Coming to terms with your own mediocrity

I guess I'll preface this by saying that I've been depressed on/off for most of my life (more on than off). As I try to understand my depression, I come to the conclusion that it stems from the fact that I am mediocre in almost all ways. I will probably never be a rock star, amazing writer, successful businessman, or even a pillar in the community. None of my hard work ever translates into anything worthwhile. I am, in short, nothing special. And the world reminds me of my third-rate status every moment of every day. I am trying to come to terms with this fact, but it's hard for me. I would like some advice from anyone who has successfully faced this.

cultivate your heart-quality

eventually you'll level-up and gain new powers which are less mediocre

i may be too mediocre to understand what you're saying

i think you're being too hard on yourself.

I will probably never be a rock star, amazing writer, successful businessman, or even a pillar in the community

none of these are necessarily good ways to value yourself. being kind, sensitive, caring, attuned to the interests and vulnerabilities of others, quick to offer assistance or a kind word are all traits that elevate someone above "mediocrity." so does having verve, style, undisciplined creativity, and dozens of other traits.

This was a major thing to come to terms with for me over the past couple of years. I'll never be a great scholar or intellect. I'll just be fine eking out a small living for myself.

if yr cool with being 'mediocre' then you can still distinguish yrself in the eyes of others by being exceptionally chill/easygoing.

if yr not cool with it but think it's unavoidable u can distinguish yrself by being exceptionally intense (but still mediocre) — do not go gently etc etc

(I only kid because it hurts)

yeah now I'm more interested in just connecting with people, being amiable and keeping it positive rather than trying to impress like when I was a teenager — I guess this is the trend for a lot of ppl as they age

none of these are necessarily good ways to value yourself. being kind, sensitive, caring, attuned to the interests and vulnerabilities of others, quick to offer assistance or a kind word are all traits that elevate someone above "mediocrity." so does having verve, style, undisciplined creativity, and dozens of other traits.

maybe. but we live in a society where those things don't matter unless they translate into a commodifiable skill or status-conferring quality. all i do is constantly compare myself to others and realize that i'm just not stacking up. i feel like such a loser.

a.) I think some version of this is just sort of part of growing up for most people (realizing that probably you won't be X.Y, or Z amazing thing you might have dreamed of, because most people aren't); and b.) one of my favorite things about reading about people who I think are geniuses is realizing that even a lot of them are constantly beset by self-doubt and feeling like they in one way or another are falling short -- because it shows that that's a sort of natural human thing to feel, and not even a bad one. It helps keep you sort of grounded on the one hand and, hopefully, always trying to sort of do more or do better on the other.

And the good thing is, if you can let go of worrying too much about any of that stuff, you can enjoy an awful lot of things about life. (I realize that enjoying a lot of things about life is difficult if you're prone to depression, since I have good friends and family members who are. So I don't mean to preach happy talk here. But to whatever extent feelings of mediocrity or inadequacy are contributing to the depression, it might help to just accept them and let go of them as much as possible.)

coming to terms with your thread's bummerosity

all i do is constantly compare myself to others and realize that i'm just not stacking up.

everyone can do that. lots of people you wouldn't expect to do that do that. you have to have some faith in your own self-worth and value.

Your original post is great.

Best advice I can give to anyone: find a job where you love the people you work with. (Not literally--you know what I mean.) If you're happy going to work each day, you will never feel mediocre.

yeah, everyone does do that -- like when you sit there and think about some famous person like "you already have $50 million dollars, what do you need more money for?" it's cuz comparison is all relative -- it's easy i guess for us to answer our own rhetorical question by saying "well shit that person is rich/famous etc" but almost everyone feels inadequate compared to their peers

I feel like these elevated expectations happen a lot to people who have a clear sense that they're above average in various ways, and then realize that so are a signif number of other people. It's hard to feel distinguished in the larger world when you see it like that.

