there are people in my walls

right now, it's 3am. i'm sitting at the kitchen counter writing this blog post and listening to a snoopy jazz playlist on youtube. the music is soft. i am alone.

so, my mind begins to wander. someone had to have composed the music i’m listening to. other people must have played the different instruments for the recording. another person curated songs for the playlist and added the fun little thumbnail. youtube itself is powered by thousands of programmers who keep the site running. every part of this laptop i’m using —the screen, the keyboard, the touchpad— had to be designed by someone, somewhere. the lithium for its battery had to be mined, shipped, refined, then shipped again, and so on.

and my walls. so many people are in my walls. an insulation guy, a painting guy, an electric guy. (perhaps it was all the same guy, i don't know much about construction).

so many people are involved in the life i live, it's honestly overwhelming to think about, but it is important to remember from time to time: these things around me didn't magically appear, but are the result of a large number of individuals i will never see.

then i think of what we do see: hauls and pr unboxings and sponsorships.  consumers are hypervisible, whereas laborers remain unseen. we are conditioned to believe that capital matters more than labor, that having matters more than being. these priorities lead to isolation instead of community.

social constructs are created and maintained by invisible people too.

nothing is made in a vacuum, nothing is inevitable, nothing just is.

just keep an eye out for the people in the walls.

from one individual to another,

sputnik sweetheart ⋆˙⟡♡

[all images sourced from pinterest]