@combatdavey

Text - Jun 11, 1978

hello i am combatdavey please read this first and/or start here

This is a corollary to both combatdavey.net and combatdavey.micro.blog. It is dumb and I love it. I hope you love dumb things too.

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nb:

yes this is a tumblr
yes it’s supposed to look like windows 3.1
no i did not create the theme or the lego hand thing
yes i would like to meet the person who did

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I like cyberpunk and vaporwave and retrowave and outrun and glitch and bunch of other aesthetics and oeuvres and traditions and styles and schools and scenes and emergent genres and subgenres of visual imagery even though I have never been a visual artist or a photographer. My lack of expertise does not diminish how much I like these things. If anything, it’s better that way. The idea of liking (or loving!) something without having to know all of its ins and outs and updownarounds is a new thing to me and it is very freeing.

Until a few years ago, I didn’t do things like this. I couldn’t do things like this. If I were going to pick up a hobby or try to get into a thing or a scene, I would push myself to speedrun the lore and the history and the homework to acquire whatever bona fides I needed to before feeling like I had permission to like or enjoy or perform that hobby or thing or be part of that scene. I liked things in a way that required and prioritized the approval or assent of others. I never did anything just for me. I couldn’t. I was told that doing so was selfish and stupid. As a result, everything I did/liked/was interested in had to have a relationship with the other people who did/liked/were interested in the thing.

I sought input from others because it was hammered into my head that I was supposed to, and that my thoughts and feelings re: anything didn’t matter unless some gatekeeper (usually some white guy) approved of them (and me). I spent 30-35 years substituting others’ judgment for my own because people told me that’s what life was and I was too sick (and, later, too drunk) to fight back. Eventually, this led to a crippling inability to say or do anything I wanted in the way I wanted to do so. I drowned myself slowly over decades.

TL;DR I was in my 40s before I figured out how backwards I was living my one life. I started undoing, unlearning, and in essence started again.The last five years have been the best of my life.

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