But we don't rly live in the "larger world," we live in the world as however we see it. There's a lot to be said for fooling yourself, and I mean that in the nicest way. You can choose to make yr world different than it is by building value in other stuff, like the people above said.

Whoops xposted cos I'm typing slowly on phone.

clemenza otm

maybe. but we live in a society where those things don't matter

"Society" is generally a load of crap that's not worth the comparison. Experience good books/music/visuals and try to be conscious enough to recognize Art when it flashes past, have good conversations, enjoy silence when you're lucky enough to find it, discard the rest.

Judge Smails: Ty, what did you shoot today?
Ty Webb: Oh, Judge, I don't keep score.
Judge Smails: Then how do you measure yourself against other golfers?
Ty Webb: By height.

haha. my favorite:

Judge Smails: You know, you should play with Dr. Beeper and myself. I mean, he's been club champion for three years running and I'm no slouch myself.

Ty Webb: Don't sell yourself short Judge, you're a tremendous slouch.

This point has been made a couple of times already, I think, but if I can maybe put it slightly differently: this is about perspective. Your life is your life. It is the only life you have. It is the only chance this universe is giving you, and it is rich and colorful and full of flavors of experience beyond measure. Maybe you (or I) will never see the skyscrapers in Shanghai, maybe they won't argue about something you've done in the pages of the New Yorker, maybe your obituary will have to be placed by family instead of being written in advance by all the wire services.

So what? Your life is your life. It is the only one you have. Take in the richness of what you have before you, even in the pain and sadness and difficulty, because no one else in the history of the universe will ever have precisely that experience, and you have a responsibility to yourself to be aware of it. I've found that when we look with a cleaner lens at the people and things in our lives they can appear brighter and more wonderful than we might have imagined. If that's 'mediocrity,' give it to me in spoonfuls.

Yes. :) You're the only you there is. And the more you see yr worth reflected by the people you've chosen to care for, the more valuable and secure yr place as yourself in the world becomes.

FUNDAMENTALLY A REITERATION OF WHAT A LOT OF OTHERS HAVE SAID ON THIS THREAD, BUT THEY'RE RIGHT:

Don't let yourself be guided by other people's standards, even if you choose to identify other people as "society". Just learn who you are and live accordingly. The world will catch up.

so did you (ilx, not just res) ever feel special? when, for how long, and why did it stop (if it has)?

And res for what it's worth I say all that as someone who has dealt with pretty serious depression throughout life and, a few years ago, was kinda obsessed with 'making an impact in the world.' I had no idea what kind of impact I wanted to make, I didn't know how I was going to make one, but I knew I HAD TO MAKE ONE or my life would be WORTHLESS.

In the time since I've come to recognize that the smaller impacts we make every day are more than worth their weight.

I'm certainly not perfect in many ways, but there are definitely aspects of my life where I refuse to settle, and while that can be the primary source of stress for me, it can also be awesome at times. Perhaps I have yet to reach enlightenment about this and perhaps I will never be truly satisfied, but right now I am not ready to compromise on these things.

I believe that you can feel this way and still be a "good", useful person, so long as you are not ignoring your responsibility to others.

I don't feel "special", but I certainly feel "different". I assume everyone does? Or most peoPle.

I don't think embracing your life has to mean settling for less than your best!

Never mistake comfort for complacency.

Like, I went through this thing where I was like "OK, I'm ok with not being a Famous Writer now, so I guess I can quit working on this collection of poems and let the novel rot," and then a couple of months later I realized how narrow-minded that was: learning contentment with your life and striving for greatness are not mutually exclusive.

actually i think admrl is probably special? dunno

I didn't say it was but I do sometimes regard my "best" as that which I have yet to achieve rather than something I am certain I am capable of.

totally

I have been told I'm special, tbh. I just didn't wanna rock the boat.

