My love for early 2000s music and internet culture runs deep. But this era means so much more to me than another shallow aesthetic taken out of context, or passing trend. I was a very sheltered kid growing up, and went to a school that was almost an hour away from where I lived, so I spent about two hours each day on a rainy bus ride from Olympia to Tacoma and back again, listening to my beloved CDs, and eventually mp3s when that format took over. I felt like an outsider from my classmates because of the distance, and an outsider to my local community because of my school. Music was my constant companion that didn't depend on any physical location -- I could put on headphones anytime and immediately be transported to wherever I wanted to go.

I miss SoundCloud. Yes, I know a version of it still exists, but I miss the way it used to function. It turned the sharing of music into an integral part of the creative process, not something separate that happens months (or years) after a song is complete. You weren't finished with a track the moment you exported it from your DAW -- uploading it to your SoundCloud page was a crucial step in marking its final form.

I've been reflecting a lot on value these days, a concept that is difficult to universally define or assign, where the only constant seems to be change. Some cultures and institutions may view value through material lenses, while other traditions may measure it by personal character and relationships. And all of these metrics vary by individual -- a first edition comic book originally priced at $1 might be meaningless to a person who is only concerned with the function of an item, whereas another may value it at over $1,000,000 based on their knowledge of its history and impact on culture.

Since the original release in February 2021, Life Support has felt like an impossible album for me to talk about openly. Even after a full year has passed, I still have trouble finding the words to share this story, and I struggle with deciding whether or not I want certain aspects of my life to be so public. But as the release of its accompanying NFT series nears completion this week, I feel a sense of closure with this body of work that I wasn't able to feel prior, and I hope that anyone who comes across these words or this music might find comfort in knowing that they are not alone on their mental health journey.

Context is key. A frame can change the way we perceive a physical work of art, different spaces can impact our listening experience of the same piece of music, and a single word can have countless meanings depending on who speaks it and with what intention.