(no subject)

you know, sometimes i think i could have been bitter about not getting to travel everywhere / wander the streets of a city at night ([gestures at accessibility issues + general caretaker hassles]) -

but on the flipside, i so frequently wander into some truly amazing, creative, international, vibrant corners of the world wide web built with love - the old web, not social media - and i realize this is a kind of traveling, in a fashion. and all of that potential-bitterness just dissolves at seeing what a gift i've been given with that. it takes skill, luck, and a little privilege to be able to do this in a different fashion, too; knowing how to wander the old-web from link to link and detective work to a degree that a lot of zoomers find baffling, and also to have the time and patience to sit for hours. to be born in the sliver of time where that's still available and online to mass-save like crazy and also to compare/contrast with the sheer dearth of media in the 1990's.

and that's not even including the dizzying array of game worlds compared to even fifteen, twenty years ago, all handcrafted.

no it's not the same; you loose some tangible connections with other humans and animals and yet you gain other advantages like learning art direction in a tactile way. you can still get tactile enjoyment by trading rare doujinshi with friends like you would with buying travel trinkets.

and i don't think it's naieve to mindfully, deliberately enjoy and engage with what i have been given. carpe diem.