The small contribution is not worth less than the large one. Besides which, who's to say which is smaller or larger?

i think that most people i actually know are special, tbh, just in different ways

Let's not revive the thread where my perfectly innocent remarks got me accused of being a cynical type-A who doesn't want to be friends with "losers"

oh yeah i don't know any losers

sorry i was not at all insinuating! but there are some awfully talented and yes, special, ppl on ilx. it is sometimes daunting

http://www.charityadvantage.com/We_The_WorldHFZJEA/images/You-can-do-anything.gif

Totally repeating everything that everyone else said, but goddammit I AM SPECIAL (lol) - Keep your world small -- your effect on the lives of the people who are close to you is worth a lot, and has a much bigger impact than you'll ever give yourself credit for. Measuring yourself by the standards that the 'world' sets is easy, and depressing, because you'll never measure up. Do good in your day to day life, listen, be curious, never assume that you know all there is to know, be ready with a smile and the rest will come. All you can do is be the best you that you can be, because the rest just doesn't matter.

/super easy to say/write, much harder to pull off. But good to strive for.

is anyone up in this bitch into frederick exley's "a fan's notes"? it is essentially a rumination on mediocrity.

Because I actually do now some people like that, and obv they are pretty insufferable at times

is anyone up in this bitch into frederick exley's "a fan's notes"? it is essentially a rumination on mediocrity.

and being a sports fan, and a drunk, and fucked up every other way

more prescient every day

love that book so much

read it years ago and dont remember . . . nearly any of it, if any of it, tbh

Pretty sure the people who have invested the most in me, namely my parents, wish I thought I was MORE special and set higher goals for myself, but I don't rly care about that. I get more satisfaction from being special TO people, the people I choose to invest in.

at this point i have just accepted that my life will forever be me oscillating between

-being overly pompous & oblivious to my own mediocrity
-being self-defeating & overly aware of my own mediocrity
-being 'ok' with my own mediocrity

and also sometimes i get uneasy about the mediocrity of my surroundings & blame everything on that. kind of shitty & annoying but whatever, there is i think something rejuvenating and ultimately not too depressing about the process. coziness in mediocrity. it's frustrating to be forever at the whim of pathetic & self-aware forces, but for me it's lessened by the reassurance that it's always transitive

this thread is like a big hug

xpost Laurel I feel the same way!

This is the place I reach after a 70-minute walk's home stretch; the day doesn't get any better than that.

― boners for bombs (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 29, 2026 12:37 PM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

love it. a long walk is just the best.

Interesting failures can also be beautiful and enjoyable, and surprising (an often underrated virtue). Not everything has to be excellence and achievement.

I remember the Pet Shop Boys saying that in the world of music, there is an unspoken macho pressure to prove you can still cut it live. They had no interest in that, and their starting point for live shows was how to make their performances interesting, or even ridiculous - but entertaining.

I usually do a sixty minute walk in the morning, fast-paced for exercise but mind-clearing in general. Combined with walking to and from work I think I do something like 10 miles a day -- I recommend it if feasible which I realize is hardly generally the case...

just remember that if you're under 10,000 steps on your step-counting app the walk is mediocre. j/k.

With world cup going on, I wonder if any player has ever had the wherewithal to hire a drama coach to teach them to level up their flopping technique and if not, it's a little wild to think that the entire history of the sport has been dominated by mediocre thespians.

I did not have so acute a case of Gifted Kid Syndrome as some folks, but it was there anyway. Everyone telling me how smart I was instilled in me the notion that I was meant to do something Important, or at least distinctive, with my life. But I never figured out what that was supposed to be.

I felt this so hard and I remember having these actual thoughts in my...preteens? Early teens? I felt like I was expected to be a prodigy at something, because that would tell me what path my life should take. Since no specific prodigious qualities had emerged despite all the things that went into my learning/shaping, I was kind of at a loss.

Felt the same in college bc I thought if you were "smart," you would be having original revelations about your subject area. I haaardcore didn't understand that everyone is expected to just learn to do research and parrot back things from books. I believed if I wasn't Advancing The Field I was wasting my time and obviously wasn't good at it. I wonder if everything would have gone differently for me if I had realized that I wasn't bad at things, I was supposed to be both boring and bored.

yep. but in America it also gets tangled up with race. I, a mediocre replacement-level white man, have unearned privilege just because of the circumstance of my birth.

