• for I am dying of such love •

anyway. I can't post it here bc it's going to be graded. But basically had to 'choose a text image or cultural product' and explain why i think it deserves 'classic' status in a 150 word mini essay for the open uni forum

The Artemis 2 mission has had such a powerful affect on me in a way I was not expecting. I knew it would excite me - I love space. When it comes to the science and physics of it all, it goes waaaay over my head, but I absolutely love learning about it. Still, I wasn't expecting it to make me feel so emotional. The photos - especially the ones from inside the spacecraft, with one of the astronauts in frame next to a window, with a view of our little blue planet suspended in inky blackness - genuinely brings tears to my eyes every time I look at it. That's us! We're all on there (well, almost all!!!!)! People down there are laughing and crying and playing and sleeping and dancing and hugging and singing and Living. Carl Sagan said it best: That's home - a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

And then, at the same time, one of the most horrendous tweets was written. I don't even need to say what it said, because everyone knows what I mean. At the same time that so many of us are in collective awe of this little planet - perfectly designed for us to thrive - someone in an obscene place of power is threatening to genocide an entire civilisation. The juxtaposition of that is honestly almost impossible to wrap my head around. The duality of our existence, at the moment, is crazy.

No wonder nihilism is on the rise. No wonder hopelessness and despair is on the rise. And I don't say this to be flippant, but we have got to stay hopeful. It's easy to look at space and think that we're insignificant - just as the state of our society right now may make us feel that way too. But we have to got to remember that little blue planet and all of the beautiful people that live here. We have got to look at everything around us and remember how incredible it is that it exists. That we're here. That, by some statistical marvel, we exist. That we're so special and important.

Fascism thrives on nihilism, hopelessness and despair. Fascism thrives on an inability to notice how special this world is. And it thrives when we can't imagine how amazing our future could be.

I could genuinely write an essay about this, but I will try to refrain. It's amazing. I will never go back to streaming. This is a beloved hobby to me now. I love self-curating and intentionally discovering music. I love trawling through CD sections at charity shops/music shops. I love how it's entirely changed my listening habits - I'm listening to full albums again, I'm actively and intentionally listening (which is obviously more enjoyable), I actually know who tf the artists I'm listening to are, I'm listening to so many more genres, etc etc etc etc. I love that I know for a fact that what I'm listening to isn't fucking AI. I love that I no longer have to deal with fucking bluetooth. The sound quality (whether it's the DAP + IEMs or the CD players stereo speakers) is so much better than anything my phone or bluetooth speaker/earbuds could ever produce (the difference is so vast it's actually shocking). It's so good. Spotify just feels like a distant terrible nightmare to me now LMAO.

This all sounds really cliche and obvious. Like duh - when something takes actual effort it is more enjoyable. And yet, it still took me 2 years to do this. I'm so glad I did. If you're thinking about deleting spotify (or insert music streaming platform here) and going down this route: I say fucking go for it.

OH YEAH! Tbh I've been neglecting the site the last couple of weeks whilst getting some assignments done, so I forgot! But I'll probably get around to doing it sometime soon and I'll tag you!

In the meantime though, if you scroll down to 'resources' on my site's sitemap, I've already listed quite a few there!!! https://petrichorest.nekoweb.org/sitemap/ (: