Oh to be young, and feel age's keen sting

Nostalgia has been hitting me at 2 am.

I have compiled a list of my music playlist I have listened during middle school that has been lost due to the shut down of music player X. This one perticularily is the common songs that me and a long time friend T has been listening. 

Both me and T went to the same primary school, and was remained his only close friends. T has been picked off by instructors at the school due to his heightened artistic taste and his distaste in general academics. He is one of the most artistic person I have ever seen in my life, and it is truly a sad thing that society don't see that.

We have been told from an early age that if you want a life of eternal starving and panhandling beside the street, you should become an artist at rive gauche. I, even from an early age, respectifully beg to disagree.

The school that we went to are located beside a giant danchi apartment that elevated itself from the school, and it has been fenced off by a weak edge. If you want the most convenient access to the Danchi, instead of going out the school gate, and then turning right and then turn right into the Danchi gate, me, T, and other student who are "previleged" to live beside the school would go to the field instead, climb a 2m wall and saddle accross that fence. This way we not only save 10 minutes walking, but also able to bypass the school inspection gate where they check you attire, pioneer organisation badge (common to the ones north koreans mandatorily wore on their collar), etc. 

I had a monthly spending of 1 dollar. The price to purchase a badge is 50 cents, and before I knew it, I had purchased 10 from the school security in order not to get retribution from "unsatisfactory conduct". And then, we started a 180 day streak wall saddling with T every morning and after lunch break. Fuck the badge. 

T is a friend of mine because we share the same music and film taste. I have watched countless movie from Ghibli studio and our favourite one is porco rosso. We watched it together on his PS2 in his living room that always smelt like expensive santalwood and full of African masks. Coming back to think about it, maybe we were the only individuals that doesn't feel like an foreigner in a state where individuality is brutally punished. 

After graduation, I went into a even more restrictive system, T went to another local middle school before ending up in USA, first wisconsin and then california. I, too, came to the land of freedom in the north. 

We played GTA 5 in high school, but it could hardly replace the feeling of doing illegal shit together with a physical touch. T is not a fan of social media despite he doesn't need to consider the feeling of his boss when posting stuff. Whenever he posts, it is always artistic film camera photo of him travelling. Never himself but always in the vantage point of an observer, with lethal aesthetics, reminiscenct of Magnum photos style, or Wang Kar Wai. 

When people repost shit memes or pseudo science, we continued to post music from Stevie Wonder, Davie Bowie, the turtles, and indie shit. We damn well know probably nobody gives a shit in this numb world but we sometimes post regardless because I have people like T exists in this world, and I know that he would understand. 

I have no idea how T looks like right now. I know he has got a Italian city car and he drives on the weekend to take film pictures. I know that he dwells in LA, somewhere. My last impression is him in middle school. Slightly stubby, mediterranean curled hair, and very well-delievered diss. My only complement to that impression is the music he shares. Sometimes when he shares music that I have previously listened and have been associated with my own memory, it is hard to relate to his seele. I feel like he is a part of me, and I wonder if he thinks the same. 

Brother T, are you doing alright? I always think of you on 3am. Hope to visit you soon. Ain't time a cruel thing, it has been some 10+ years...