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.

We are the first generation to have instant access to all art, history, science, etc. I think we are more than one hundred years into a renaissance that began with industrialization and is now augmented by the internet. We are in a golden age of art. Look at music and films today. They are incredibly varied and amazing. Hip-hop has Death Grips, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, and Meek Mill, each artist has a unique style and that is just one genre. The rules of electronic music have still not been created yet, and because of that artists have a lot room to experiment. Kendrick Lamar, Death Grips, Radiohead, FKA Twigs, Flying Lotus etc. will be remembered as musical innovators. In the last few years we've had some great films aswell; Whiplash Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman will be remembered as a great writer I think), Enemy, Birdman etc. are great films that have recieved great critical acclaim, but each one is incredibly varied, and those are just English speaking films, I am not familiar enough with cinema outside of the US and UK enough make claims about them like this. Comedy has seen great innovations too. Just eighty or so years ago comedy was mostly slap stick and avoided touchy subjects. Comedians like George Carlin, Louis CK, and Bill Hicks use their comedy to take on uncomfortable social subjects and Politics in a vulgar way and can be guaranteed safety from persecution. Tim and Eric and Million Dollar Extreme are insane experimental comedians who could probably have only flourished today.

There has been so much innovation with art in the past hundred years or so because of information technology. Art is moving at a blistering pace, way faster than any other time period. Mediums have been created and there is a community of people discussing on the internet on forums like this one and 4chan. This is a truly amazing time! I think it will have to slow down eventually, but I could be wrong. They say technology improves at an exponential rate and with that society will as well, giving social critics more to criticize. But this is a chaotic world and I think it will cool over. But for now art is flourishing. The next generation of artists will have had access to all art from all cultures from most of history and its just gonna get crazy. I'm just really excited to be alive.

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

Synechdoche New York. Charlie Kaufman wrote and directed it and it's amazing. It's basically about life and death and it offers two ways to live your life: to minimize your problems or inflate your problems and bathe in your regrets. It has a lot of symbolism and it's pretty surreal, but it's just 10 outta 10.

"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.

You have a point. I was thinking a community where people can just vent, but it will be difficult to stop enabling. There seems to be a thin line between support and feedback loop and the best we could to keep people from crossing it is to tell people to tread carefully.

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.

I'm from the recent reddit exodus, hope you guys don't mind if I join the discussion tomorrow. It seems like this is an actual club rather than a thing that everyone can just pop in whenever, but from what I've seen you guys watch some pretty good movies and I've been looking for a place to find good movies. If there is any requirements to join this club, and anyone sees this, could you just pm me the details?