dumb boy

yea

lots of things happened

the best six months of my life

frank ocean ticket

tired

therapy

medication

love

stress

lonely

distance

time

babies

parents

i have issues that i’ve ignored

people are more complicated than i could ever acknowledge

i dislike the way that i think and there might be reasons for that

i’m cold

i don’t remember most of these. i look through this page every time i get really bad/good and it’s a nice way to touch base. been here before, can get through it again.

i’m listening to jaden’s electric album. it’s pretty nice. music is slowly getting better. i’m really glad i can emotionally connect to it again. there was a long time where it did nothing for me, and because of that i really focused way too much on what and who was around me.

read: books made sense.

listen to something else: music doesn’t make sense. stop it. you don’t need to flood anything anymore. just listen to anything and anyone else. you cannot complain about not knowing when you never really listen.

run: you don’t like how you look. you’ve done this before.

dress better: right now, your closet is an absolute mess. that’s okay, but learn to get rid of things. make some money. work a bit. spend a couple hundred on somethings you feel comfortable in. it’s not that deep.

talk: don’t type. you share too much online and you don’t say enough in person.

stop idolizing personalities: don’t strive to be anybody else. i think you’ve seen enough idols fall. practice visual and emotional balance instead of some golden mean when it comes to your personality. you’re overthinking it. you can talk your way through, out of, and with anything.

stop thinking everyone is fruitful for you: you’re bored. you don’t need people to always fill up that boredom. literal nothing is better than toxic people. toxic people are better than people who contribute nothing to your life. stop wasting time. there isn’t enough for everyone.

practice minimalism: spend less. talk less. dress less like a fucking easter basket and more like home. do more instead of wasting all you’re energy on all this minutiae.

stop being poor: you’ve been there most of your life. don’t let it get you down. just, get that bag man. that’s not too hard.

control yourself: it isn’t about being motivated. it’s about self discipline. keep yourself to high standards and keep them.

stop waiting: it’s easy to not do something because there’s always some other time in this very place. there’s not always going to be time.

i am going to define what i mean by confused

there is very little in the world that makes a lot of sense to me. math occasionally. books sometimes. music. people never. i used to spend hours thinking about what my point was in life. the “why”. the it. i thought that some ulterior motive would get me out of this and put me into the world. i fell in love once. it could’ve been anybody, really, but that one time it happened to be a very specific person and it made a fairly volatile combination. i read online once that we don’t remember things, we remember the last time we remembered them. memories change over time. maybe it wasn’t like that, but to me it is now and will be. it was not good, those two years were not good, but to me she was and that made those few moments all the sweeter. the confusion stems from why it hasn’t happened again. why i changed so much. why i got so shy and scared and anxious after. what happened? have i regressed? am i not good enough? was i not good enough? am i ugly? am i entirely undesirable and detestable?

i know most of those answers are “no” and that i’m probably not as bad as i think i am, but my experiences haven’t backed that up. it’s this lack of experience that’s fucking killing me. the lack of feeling those things i felt. the lack of dipping my toes into what i really did think was pure and utter comfort. i know it doesn’t have to be with a person, but for that moment it was and everything made sense. everything was beautiful. that’s what i miss.

i feel like i’m complaining too much. i probably am. i’m tired of not vocalizing this and this little void i have is all i really have left. 

tinder is just endless swiping and disappointment. my friends’ college experiences are just comparisons for me to feel bad about. (i’m truly happy for them and love that they’re living a lot but i can’t help but feel like i’m missing out on some grand feelings and experiences.) i feel like for the past two/three years i haven’t done shit. everyone is beautiful. everything has beauty. people make the most sense to me in this entire world but for some reason i’m left confused when it comes to myself. why am i not participating? am i not trying enough? fuck.

i never really blamed it on the “where” of everything

i love the bay area. everyday, especially in these last few weeks, i’ve felt like the culture here is the one for me. maybe it’s an obligated sense of belonging, driven by lost nostalgia and love or maybe it’s just stockholm syndome, but it’s still an honest to god feeling of belonging, and that’s something that’s hard to come by.

what i don’t love, though, is walnut creek. it’s not home. it’s the farthest from it (literally and metaphorically). it’s not my environment at all, and again, everyday, i grow more and more hate for this place. it’s where i do not belong. it is not for me and never was. 

the people here have driven me insane. it’s not their fault. it really isn’t. i’m never going to be one of those “i was born in the wrong place/time/circumstance.” that implies that the thing i’m complaining about was at fault. it was me, really. i am not this town’s. i just happened to be here, and whether i should’ve been somewhere else isn’t a question. it just happened, and i accept that.

i will not write as if i feel obligated to check-in with this account. i will not write as if i’m filling a friend in on the last couple months of my life. i hate talking about myself, and this page is only used when that is a necessity. 