― The Immortal Bird of Avon (Boring, Maryland), Friday, June 26, 2026 3:44 PM (three days ago)

i mean it's not _personal_. i have unearned privilege too - white privilege, passing privilege, hell, i was born _smart_, i do think that's privilege. it's not something i worked for. it's just how i was born.

i don't even know what mediocre is supposed to mean. i don't think of myself as mediocre. do i think i'm _excellent_? not necessarily but i am pretty aware that i'm _exceptional_. i'm not like most people in some fairly significant ways. do i want to be like everybody else? i mean, i don't think that's really possible. what i do want is to be treated with the same level of, i don't know, privilege, that cishet white men enjoy.

i am a rock star, amazing writing, and a pillar of my community, just in an extremely small and localized way, and this is all i want really. anyone can do this btw

― ivy., Sunday, June 28, 2026 10:10 AM (yesterday)

we all kind of _have_ to be exceptional, is how i feel about it. not that who we are makes us exceptional. we just fucking have to be exceptional to do the things we do, even if those things are, like, basically normal. not in a... i mean i'm sure there are people here who are rock stars, amazing writers, whatever, and the thing that i find valuable is that everybody here is just, like, a _normal fucking person_. people sometimes, i mean, sometimes people don't get treated like ordinary human beings, and everyone here is an ordinary human being. we all deserve to be treated that way without all this bullshit about being a Role Model getting in the way.

i didn't expect to change people's lives as much as i have, for the better. and i certainly didn't expect to do it by just, i mean, doing what i wanted to do. not by striving for greatness. not by trying to save the world. just talking about weird nerd shit. i don't understand why or how that happens, and it does. i know that when i'm gone, a lot of people will remember me very well. i know people... people _now_, it's so weird, because part of the "gifted kid" thing was never feeling like i was good enough. and at the age i am starting to get some glimpse of just how much people actually think of me, god, it still consistently brings me to tears. i don't understand it, but i can't console myself any longer by telling myself that i'm mediocre or insignificant or that my life doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. i know that's not true.

i released myself and let being take over

I’ve come to appreciate that this may be as close as I get to figuring out what I’m here to do with life. The hard part is habitually doing the things that get me there (walks are reliable methods, but I rarely commit to more than an hour, so don’t get that 70 min sweet spot. See also: forgetting to meditate). Biking through a ravine might be as good as it gets: for a moment you can forget there’s a “me” that is mediocre or excellent or anything but the feeling of moving through nature

one of my greatest pleasures in life is, like... _existing_. i don't take it for granted. i spent a lot of time trying to distract myself, trying to just... not be _me_. the internet is actually really good for that, really good for distracting me, so i try to be careful about how i use it. the last seven years is the first time i've really been able to... i don't know, feel good in my body. me in my body, my body in the world, it's just, like, what else could i possibly need? and if that means that i don't accomplish "great things", fuck it. william faulkner was a miserable asshole. i'm pretty sure i'm happier than he was. who fucking cares that he was a better writer than i am?

you are definitely more prolific, Kate!

i wouldn't put my ilx posts in the same category as _light in august_ lol

my actual writing is, well... mediocre! and there's not much of it, cuz i tend to look at and say "well, this isn't really worth finishing".

I have a meaningful non-bullshit job but I don’t really like it. I would basically just like to be a machine they processes paper and forms and stuff all day. I don’t know if it’s depression or what but I am kind of naturally inclined to ruminate about things like the thread topic excessively, to an extent that’s harmful. I’ve turfed out on so many opportunities, just not persevering, quitting when the going gets tough, that bitter yeats thing lou reed quoted about the worst having all the passion and intensity… I don’t believe in anything very big. I have to keep myself busy doing things I like and also try to be a good friend and son and husband. that’s enough for me right now.

