this is turning into a daily blog isn't it? anyways today i decided to get back into music listening after spending an hour or so yesterday setting up last.fm and installing 4 different music streaming apps. i don't have a preferred music taste so much as just putting the same handful of songs on repeat whenever i get the feeling that i should be listening to some music, but today i tried to listen to primarily new music.
if you'll take a look at my last.fm profile you will see that my recent scrobbles are all over the fucking place. eternity is the only song i've listened to at least a dozen times prior, but the rest of them are pretty much fresh listens. i've listened to snippets of apparition but never the full song in one sitting so it counts too.
i’m already semi-joking to myself that i "listen to music for the plot" because i paid special attention to the lyrics of every song i listened to (except for the ones that didn't have lyrics). i kind of have to do that or else it becomes unintelligible nonsense to my ears and i completely tune out. anything less intense than death metal or j-core just registers as music i can fold my laundry to, at which point i might as well be listening to a video essay.
i remember right before my first scrobble (which i had to add back later) i got the feeling that i'm not supposed to listen to this, that filthy j-core fans like me should stay in their comfort zone or listen to some other stuff before jumping straight into shoegaze. why do i keep doing this to myself? who am i performing this gatekeeping ritual for???
it feels like no matter how much i mature i'm still held back by the depths of social media i subjected myself to & whose lessons i internalized. i learned that i have to enjoy things the "right way" or else i should stay away from it completely, but i don't remember where i got this from. either way it developed into a habit of constant self-surveilling and self-gatekeeping just to avoid displeasing the authorities of whatever i might find myself enjoying.
i've let imaginary ghosts on the internet control my thoughts and behaviors far more than my family ever has, but when you get down to it the "internet people" i speak of is just me. it's all me, dictating what i should and shouldn't be doing based on what i think other people might think of me if they could read my thoughts.
and it just sucks, thinking about all the things i could have really gotten into but then pulled out of at the last second because i thought i didn't deserve it, or that i'm not ready for it yet, and so on. this is what happens when you don't allow yourself to be cringe.
but the more i beat myself up for such-and-such the more i regress to my past self. i have to embrace radical self-love if i want to break free from the confines of my past.