sweet ’n’ sour tape #35: return to sender
The Philadelphia Experiment is officially over (for now).
July gave me one more month after India in our good old apartment, but those 4 weeks flew by before I even knew it. I mean, by week 2 or 3 I was making trips to slowly start moving things back home. First my window sill, then miscellaneous storage containers in my room, then my closet, cooking appliances and finally my music equipment, which really sealed the deal for me in terms of accepting “Oh fuck. This shit is over.” That last ceremonial vacuum felt especially poignant, looking around and realizing whoever lives here next will never know what we did here, how we fucked around, grew up, laughed, argued, and most importantly, matured into the people we are today.
I mean, this last month of course was a shell compared to the “glory days”. All three of us that were left hung out and saw each other, but that looming cloud of grind hung over us all. You could feel every second pass when we all sat down in that living room. And when I turned that vacuum off after I finished, I felt like I had wiped that room clean of the little 1712 energy that was left. But that’s life. So it goes. Whoever lives here next will get to forge their own history, and I hope it’s just as transformative as my three years in Philly were for me.
My first trip from India felt spiritually enlightening — seeing a nation of people make the most from not very much at all revealed a new layer of brilliance to me about the capabilities of indomitable human spirit. Of course, you hear about things like this all the time in America, but you see it on the news, a documentary, or if you’re closer to our age probably in some video essay on YouTube, but seeing it for yourself, I mean… that’s priceless. It’s the kind of lesson that needs to be taught in person, and at that time especially, I needed it.
This time felt more like a sick vacation. After months working on my UX portfolio, which I was still doing while I was India mind you, it felt good to get outside the United States. Nevermind all the inspirational shit I said up there about the way people live, Tamil Nadu is just beautiful. Going there when I feel much more mentally stable made me appreciate even more than the first time, the casual vibrance of colors, activity, and architecture. It fills you up more than a good South Indian lunch. The flood of stimuli is good when you’re worn out from constant thoughts, even good ones— honestly, if you ever need to think less and just be, traveling is a fantastic way to do that.
Also, I took wayyyy more pictures this time, which I will slowly dump throughout the camera rolls but here is a little sneak peak:
Yercaud, Tamil Nadu
Medium did some of these gorgeous shots dirty, if you see any you really like open them in a new tab so you can see all the detail. Also you can’t upload HEIC files directly to Medium, so I had to make them JPEGS… oof.
You know, my initial idea was to halfass a list of 35 things I learned in Philly, but that’s not what these tapes are about. The point is to lay it all out on the real for the other person. So to be honest, I can sum up everything I learned in Philly in two sentences. And that’s okay, because this one lesson is worth a million times more than any 35 random niceties I could spin up. This isn’t some millenial’s SEO-hungry lifestyle blog.
Kunal, this is the ultimate lesson that our three years in Philadelphia taught me:
If you decide to set out and do something, you can’t complain about what it takes. The requirements must be seen as a given.
Evolution comes in the most surprising ways at the most unexpected times. That’s why its inherently uncomfortable.
4 more months and it’ll be 2023. COVID-19 is going to be 3 years ago. And honestly, it’s finally starting to feel 3 years ago. We’ve changed so much since then that I don’t even recognize the thought patterns and maladaptive tendencies I used to have. The position we’re in now is because of that zealous thirst for self-improvement, which I will always maintain trumps our other qualities by a wide margin.
But I can safely say that my future seeing goggles are getting a little wonky. It looks like the same movie to me but the picture is blurrier, and the timeline is unclear. I’ve started seeing zoomer memes that say the 1990s Gen Z members are old now, and I can’t blame them because I’m starting to feel older for sure. Saying I’m 23 out loud feels unreal, so much so that I’d rather not, but I can feel myself ACTING 23, if that makes sense. Still nimble with shonen-like optimism, aware of pop culture, and prone to being irreverent, maybe even flat out immature again when I’m with my bros, but I can feel my center of gravity settling into an iron ball of responsibility and consideration.
That being said, my girlfriend told me they give a special role to anybody on their Discord server over the age of 24. The role’s name? Boomer. Ugh. Fuck I hate getting older 😭.
Suffice to say, this is the place I’m at though. You can’t sheepishly smile your way out of plans when you have a girlfriend. You can’t smoke weed 6 times a day when you live with your parents. You can’t make music whenever you want, no matter how bottled up and itching to go you feel inside, when you need to funnel the ins and outs of AWS into your cortex. You can’t depend on others financially even for a dollar without feeling insecure, and if you might be left out if you don’t then so be it because that’s a better feeling, at least to me. You can’t casually romanticize the future anymore without seeming naive, you can’t be too prude nor too rude, and you can’t blame anyone, God or otherwise, for anything you feel you lack.
What was once playdoh is now concrete, and that’s how our life’s umbrella of options will continue to furl. Most of the path is still malleable, fortunately, but fate will set in stone whatever we leave untouched or unrealized.
All the outstanding (as in amazing) things I need to do can only be done if I finish the outstanding (as in pending) things on my plate right now. One of my favorite things was visiting you in DC before I left the old crib, because it really made me understand the level of comfort and security that a stable job provides. I kept looking at the people we walked by or sat next to in DC, feeling like “Damn nobody here (at least in the parts of DC you showed us) looks stressed about money at all.” It made me really understand I’m getting too old for this broke shit.
Oh yeah, one more realization I’ve had, which I think I told you in DC- now that I’m properly trying to pursue a job with it, this software shit definitely feels more like work than life- it’s not fulfilling in the slightest to me. As much as I wanted it to be when I was a kid, it’s more of a headache than it’s worth, and even when you get a feature working in your application or successfully link your front end to the backend API you put together, it feels more like you checked a box on your to-do list than finally figuring out the right bar in a song, how to connect two sections in a beat, or filtering an image just right and blending it properly to get the right cover art. I don’t know. Nothing beats any of those feelings for me.
So I guess another important thing those three years in Philly taught me? Being an artist wasn’t some airy, wide-eyed twenty something phase. This shit is life to me. It’s not optional.
So that’s where my head’s been at. I’m looking forward to seeing where yours is. I bet you can’t write 500 words.