Biking through a ravine

this is no lie one of the best things. swooping up on the sides and zooming down. nature moving fast past you, the constant impact of it building up into a loud bell ringing.

it wasn't on a bike but i discovered this feeling about 15 years ago running single track trails in an open space type area next to my "job" at the time - my parents' real estate brokerage - which was a different, much worse job than the one i have now.

after a period of instability, i thought, why not move to where i can run and get that feeling every day, and so i did and it worked out for a while.

just the other day, i found a new trail fairly close to where i live with exactly the right pitch on the way down to get that bounding and flying feeling.

if this is all life is for me now - another run, and then another run - if i'm lucky enough to be able to run for another twenty years - i feel i will have lived a full life.

Husband and I were talking about this thread yesterday. I said, "Did you never want to be a pop star? Or a film star? Or take a bow in front of a rapturous audience?" He said, "No, never, not really." I can't imagine that. I always assumed everyone wanted that, on some deep level. But maybe they don't. It occurred to me that this is one of the many reasons I enjoy the culture of drag and ballroom, because here's a whole section of society that saw that they were not going to have those things, but they yearned for them, so they made their own versions with their own rules. They bought their own trophies, learned to lip sync, did whatever, in order to get that feeling even if only occasionally. Sort of the Simple Peter thing? If we can't win your awards, we'll make our own awards and win those.

I mean, that's not "mediocrity", that's exclusion, but it's still part of the chat we're having here, I think.

i dont think there's an accepted meaning for the purposes of the thread/revive tbf

i have come to terms with the finitude of my impact on this world, and perhaps even my compass while alive, but that doesn't stop me from flinging shit at the wall

ftr i think one major problem is that communities ARE too small and silo'd now - yes, you can be a pillar of a small community etc etc but you should also aspire for that community to break containment. sure embrace your own personal 'mediocrity' but be ambitious as hell for whatever you're a part of. i feel like that ambition is diluted nowadays and it saddens me. obviously i am not talking about ILX here, hope died long ago here (and in fact, 'one's own mediocrity' is perhaps even the ILX house register, keeps me grounded tbf)

Get a bag of ashees and start hugging it mate

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dolling up rn ty

trishyb, otm about the community-building and -reinforcing aspect of "we'll make our own awards and win those." In that context it is not solipsistic: building one another up is the achievement. Cooperation disguised as competition. The opposite of the culture-war sneer at participation trophies.

I think a lot about this. My son plays Special Olympics basketball and it is wholesome as fuck. Everyone gets the ball. Everyone gets to shoot until they make it. Everyone cheers.

I understand the wanting of success (by the lights of others) in a field with something like standards... Like wanting to be a published writer (in the mid-20th-century New Yorkerish sense). Wanting to be a signed band with a record contract.

But then you look at who those gatekeepers were/are, and how they decided whom to exalt and whom to exclude. You look at the great things those systems ignored, and the terrible things they made popular...

Dethroning them was/is necessary. But doing that also leaves a void for the legitimacy and validation they used to confer.

The good news is that everyone can make a record or write a blog. The bad news is that everyone can make a record or write a blog.

ftr i think one major problem is that communities ARE too small and silo'd now - yes, you can be a pillar of a small community etc etc but you should also aspire for that community to break containment.

Mobilising the local allotment groups to conquer fields in other boroughs.

obviously i am not talking about ILX here, hope died long ago here (and in fact, 'one's own mediocrity' is perhaps even the ILX house register, keeps me grounded tbf)

― miserable pessi reign (imago), Tuesday, June 30, 2026 1:25 AM (six hours ago)

what are you talking about, have you ever heard of cross-pollination

i take stuff i learn here and apply it other places, "break containment", like we're supposed to invade some other forum? that's silly.

I think a lot about this. My son plays Special Olympics basketball and it is wholesome as fuck. Everyone gets the ball. Everyone gets to shoot until they make it. Everyone cheers.

