Guitar Motivation
During my Salt Trail trip in Sabah, the night at Terian, the organiser’s family had cooked dinner for us. After the dinner, we sat around a table and he entertained us with his acoustic guitar. He was pretending to be shy initially, saying if only he had his guitar with him so we could sing songs together. So I told him I had tuned his guitar that afternoon (when I was “snooping” around the two rooms in the house we stayed at). Being the youngest in the group, I was unfamiliar with the songs they were singing, and even if I have heard them before, I have no idea how the lyrics go. I still had fun though, the atmosphere was very warm, calm and friendly. Something I haven’t felt for a while now.
Throughout this time, he had asked me to play the guitar a few times, which I denied as I could not play by ear. I relied heavily on guitar chords and tabs, I needed them to be laid out in front of me to be able to play. My mom was giving me some eye signals from the other end of the table too, telling me to not embarrass myself. But after a few drinks (their homemade rice wine), I eventually took the guitar and fiddled with it when the rests were chatting with the organiser’s sister.
I was playing guitar fingerstyle, small sections of whatever I could recall from the song tabs at home. The organiser turned to me and said, “oh you’re into this sort of songs, you’re good at this you know, keep playing.” I was touched by his words, but also confused as to why his words had touched me.
After the trip, I did some reflection. I theorised it was because my parents were never into music, so I had felt alone when I was younger as I thought they didn’t support or understand my love for it. I wanted to learn guitar when I was much younger but they didn’t seem care much about it. I felt like I was the odd one out in the family for liking music and felt sad that my parents didn’t share the same interest. (Don’t get me wrong, my parents didn’t stop me from learning, I just wanted them to be as into it as I was.)
Now that I’ve started my self-learning guitar journey, and having a guitar player encourage me to continue playing probably triggered something in me. The encouragement I always wanted when I was younger? My grandfather did support me when I first started playing though, but he only showed interest when I strummed (he had no interest in fingerstyle guitar). One of my uncles played the guitar too, and I heard he was really good at it. He was the one who bought the guitar for me, which I am really thankful for. If he hadn’t bought it for me, I do not think I will be playing today. But we don’t meet often, so I didn’t get to play and bond with him like I did with the organiser.
I realised a little encouragement from anybody can go a long way (even from strangers), and the words you say can impact others greatly. I will try to be more conscious of this and encourage people in their projects and interest whenever I can.
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something so fucked up about Chat Noir’s whole deal is that he is in a lot of ways Adrien playing a character. Like Adrien picked up his miraculous and was told he’d be a superhero so he was like “ok, time to act like a superhero!” and he lets himself have fun w it and play up the role and let loose and kind of just allow himself to be silly and goofy and have fun and for once in his life not care about performing Perfection™.
But. But none of the other characters KNOW THAT. So everyone just sees Chat Noir and is like “look at this guy’s ego. He’s so full of himself. Surely it’d be fair to knock him down a few pegs” without being aware of how few pegs he actually HAS. He’s like the “insecure character who overcompensates in ego” trope except he’s really not doing it unironically, he’s just having a fun LARP pretending to have self worth in his off-hours but nobody else is on the same page about it being a game and he refuses to tell them. He just dramatically pouts about it and lets them laugh and pretends like he’s not internalizing it and it is almost 3 am and my brain forced me to write this instead of sleeping I’m gonna take a melatonin
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the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.
sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.
you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.
it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.
but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.
they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.
they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.
barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.
and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.
but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.
they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!
this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.
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Stop saying sorry for asking questions, not always wanting to hang out (especially with toxic people), not having time for other people, your feelings and emotions, speaking out about your needs and wants, your growth, your achievements, goals, and dreams, for wearing what you want to wear, having hobbies that make you smile, and having boundaries. Quit apologizing for putting yourself first. You are your first priority. And don’t feel guilty for putting others second. ❤️
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