friendship ended with discovery now curation is my best friend
august 2024
i think now that i have a better understanding of my artistic tastes and a richer catalogue of interesting media that resonates with me, its time to focus more on curation rather than disovery.
don't get me wrong, there will always be a need for discovery in life. but at a certain point it seems like a human should shift away from the discovery stage and into the curation stage, leaning deeper into what you're already interested in. i feel this at 22, some people may feel this way at 14, others may never feel this way. i don't mean to put a moral or normative association with this feeling, i just mean to say that a Shift has occurred in my life it feels significant.
it took me a long time to get to this point (although i dont really have a reference for the average age of Shift occurring) because i didnt have faith in my own tastes for a very long time. my mom dressed me until i was in high school so i didnt have a sense of style that felt mine until recently. my political views mostly came from my friends (though i suppose this is the case for many people). i spent a lot of time on the internet consuming pop culture that was fed to me intravenously via instagram feed [1].
when i started getting intentional about my music-listening habits at 15, it felt like a step towards curation. but then again, so much of my post-2017 listening has been focused on discovery. my radio show aimed at analyzing a new subgenre every week. in 2024 i am trying to listen to one album every day. i pride myself in the amount of spotify playlists i have for different, unique genres. for a long time, my life motto was 'i can do anything and i will do everything.' but in this age of radical freedom and opportunity it feels hard to know what to commit to and when to commit to it. something something my parents immigrated to north america so their eldest daughter daughter could make an unreadable website and complain about having too many opportunities. i know this sense of analysis paralysis in the face of extreme freedom has been a hot topic at least since the existentialists reached their peak 80 years ago but nevertheless little old me has been thinking about it a lot. the antidote to choice overload seems to be throwing myself into some things wholly, going down rabbit holes, becoming an expert in something.
"jack off all trades, master of cum." -malala
as i enter my master's program and think about a potential thesis topic, i'm realizing that i need to narrow down my path and my options. i think the sylvia plath fig tree analogy is now part of the coquette teen girl canon because this realization is a painful and essential part of growing older. as you make decisions your paths naturally dwindle. duh-doy. NEWSFLASH NEWSLFASH this just in this folks when you get older you have less time!!! nooooooooo!!!!!
but also commitment comes with its own beautiful set of virtues, like devotion and expertise. and aging is genuinely wonderful. as long as i commit to foster some sense of discovery and balance alongside devotion i think i will feel fulfilled. but then i foresee running into the problem of striking the right balance. i guess ill cross that bridge when i get there. perhaps i already cross the bridge every day.
[1] side note but im obsessed with the way our word for algorithmic timelines is 'feed'. like yuppp its 9am, time for the machine to feed me slop straight into my grubby snout.