― Scott Baiowulf (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, June 30, 2026 3:00 AM (five hours ago)

this is the thing, when i was young people used to make fun of participation trophies and it's absolutely exactly backwards. it shocks me how seldom people just, like, say nice things to each other. so easy to take it for granted. i compliment other people all the time and so i'm surrounded by people who compliment me fairly frequently. i mean ilx has _changed_ over the past 15 years, it is more kind, more supportive, more _humane_.

control-f "nepotism" and not finding any results in the thread. sometimes an apprehension of "mediocrity" is just a momentary (reasonably fatalistic) acknowledgement of how stacked the deck is, especially in the out-of-control junior high school that is the USA

If you're in the arts, surely mediocrity is an internal concern, not external - we all know the trivia of the successful artists now forgotten, the obscure artists now beloved.

Not that going by your own instincts on this matter is any less problematic, basically all the best artists I've met are horribly insecure and suspect mediocrity even when they're acclaimed.

I do want to push back on the idea that insecurity and self-loathing are pre-requisites to being unsatisfied with one's creative output. You could just have really, really good taste!

How many of those best artists in your experience keep going versus give up?

I dunno that I would conflate insecurity and self loathing!

To answer your question, it's pretty 50/50.

For the people who keep going, do you sense there's anything qualitatively different about them or their circumstances?

Reminds me of Merleau-Ponty's essay "Cézanne's Doubt," about Cézanne's insecurities and frustrations with (what he perceived as) the limits of his talent. It ends with this, which I love:

But he himself was never at the center of himself: nine days out of ten all he saw around him was the wretchedness of his empirical life and of his unsuccessful attempts, the leftovers of an unknown party. Yet it was in the world that he had to realize his freedom, with colors upon a canvas. It was on the approval of others that he had to wait for the proof of his worth. That is the reason he questioned the picture emerging beneath his hand, why he hung on the glances other people directed toward his canvas. That is the reason he never finished working. We never get away from our life. We never see our ideas of our freedom face to face.

well, ok, if you’re dissatisfied with your art bc your taste is so good, who’s to say that if you don’t consistently work on your craft that you won’t experience your own breakthrough, something that impresses and surprises you but is also unmistakeable as your voice? all artists struggle with assessing the value of their own work, what separates you from them? public approval (horseshit metric)? a lot of conceptions about this boil down to “some people are special and some people aren’t” and a core philosophy of mine is that that’s bullshit

flaubert was tortured over how mediocre he found his own work. flaubert

For the people who keep going, do you sense there's anything qualitatively different about them or their circumstances?

Nothing springs to mind, but I'm intrigued - were you suspecting some factor in particular?

'some people are special and some people aren’t”

Did you mean "some art is special"? Or are you collapsing people and art? Some art, in our estimations, is more special than others; that's you and I and others in this thread are music writers. Maybe I misunderstood you.

Maybe I don't like "special." Like "unique."

Edith Wharton is a more interesting writer than Sinclair Lewis. More "special"? idk

some people get to lead certain kinds of lives and other people don’t. i understand the degree this is true due to the circumstances of birth and class. but otherwise i think anyone can get good at anything, mediocrity isn’t something you’re condemned to. idk i’m repeating myself on this thread and not responding to people’s complete posts

Oh! I see what you mean now. I agree.

I will never be good at drawing and heterosexuality tho.

no one is good at heterosexuality, least of all heterosexuals

Alas.

we have shit taste, it's true!

re: dissatisfied artists who keep going, I wonder if it's something you can transfer to the artists who don't. whatever factor it is (supportive scene, drinking ginger shots, etc...)

no one is good at heterosexuality, least of all heterosexuals

― ivy., Tuesday, June 30, 2026 2:04 PM (one hour ago)

god i wish i was a straight guy, i feel like i could be SO GOOD at that shit

i mean that's, uh, that's not what the record shows, but i still _feel_ like i could do it really well

no, i don't think i could land a plane or score with serena williams

honestly, i tried _really fucking hard_ to be an ordinary cishet man

it didn't take

ordinary cishet guys get put down a lot but they are genuinely doing something i _couldn't_. i'm genuinely a little in awe of, like, ordinary dudes. like, how do you _do_ that? that's genuinely so cool! i mean i know it probably comes naturally to y'all, just like being a girl comes naturally to me, but that doesn't make it any less cool!

