10 Oct 2025 - there is much pain in the world but not in this room

Hi everyone!! I have no clue how many people view this or god forbid read it and I love that!! Death to analytics tbh, this is something so personal. Why should I care about the ROI of my personal passion projects? I'm not doing this professionally!!! Whooooooo cares?

who cares who cares who cares do what you want!!!! Things are wayyy too messed up right now for you to be worried about if people enjoy what you create. Creating at all is an awesome act of defiance in a world that seems to be trying to beat us into regressive submission and conformity right now. 

Anyway, Saturday went great!! A few weeks back, one of my best friends and I got the same ad for emo night at the 9:30 Club and immediately got to work putting something together for Nina's birthday. I hit up the rest of our inner circle to do dinner at Outback(Nina had been asking to go to Outback for weeks at that point and I had to keep finding excuses not to so we could all do it together) then make our way to DC for the clurb. It was the first time the 7 of us have been able to hang out together in totality in close to a year. It felt great. Emo night was fun, I'm not really a nightlub person and that was definitely the vibe for the night, but going upstairs at the 9:30 Club is borderline magical. Watching all the happy faces and moving bodies from up top while some of my favorite songs played. . There were elder emos nearly twice my age and new kids coming into the scene. I finally got to understand what it's like for a millennial watching me sing an old Senses Fail song by watching these younger zoomers singing older Pierce the Veil and Paramore. What pride and hope that gave me! Subcultures are alive and well! We are connecting again, making memories, existing in a room where nothing from outside matters.

It reminds me of an old rave interview, I think originally in French. "The club is bumping, the ladies look good, the alcohol is flowing. There is much pain in the world, but not in this room."

We left at around 1AM to go back to my place because I live a few blocks from a taco bell. We got our 2AM taco bell and scarfed it all down in near-silence in my living room.  I then slept until like 2PM.

The worst of times tend to bring out the best in people like you and I. The art and music that we are being blessed with right now? Goodness me. The people crave outlets!! And they are using them to great effect!!! Subcultures are thriving again. Cringe culture is dying, people are realizing again that it's not bad to enjoy yourself. We are craving community and connection, as we always are, but in times like this? We have no other choice but to let that craving lead us, and that tends to yield results. 

We fall head over heels in love with our friends, trusting in them whole-heartedly to cherish and care for us. Vulnerability comes a little easier. In my experience, loving my friends so very deeply has improved my romantic relationship.

I don't mean to romanticize the current situation. I was just old enough to understand what was going on in 2008. It was a scary time that really people only started to recover from in the last couple years. That we've been thrown right back into the start of another financial crisis, fighting another proxy war in the Middle East, and having politicians who at best don't see fascism as a dealbreaker, and at worst are fascists themselves. We know all of this, and there are better sources on the internet that Geoff for you to engage with these topics.

At a time when everyone's trying to scare you, I would rather fall in love with you. I want to feel and be seen, and I want that for you too. I think that's a lot more powerful than the "look how shit everything is!!!!" online takes. We all see it! What we don't see is each other.

I want to see and be seen by you.

With love,

Geoff