive with Examples & Exercises

If you’re a fan of therapy jargon, you’ll sign me off as dismissive avoidant and call it a day. But let’s be more poetic. I’m a slippery fish. I’ll block, I’ll flee, I’ll book that flight, I’ll unsolder whatever metal has my ankles chained to the ground, I’ll vanish in an instant and won’t crawl back even on a rare occasion I get so lonely I start regretting my doings. I don’t leave in apathetic coldness — I’ll grieve in my own way in a world they don’t get to witness. I know that I’m the architect of this tiny little playing field called life, responsible for what happens to me to a fault, and for my joy too

The best part about our unique perspectives is that they are unique. No one else has the exact same inner coding that you have.

The only way to survive your twenties is to think about yourself too much. It’s merely self-preservation in a world that doesn’t reward neither the immediacy of youth nor the methodically slow investigation of self. You’ll either be written off as crazy or lazy, your choice. 

Seek the Living Archives
This is my favorite part of The Search: forums.
There’s something magical about old threads. Reading them feels like eavesdropping in another decade. You see facts, but also opinions in that exact moment of time. A thread from 2008 about iPods or Twilight or Geocities being deprecated feels like time traveling because you’re reading people as they lived it

The most common (and easiest) thing to do on the internet is complain. The range of topics varies from person to person, but one consistent grumble circles around The Algorithm and it’s incorrect assumptions about what a person might want to consume.

It’s a sport for the sick and twisted, I’m an elite athlete. I leave because the first time I got left was permanent and brutal.

Fascinated by the process of dissecting the unfathomable, I believe naming fears makes it easier to metabolize them. There’s one where you’re afraid of taking a big leap of faith or approaching a cute stranger at the bar — the anticipatory fear. Will I get rejected? What if I’m not enough? Can I strategically predict the future? There’s one where you’re afraid of your own decisions, specifically choosing wrong, which keeps you stuck and frozen in time. The fear of the outcome, whether good or bad — could be grouped with the fear of the unknown. But the worst one doesn’t glide on the page like butter on velvet, and isn’t easily transcribed. No fear has come close to the terror of being replaceable and forgotten.

That’s why her words keep getting under my dehydrated skin, as though I’m more than just her reader and she’s more than my scientist, an astronaut moonwalking on a thought I’ve yet to offer. 

It’s also to surrender to others getting bored with you, which, I think, is icky for any creative.

You can’t call it the “online world” if you never leave your feed. If your entire internet life happens inside TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, or Twitter, you’re simply mall-walking, and malls are fine: predictable, climate-controlled, food courts and chain stores on every corner, but don’t mistake the mall for the city. The city is bigger, stranger, full of alleys, basements, and hidden doors. That’s the real internet, and you haven’t been there in a while.

When you watch protection slip right through your fingers in helpless agony, you have two options: let the world wash you away with it, powerless, or you can become a swimmer of such caliber that surviving the world’s worst flood is a routine task. You can guess which one it was. 

Typing random words into Google is like making a wish at 11:11—you might get what you want, but odds are it’s just vibes. Using operators is like ordering an Etsy witch to hex your ex-boyfriend (with expedited shipping). That shit actually works.

We already know how it’s going to play out, but the still wide open desire for a better me outweighs the knowledge that it’s never, ever, ever been enough before. I feel I owe it to myself to experience perfection at least once, however briefly, if not by some strength or innate talent then at least by the diligent repetition of everything I’ve been so keen to master. But the more I steer one way, the more I burn rubber on the other side. This dissatisfaction may be discreetly in my favor.

Let yourself engage with creativity in microscopic ways. You don’t need to craft a masterpiece - you just need to stay connected to yourself.

The vanity of ageing is only upsetting, but not existentially challenging — sure, you feel slightly unnerved when you look in the mirror for too long and observe the plumpness of your cheeks hollowing out, that your eyes are duller and the skin is looser in some places. But we’ve spent our whole lives wishing we were different, so it truly does not matter. Like looking for satisfaction in a well that’s never known water

This isn’t my local park, but since I’m on a journey of microdosing inconvenience by opting for uncomfortable honesty and longer routes, I’ve been telling people how I really feel and I’ve been coming here on the weekends

Since I’ve only ever been able to appreciate myself retroactively, in old photographs and fuzzy Merlot memories, will I have spent the first half of my life wishing for a different look, and the later wishing for a more appreciative brain? There is no restitution.

I’m obsessed with leaving the same way people are obsessed with Excel spreadsheets or French skincare. Not as an ultimatum with an agenda (That’ll show ‘em! Teach a lesson!), but as an act of agency with nothing to prove (I hope they’re happy & I hope to never hear about it.) 

I’ve been warned this is what growing up feels like, nonlinear and itchy like a hand-me-down sweater, when the parts of you that have met their potential are digging into the parts that haven’t, behaviors you keep indulging in clash against the moral goodness you know to be rig

As a seasoned connoisseur in the world of journalling, I adore journal prompts, which I see an invitation and a guide through the labyrinth of thoughts and emotions, allowing organisation and a quiet reminder.

Absorbed in comfort, we are restless. Drowning in excess, we are hollow. The statistics confirm what our souls already know: despair has metastasized, anxiety has become our natural state, and in the absence of real suffering, we have made a spectacle of our own discontent. 

leave when I begin to hate myself, the first sign of a catastrophe impending. Hungry for meaning and truth, moving sideways and with an arrogant, arrhythmic heartbeat, I just never want to endure for the sake of endurance again. Many will say that a little pain is not a big enough reason to call quits: letting fleeting feelings dictate permanent signatures. It’s okay if we agree to disagree. I love leaving because there’s hardly a reward for staying.

Your creativity doesn’t have to be separate from your survival. It can hold it, express it, alchemise it. The most potent art comes from real emotions, and you have plenty of those.