i don’t like myself. i don’t mean this in a “i’m sad so i’m gonna push my emotional outrage on an image of myself.” this is more of a total self-loathe. if i was someone else, i wouldn’t hang out with me.

i don’t know how to act in public. maybe i spend too much time in front of a computer or listening to people speak in games. the way i talk is embarrassing, the things i say stupid or unneeded. i’m not interesting, and that breaks my heart. i always wanted to be someone exciting to talk to. someone who you’d want to know about. someone you’d spot out in a crowd and be excited to see. i don’t care about reputation or respect. i just want to be a well. a well of thoughts, feelings, personality. now more than ever it feels like i’m as shallow as a puddle, and as unlikable as stepping in one with socks.

my friends don’t openly like me. i can tell, and that hurts. i’m just there because i’m an ingrained part of the group. i try my best to be interested in them, asking questions about their lives and thoughts. it comes off as pandering. whenever i talk about myself and my thoughts and actions and beliefs they don’t care. i don’t know if we’re all at a point where we’re just tolerating each other or if i’m really that much of a sore thumb, but i can’t help but be paranoid.

three months later

im sad. los angeles is dead.

i wrote a stupid little story a couple years ago on here. you can probably find it. it was about a kid, obviously me, living in LA with friends taking pictures and being a kid. i’m sad. los angeles is dead. that story is dead. the colors of socal aren’t mine. those four or five people aren’t real. the sounds aren’t mine. the feelings are going to be on the other side of the country. los angeles, not the city but the life, is dead. i feel very alone.

i got a full ride to NYU. i should be happy about it. i’m satisfied with the fact i won’t have to pay for college. i’m going there. moving to new york kills that los angeles life. it’s disheartening. accepting that college is admitting i’m not a kid anymore. to me being a kid was an endless feeling of being in love. love with no one in particular. maybe everyone. maybe myself. all i know is that it was love. los angeles was continuing being a kid. it was rejecting the idea of growing up and accpeting that sometimes it’s okay to look at stars with someone you love on a car past curgew or listening to pretty songs on a hill doing nothing in particular or tlaking about what the world is when you’ve barely lived in it. it feels like i’m running out of time. los angeles is now and i’m only just realizing it.

those days were supposed to be now. i shouldn’t feel this lonely. i hate myself for being this lonely. i want to come out. i want to be in love again. fuck. fuck. fuck. this is stupid. i hate putting teenage horniness and loneliness at the center of all of my fucking problems but it always always always leads back to that and i don’t fucking know how to deal with it anymore. who do i like? what do i like? fuck. fuck. fuck. is it wrong to be like this? to be terrified of human intimacy when all you want is to old someone and be held and feel important and feel like your breathe has some meaningful impact on someone’s life? fuck. i’m gross and awkward and talk weird and wasted my entire fucking life. that’s really the last bit of it. i should have been happy and done deliquent things as a fucking KID. i’m not going to be a kid soon. i don’t want to see life when i’m old. i don’t want to live with responsibilities. i don’t want to have these depressed sad views on the world i miss optimisim i miss happiness i miss curiosity i miss them i miss the dreams i miss the talking i miss the calls i miss the voicemalls i miss the daydreams i miss the hill i missed my life. this in incoherent and confusing. i don’t know what i want anymore but it isn’t that and it should’ve been this. i should’ve tried in school. i should’ve written them more letters. i should’e thrown them all away. i should’ve ran mroe. i should’ve stopped. i should’ve done it. i should have done SOMETHING

i took a little break from tumblr and used a physical journal (again). it didn’t work out (again).

the new year is an arbitrary shift. the measurement of time is something wholly created by someone somewhere and accepted by everyone, so it has to be important, right? either way, i think spending a lot of time with my family over the course of winter break was a nice change of pace. as much as i avoid them (them being my immediate and extended families), having them around me and actively being sociable and participating is feels good. being accepted by them and taken seriously feels even better. i’ve been slightly more positive and waaaay less negative post-family-week. it just happens that this little tonal shift occurred around new years. i’d like to think that it was entirely on my own that i decided to make a tonal change and not a number changing on a calendar making me realize i need to put my shit together.

college apps have been a sort of “awakening” of my real passions. i don’t like math. i don’t know why i’m applying for engineering. big mistake. i think i’m still going to thrive wherever i go, and changing majors won’t be a problem. i could do better, but i know that UCSB or UCLA or USC or whatever won’t affect what i learn all too much. i just have to focus. 

learning feels really fucking good. education is the way to self improvement. traditional education can teach you about the world through history, science, and the humanities. self reflection allows you to accept yourself, the world around you, and what’s happened to you through learning about yourself. life experiences are just learning opportunities. i truly believe that if one gets a good education they’re much, much more likely to strive away from hate and bigotry. they’re better people. i think one of the reasons i inherently dislike who i surround myself with is because they aren’t really too academic. they’re not passionate about becoming better people. they’re just coasting. while i don’t shame them for having fun, i know that surrounding myself with them will only make me do the same (and it HAS). my friends are racist and homophobic. we’re all problematic teens, but at least i have some consciousness about my faults that causes me to avoid being an issue to the general consensus (other than being an excluding asshole, but that’s besides the point.) they don’t care. it really bothers me that they don’t care. eh.

