What is Happening?

Entering the space of a recluse

These days I’m into full-time snobbery. The kind that felt noble in my early 20s when I used to hide in my dorm room alone on the weekends. Never understanding people wanting to compete in states of drunkness.

Decide now, gouache on paper, 2023

I sit alone in my studio in the midst of an unrelenting mess, thirsty most of the time because I can’t be bothered to get up and fill my water bottle. I’ve started numerous writing pieces but haven’t completed any. I write fragments trying to dig out of this feeling of deep moroseness.

But how can I. How can we? My instinct is to retreat, like I did in my 20s. Back then it was easy. Shut the dorm room, sit on my bed and listen to music with my headphones.

There were no invasive devices and if I wanted the Internet I had to leave my room and go into the computer lab. So I spent entire nights in my own company. Having imaginary conversations with d…