In order for all to be in order, safe and sound, I would need to have my interests to be accesssable to all 5 of my senses. Can you taste NeoCities? Does the internet have a scent? You may attribute scents that you have picked up from real-world applications, but ultimately, the internet and items alike are not physical, material items. It seems like an obvious statement, but materialism is important to me due to the consequences of streaming services, unpredictable storage, and overall comfortability.

If you know me on a certain level, you will know that I despise modern-day streaming services. Although useful and (now) practical, streaming services similar to Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, and Spotify only frustrate me in a particular scenario.

Say that you just got a new mp3 player and are trying to upload music to it without giving your computer a virus and a half. "Oh, I'll just go to the service where I pay for music! That'll certainly do the job.". NO IT WILL NOT! Because these types of services only want to suck up your money, and when you're done (or even continuing to pay them), you will be left with nothing in your name. Why pay for something if it truly isn't yours? The reason why material posessions like books, cd's, records, and more are important to me is because they are truly mine to do whatever I would like with. I could watch a movie over and over again until I get sick of it, and I would be able to do that whenever I please, not just when I have wifi up and running. For the rest of my life, I would be able to play that movie, because I own it. I hope this is coming off with more sense than I think it does.

With storing things on technological devices, things can always go wrong. I mean, things can also go wrong if you store things physically, but that isn't the point I'm trying to make. With cloud storage, it is awfully convenient, but say someone steps on your thumb drive. Oh no! Due to multiple events of people's phones bugging out and deleting all of their precious photos of their loved ones, I like being able to have printed out, physical photos that I can cherish forever, and not worry about accidentally deleting.

Overall, I enjoy having things that are within my grasp. It makes me feel safe. As someone who used to spend hours upon hours browsing nothing on my phone, I think having interests that lie within things that are objectively real would be important, and would give me something to tether to. For books, you can rip out pages once you're done, or annotate, and with photos, you can create a photo album. It is really sentimental and important to me.

I know this wasn't written the best, but hopefully you get the gist of it.

Written June 21-22nd, 2021