you’re angry and confused.

in single moments with simple words or mannerisms things always fall apart. rash comments, quick decisions. thoughtless action carry the most thoughtful effects. you can spend entire months building feelings and trust and friendship with them and have it all fall apart with a couple comments. you don’t even remember what you said. you don’t remember when. all you know is that it happened.

and then you’re confused.

things will seem okay. they always do. the optimist within you says that it’ll be okay. everyone goes through slumps. but then they start acting weir.d they start acting detached. everything you thought was important in the last half year devolved into empty nothing and you were oblivious. and then they let the nothing fall out. it’s not really a “falling out”. it’s more like, a vacuum opening. it sucks things in. you don’t really know how. they let the nothing suck in the something, and you’re both left thoughtless. you laugh. it’s all you know.

and now you’re angry.

papercut by kevin abstract makes me feel like crying. i’ve detached myself so much from that issue that maybe i can’t let any tears flow. the issue isn’t real. the issue isn’t real. it’s not an issue. it isn’t there. it isn’t real. i will deny. i’m a muslim american stuck at home.

this is who i am

my name is safi. i’m gonna change my name when i leave home. probably to saf, or if i get detached from my family something white so i can get a job more easily. 

i’m 17, but still feel like i’m 15. i felt 12 for a long time. 

my favorite color is pink. it’s nice and light and carefree. it’s feminine. the sky is prettiest when it has some pink. orange is nice too. they’re both comfy. 

i like video games a lot. i don’t necessarily play them more than like 4-5 hours a week, but they’re a topic i’m entirely interested in. game design is cool. it’s like a controlled interactive experience. art usually is a one way street. artist expresses, consumer interprets. gaming is different. artist expresses, gamer expresses. interpretation is done on both ends, one through binary numbers and the other through emotional catharsis, existential pondering, and the standard affair all other mediums can express. gaming is wonderful.

i’m 5′6. i’m kinda fat, but that’s alright. i wear weird clothes. i like stripes a lot. i have this shirt that makes me look like waldo.

i like my taste in shoes. it’s one of the few things i’m proud of. i judge people a lot but what they wear on their feet. it tells a lot about them and who they are. i wonder what people see when they look at my feet?

i live in the bay area. not the nice hipster part but the slightly desolate, but still very there hilly part in the east. i want to be closer to it all, but it reminds me of a life that doesn’t seem to be mine to live.

my favorite times are when it’s raining on a weekend and when it’s sunset and i’m outside doing something. rain is calm. it cleans. it deafens. it reminds me of staying home sick on winter days playing video games. sunset is the end of the day and beginning of the night. the yellows and blues let the oranges and pinks take over for a bit before the dark comes. night is cool too, but i haven’t been alone enough then to have an opinion.

there’s a supermoon outside. it’s pretty big. the moon is a girl. she isn’t a nice girl, but she’s really pretty. not like, common anglo-saxon pretty. more like, woah that girl looks really nice. how come no one ever talks about her? she’s friendly with her friends, but on her own she keeps to herself. she isn’t shy, she’s just content with who she has and would rather keep to herself. 

the sun is confusing. is it gender fluid? idk. its bright yellows and oranges scream a friendly, feminine presence to me. at the same time, it’s strong and powerful, standard “guy” traits. i don’t believe in guy traits though. guys are assholes. if guys were any celestial being, they’d be a deep red sun on the verge of collapsing. not a nice, friendly, yellow sun that wants plants to grow.

my room is small. i have posters up, but not enough. i used to have a desk but my brother took that.

i have three siblings. they’re all old. they’re all a bit asshole-ish. i am too, but at least my asshole-ishness doesn’t place someone in traumatic experiences that changes their life forever.

i want to live somewhere warm. i want to have a group of people to bullshit with. i want to go to more concerts, preferably with the group of people. i want to be near palm trees. i want to be with more pretty people. (pretty encapsulates more than looks, btw. when something’s pretty it covers up this head space that i dedicate songs like “okaga, ca” by tyler and “baby blue” by king krule to. maybe it’s just the hipster tumblr #aesthetics part of my brain, but fuck, does prettiness kill me) i want to be on my own, but never really alone. i want to have windows in my room that give me nice lighting. i want it to rain occasionally. i want to have a nice, orange car. i want to do a job that stimulates the visual part of my brain. i also want a job that pays. i also want a job that changes the world.

right now, i either want to be an aeronautical engineer, a photographer, a lawyer, a journalist, or an activist. i kinda just wanna be. i don’t know yet.

i also want to dye my hair. blonde for summer. brown for fall. silver for winter. pink for spring.