An Open Letter

I’ve been using OVHCloud as a VPS since 2022, but I finally decided to bite the bullet and shop around. I found Hetzner, and I got the same machine for half the price! I did this because I wanted to set up a new machine so I can install Coolify, which is a self-hosting project, kinda like Vercel but you are the cloud. I spent a lot of my day today just learning it and moving over some of my projects, I got the REST endpoints setup with a docker container, one of my discord bots moved over, and I’m working on getting the frontend working. It’s nice to have some kind of fresh start, like a brand new clean machine. On my old VPS I had a factorio server running, a Minecraft server, a few discord bots, and also a couple webapps. That poor machine was getting abused lol.

After a bit of being in quiet I decided to put on some music, and youtube autoplay gave me some beautiful midwest emo gems. I’ve been kinda just playing “still save a seat for you” by Otuka on repeat. The kind of repeat where you keep clicking restart once it goes to the next song. It’s one of those beautiful songs where someone tries to pour out all of their pain into their art. The art in it is how the artist has a fairly deep, monotone voice. I think they only go through a total of 5 notes or so, and so in compensation, the rest of the instruments scream for him. It’s that kind of beauty that shows up after living in the dark for weeks. It feels like being on the verge of crying for several months and finally, something bad enough happens that you’re justified in just breaking down sobbing. It feels like it captures that male feeling of being told to not show emotions or being punished for that. I guess that’s why I love it so much.

The song almost paints a picture so vivid in my head it makes me sad for a memory that’s not even mine. The song feels like a teen boy in a basement alone facing the wall, with an electric guitar plugged into headphones so he can be loud without being reprimanded. I see that kid blasting the chords into his headphones, almost to the point he can’t hear himself think. He can gently say the words along to the song, all with the guise of writing a song. But I think it goes past that, I think this is one of his only ways to put those feelings outside of his head. I see him closing his eyes and shaking up and down with each strum, fully in his own world where he is heard, or alone – I’m not sure what he wants or what he should want. I then see his mom coming down, and shocking him without him noticing her coming over. She would probably say something supportive of the music, but to him instantly all of the vulnerability and courage to confront those emotions instantly goes away to the facade of being closed off to the world, after all, emotions are punished and how is a kid that’s never been properly heard supposed to know how to speak? And suddenly he needs to do something else because he is afraid of being perceived. All until it gets bad enough and he gets a moment alone where he can continue all over again. At least that’s what the song sounds like to me.

What an insane rant to go on! I must seem crazy.