Okay, so maybe Bitcoin isn't the future, but it provides a valuable "foot in the door" transition into a potentially crypto dominated future. Decentralization, the backbone of crypto, has proven to be so much more secure than Mastercard or any other centralized data center. Of course, anarchy means no authority is there to protect you. I expect a "Carbon coin" or a Metal coin that reimburses people based on how much they recycle to be a thing at some point, especially as 3D printers become more possible and as carbon becomes the main ingredient of everything, from computers to shopping bags. For a lot of people, crypto isn't a silly little game. For them, it means freedom.

Also, 14 years old in Italy? That's kind of disturbing.

A lot of these photos are actually really nice. Perhaps she picked up a photographic eye from photographers she worked with during her modeling career.

An angsty teen, which is to say I don't really have an identity.

I find myself at the fringe of the fringe, an outsider among outsiders, basically I am submerged in nuance. I like to think of identity as a river with the self as some sort of ethereal container moving through the river as time progress. Identity is kind of like a liquid to me. Every time you experience something you're filled with it a little, and if the experience involves people you share that liquid with them. An identity is simply an aggregate of experience, relationships, influences, etc.; and at the core of that is your values, but even they change and even you contradict them, and you. But what the fuck even is "you"? I am my favorite books: Kurt Vonnegut, The Thin Red Line, The Fountainhead; I am my favorite movies: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Synechdoche New York, Annie Hall; I am my philosophy; I am my relationships with my dad, my mom, the failed relationship with my ex, and my (sometimes rebellious) response to them. This is kind of a bullshit psuedo-philosophical answer.

I guess you could say that I'm in an early life crisis, my adolescence is closing up and I find myself filled with regret and confusion. I got out of my first "relationship," if you could even call it that, it was short and messy and now I'm confused. This is where the pain that comes from searching for belonging comes in. She was an artsy intellectual, and really quite beautiful and neurotic, like myself. I let her become my only source of validation, I let her "complete me". It ended with her telling me she isn't ready for relationships, that me having feelings for her made her overwhelmed. I guess I wasn't ready either. Being in love can be really fucking painful.

This is a long way of saying that I'm one of those artsy white boys you see in those fictional self serving autobiographical coming of age movies that are from MTV films are something.

Wow... that was amazingly disturbing. Thanks for sharing that

"Revanche," an Austrian film, does this very well and It's one of my favorites. It feels like what it's showing is actually happening and you take the role as a passiveobserver, not someone having a story told to. I don't want to give too much away, but the whole story is an internal struggle within the main character. It's shown only through the characters actions, and his facial expressions and body language. I know it's on the Criterion collection, but I don't where else you could find it.

It's called sonder, and I feel you. It's scary that I'll never know what anyone else thinks or feels, we're all isolated in our own thoughts and feelings, but the truth is probably underwhelming. Most people think just as much you think about other people, which is rarely. Maybe that's relieving to some people, and scary for others, but it seems to me to be the truth.

Reminds of that scene in Louie where he really has to shit but he's afraid of public bathrooms.

Oh, thanks for being so relaxed, I'll see you next week! It seems like this place is really chill, although maybe I shouldn't use that word so much on here, considering this is a very thoughtful community and that phrase is a bit sophomoric.

Just started an Intensive Outpatient program after being in partial hospitalization for three weeks. I've been struggling with social anxiety and depression for a while, but just suffered silently for most of my adolescence. This year, though, was definitely the worst year of my life. My depression and anxiety were exacerbated by smoking and I pretty much just suffered my own personal hell for a while. I was completely isolated and my only friend was one person I smoked with, I never hung out with anyone else unless it was through him. I also pretended to be a major stoner, who was high a lot of time, so people would just leave me alone; maybe I was a stoner, at my worst I was sneaking out at night and smoking every other day it seemed like.

A lot of my depression stemmed from a lot existential angst, mainly having to do with nihilism. I was a major nihilist and the apathy that that caused was again exacerbated by my drug use. I think I have solved a lot of the existential portion, but I am yet to do anything to solve my social anxiety, or do anything about for that matter. I am facing some new challenges and while I am still scared at what's ahead, I am hopeful and a little happy for the first time in a while.

Sorry about the bummer I guess, it just feels good to vent, maybe I should start posting with a depression tag. Would anyone else like to start a depression and anxiety tag with me, or maybe just mental health? Sharing with others who have similar experience is very therapeutic.

Anyway I've been reading Infinite Jest lately, but I haven't read it in a few days. I am on page 250, but I don't know if it's worth it to go on, but I was enjoying myself, I just got back in to video games for the first time in a while, but it's a major time sink. I need to chill out with the video games considering I have problems with isolation.

Anyone seen any good movies lately? The last movie I watched was Synecdoche New York, written and directed by Charlie Kaufman. I watched it three times last weekend. It's about life and death and how time slips away from you if you don't pay attention. It presents two flawed ways to live your life: minimizing your problems or ignoring them, or inflating your problems and worrying about yourself, health, and death, living in constant regret and really never giving yourself a chance to enjoy yourself, which is the whole point of life isn't it? . It's basically a guide on how to not to live your life and I'm grateful for seeing it at such a pivotal time in my life. Hope everyone else is enjoying themselves. I am excited and a little scared about what the future might bring, but overall I'm hopeful.