Beyond a creature who perceives and interprets signs and symbols, it seems virtually impossible to define a "self" without a relationship to other similar or dissimilar beings. A "relationship" meaning both a set of circumstances and a set of opinions, that are both given and received. Even for a person who is perhaps raised by wolves, or grows up in solitary confinement, these things would be integral to their definition of self. A true definition is perhaps "monadic" in the sense that you can see every other person reflected (whether distorted or not) in the mirrored surface of the self. Like an online photo catalogue, where the "photographer" has a set of photos where you can't see who is taking the pictures, and the "narcissist" has themselves tagged in every pic. This song is sunny and grassy and reflective, and so is this summer, and so is my mind, as I read with my hands (like a kind of braille) all the things and people about me, at once a tactile history and a definition of self. And I am realizing the very real possibility of falling anywhere in that spectrum of your own life. Like getting all tossed around in one of those Wayne Coyne bubbles.
[album out later this year]
[buy old stuff from Magic Marker]