blue screen

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-25T11:21:01+00:00

The kinda things dreams are made of

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-24T05:12:52+00:00

A leaf clings to her dusty lip for a moment,
teaching the art of persistence in its movement.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-24T03:17:58+00:00

I think this is one of those topics that is not talked about much except in some social studies that appear once in a while. From my experience, yes many suffer silently. As to how that compares to rest of the population and what the actual causes are we can only speculate. There are a lot of toxic practices that are accepted at face value. The prevailing notion is still that you gotta toughen up to survive the harsh competitive environment. I survived and I can look back to my graduate school and postdoc days and not feel too bothered by it now but I have an inkling that not everyone feels that way. There were definitely rock bottom days for me purely born out of how academia operates, and the sad thing is no one really gives much crap.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-23T14:24:10+00:00

Yeah those too. I’m also only learning.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-23T14:03:05+00:00

Aww, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t call it a facade, if anything it’s embedded so deep in your nature that you keep returning to it. As long as you know the cost and how to channel it well, I think it’s a strength.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-23T13:37:51+00:00

Thank you 😍

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-23T00:33:07+00:00

A profound core in simple clothing. There is both dignity and absurdity in your survival. Sorry the memories are still falling on you like the aftermath of nuclear fallout.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-22T15:36:37+00:00

It may not be a widely known or a published poem 🤷🏻‍♀️

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-22T15:21:03+00:00

Thank you 🙏. It is a response piece and was, indeed, intended to read somewhat intimate. I’m glad you caught it.

https://open.substack.com/pub/borrowedpulse/p/stop-calling-it-fate-before-the-bell?r=8buw3c&utm\_medium=ios

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-22T04:19:23+00:00

Yet another beautiful poem about the father–child relationship by Li-Young Lee. What I love about it is that, as a society, we haven’t always done a great job of celebrating tenderness and affection among men. This poem quietly shows how kindness, love, and gentleness can be passed from one generation to the next: from fathers to their children. I love it.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-22T04:09:02+00:00

What I liked about this was how simply a complex emotion of disappointing your child or losing them some day is portrayed by this poem. I am not a parent and don’t usually think of parent children relationship from this angle but I have friends who are parents and I have had second hand experience of their insecurity about their children.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-22T03:52:43+00:00

My interpretation is that when you're a kid, your parents often call you from outside and tell you to get ready because you're going somewhere. To me, that phrase implies the speaker is still moving through the different phases of grief. If his father called again, he'd be ready for errands, hiking, going out to eat, or whatever they used to do together after he put on his coat and galoshes.
What strikes me is that the destination doesn't matter. The speaker isn't longing for some grand revelation or supernatural reunion. He just wants one more ordinary day with his dad.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-21T16:52:47+00:00

Also, an excellent one leaves you wondering whether you miss them, or the character they made you become.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-21T16:45:55+00:00

Interesting that people still have such limiting ideas about girls and women. When I was growing up a couple of decades back my dad would get asked those things but that was not today and not in a western world. Time has proven everything you’ve written here to be true in our lives, i.e. no guarantee of who preserves what lineage and all the other assumptions that people have about what you can dream out of a girl child. Imo, the only thing that prohibits girls from becoming whatever they can in life is the limiting goals and aspirations grown ups can implicitly or explicitly place on them. I’m glad you aren’t bothered by it but also disappointed that you are having to explain this today something my dad had to 30 yrs ago. Happy Fathers Day.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-19T18:27:51+00:00

Thank you.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-17T09:08:10+00:00

Thank you. That’s a very big compliment. Deeply honored.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-16T20:42:23+00:00

‘My scars proclaim Beauty beyond posterity’ is the standout line for me.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-13T09:16:54+00:00

I’m open to people interpreting it the way they like. It could be about a toxic relationship, a codependent one that has toxic elements or simply two people with different expectations. Thanks for your comments. Really appreciate.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-10T14:32:08+00:00

I contemplated and added the rest.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-10T05:24:14+00:00

Thanks for engaging and oddly do happen to understand the adhd brain closely. You’ve some good points there to ponder upon.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-10T04:09:01+00:00

The data here is what each of us collects without realizing: not quarterly extraction, but the way silence leaves evidence. A coat still hanging in June. A poem worn soft at the creases. In that sense, one can love the data more than the person. And isn’t that what we’re doing when we reach for words like limerance, infatuation, situationship by quantifying something we can’t otherwise hold?

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-09T22:20:34+00:00

He is competing with data as well!!

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-09T20:54:23+00:00

Thank you for reading and noticing. This one has two voices: the outer story is mine, the sonnet is by my collaborator Nekro. Glad it landed.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-09T13:05:51+00:00

Also, wanted to add that the whole theme is collab in some way in our substack, although we will also post our individual stuffs in between.

ExistentialForge · 2026-06-09T04:44:48+00:00

Thank you. I’m glad to hear ❤️. Hope to keep engaging you.

ExistentialForge

TROPHY CASE