july 3 aum

Been trying to write all day and, like, it just didn't happen. Or hasn't happened. "Hasn't" feels like a more optimistic word, actually. It hasn't happened but it still might. Better out than in, after all. That's the mantra. It used to be "this too shall pass" but that felt a bit too "live, laugh, love" at a certain point. I don't know what "mantra" means. Not really. It's one of those words whose meaning I might only know by context and culture. Like, I know how we use it, and how I use it, and I know what it is shorthand for. But I just had to consider, perhaps for the first time, that I might not know what a mantra is outside of its "better out than in" or "this too shall pass" context in my culture. (Of course I know what a mantra is.) (It is a prayer.) (Not like the Lord's prayer but maybe not unlike it.) (I am not a religious person though I know a lot about religion.) (And, moreover, post isn't about that.) (It's about how people in the west consume.) (It's about how the west…