i think you’ve got the right of it. we can’t help but fill ourselves with trash. like you said, reading books, watching films, talking to other people, etc. all these things push themselves in and corrupt us (or compliment us, or change something about us, or can be used to reflect on ourselves, or something). if they didn’t then we would be empty shells. blank canvases covered in that hydrophobic coating so the paint just slides right off. you’re right, that’s impossible.

i guess i was thinking about how deeply people embrace these pre-established ideologies. taking the thing as a whole, rather than an opportunity to take only what you need.

i used to know a guy who was so into communism he started wearing long coats and those ushanka fur hats. he started calling people “comrade”. his mind embraced the ideology. his body embraced the aesthetic. his identity became a pastiche of the ideology.

in some way i think that’s different from passive exposure.

——

thanks for the vote of confidence, but i think calling them essays implies some sort of status that they probably don’t deserve. they’re not academic. i don’t cite my sources. i’m definitely not any kind of authority on any of these subjects. these aren’t important texts. they’re just thoughts that stuck to a page.

i may go back to them. i already did a few times. i wouldn’t mind filling the page up with a few more on different topics though, first.