User:Thijshijsijsjss/Human Parser/About Routines

Optional. Might be a nice extension to About Parsing, and a more personal account (which I like and I think is welcome). Hope it can convey undertones of themes I'm not explicitly naming. And I hope / like to show some of my process and connect it themstically (similar to About Signalling). Don't know if 'routines' is the final name.

When I was in high school, I played the piano. I knew a few songs. One time, I played a song in front of friends, and overheard a negative comment. Every time I played that song after that, I heard that same comment at that position in the song. Soon, every song I knew triggered an associated memory.

I write this thesis in long library sessions. Sometimes I hear people talk about their dreams. Moving abroad, exploring the world. Traveling in a campervan, months on the road. These sound like wonderful dreams. But anytime I'm 5 hours deep into a library session, I can't help but think: this is all I want in life, this abstract monotonous familiar approximation of happiness. So I go to the library, and write. And then I walk home. I walk home listening to the same song every time. Islands, by King Crimson. Listening to Islands, I walk home thinking the same thoughts I thought the first time walking home listening to this song. It was November 14 2024, 102 days and many library sessions ago. I just happened to listen to Islands that day. I had just shared the song with a person very dear to me. In an attempt to express how I felt, or maybe in the hopes they would be able to tell me. I walk home and listen and think the thoughts I thought that day. 8:15 into the 11:56 minute song, I arrive home. Sometimes I silently cry in the hallway for the remaining 221 seconds before taking off my shoes and continuing my day. These days, I'm not able to share songs anymore with that person very dear to me. Sometimes it's difficult to interpret your thoughts and emotions.

After a while, I had to take a break from playing piano. Every note triggered a memory. This was too much. I tried it again recently, 2403 days since high school, but memories I hadn't thought about in years still came back, vividly. Songs I'm not able to share anymore, no one to tell me how I feel. The exercise of empathy and understanding extends to oneself, the imaginative parsing. Why do I keep listening to Islands?