public success or lack thereof is measuring something different than mediocrity vs virtuosity

Some people are artists because that is what is in them; they have a drive to create and that happens to be funneled into making art. Perhaps under different circumstances that drive would have found a different path. Some people just want to make things.

Other people are told that they’re good at art so they go to art school or college because they don’t know what else to do. They will make art if it’s an assignment and they can succeed at this but after graduation they’re done. Nobody is forcing them to make art and they don’t have that drive so whatever talent they had withers away.

It’s a hard, weird, activity, devoting oneself to something that will not make money, will probably get little recognition, and is often a struggle to make. A person has to have a fire in them to do that, or maybe they are a masochist. Some of my pieces take years to finish and it feels like trying to solve a math problem in a dream in which there is no logic, formula, or numbers. I don’t know why I do it, it’s just what I do.

I don’t know if anyone can be good at anything. Anyone can definitely improve with practice, but I think everyone has a ceiling. We vary so much cognitively, some brains are more geared for certain activities or struggle with others. I have some degree of aphantasia. I am not going to be an architect or excel at something that requires having a clear vision of what a client is trying to get across to me.

I do think that anyone who wants to be an artist can be an artist because there’s no barrier except self-doubt.

The Art Life, a documentary about David Lynch as an artist, is excellent.

It’s a hard, weird, activity, devoting oneself to something that will not make money, will probably get little recognition, and is often a struggle to make. A person has to have a fire in them to do that, or maybe they are a masochist.

why not both

idk i'm stupid

i read a writer giving advice on writing and he (i'm pretty sure it was a he) said "don't become a writer if you can possibly avoid it"

i seem to have overestimated my ability to avoid writing

i should stuck with cat poetry. if one is cursed with an insatiable urge to create, well, that causes a certain amount of tumult in one's life. giving one's muse over cat poetry seems one of the less tumultuous paths. damn, if i only wasn't allergic to cats!

The Art Life, a documentary about David Lynch as an artist, is excellent.

― Cow_Art, Tuesday, June 30, 2026 6:40 PM (yesterday)

there's that name again lol. well, there are worse shadows to live under!

i spent 2 1/2 hours writing a 5,000 word conversation with myself this morning

it was the only way i could drag myself out of bed

i wish there was a drug that would miraculously give me the power to express myself succinctly

Altogether, the social niche of the Christian congregations of the earlier part of the fourth century seems to have consisted largely of moderately well-to-do townsfolk. They did not think of themselves as rich. But they were by no means paupers. Indeed, their cheery comfort shocked the bishop of Barcelona; around 380, he tried to preach to his congregation on the need for penance and self-abasement in the Lenten season. As they told their bishop: "It is good that we are middling persons [mediocres]. It is not for us to live in houses sheathed with marble, to be weighed down with gold, in flowing silks and bright scarlet. But all the same we have our own little places in gardens and by the sea-side. We have good quality wine, neat little banquets and all that goes with a sprightly old age."

from peter brown through the eye of a needle: wealth, the fall of rome, and the making of christianity in the west, 350-550 ad (2012)

Love that for the cheery townsfolk.

Came across this, by Frank O'Hara.

"As Planned"

After the first glass of vodka
you can accept just about anything
of life even your own mysteriousness
you think it is nice that a box
of matches is purple and brown and is called
La Petite and comes from Sweden
for they are words that you know and that
is all you know words not their feelings
or what they mean and you write because
you know them not because you understand them
because you don't you are stupid and lazy
and will never be great but you do
what you know because what else is there?

my only objection is that one oughtn't have one's first glass of vodka before breakfast