Fansa and Affirmation?

I started reading Failure is Not An Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz today. It's an autobiographical book by Kranz on the evolution of the operations control team(s) in the US space programmes. I'm about a quarter of the way through, and it has been quite a ride. While it isn't push the usual leadership/management guidebook spiel, it has some interesting nuggets of knowledge and experience hidden among the narration.

As an aside, I find myself keep returning to this video by Kiryu Coco before she graduated, the cover for ``Fansa'':



There's something about it that speaks out, and it isn't just the beautiful execution nor the events surrounding her graduation. It definitely is the lyrics, but more than that, it is the feeling that is conveyed by the lyrics, not in the sense of the ``idol feel'' but something more fundamental, the idea of connection between people and wanting to matter in someone else's life.

Yes, there is that attention-seeking aspect of being an idol that shows up within the lyrics, but realistically, aren't we all a little attention-seeking in our own ways? The type of attention we seek need not be at the scale of that of an entertainer, but in the form of having attention from one's parents, one's siblings, one's peers, and even one's bosses. The attention isn't about pride but as a form of affirmation of one's existence, a way of external validation. It's as basic a need as food and water, since the affirmation of one's existence by another is the start of creating a social fabric.

Mutual affirmation---I think this core feeling is what is largely missing these days in the hyper-connected world. Self-selection of images to promulgate combined with the echo effect from The Algorithm perpetuates a strong sense of being ignored, with various insecurities amplified within the like-minded. So the in-group affirms the shared insecurities, but the out-group seems to fail to acknowledge them, let alone address them.

Perhaps that is why we see the rather strong push-back from various subsets of societies in attempting to change the narrative, justifying their actions through whatever means necessary, to the point that an unaffected third party observer can only conclude that it is all delusional.

Eh, not sure if this is some ``deep'' thing---I might have an important idea here, but it may not be well-represented with what I have written. I could do more research to fix it, but it isn't a high priority.

Turning the observational lens back to myself though, am I also seeking attention then?

In a way, I would be lying if I said no. Obviously, if I weren't seeking attention, I wouldn't be updating this obviously public blog.

But from a different angle, the answer is more nuanced. Outright winning some popularity contest isn't my intention---if it were, I would be doing some rather drastic things, and even so, use other media that are more easily accessible and welcome over the blog medium. I'd like for people who care enough to read what I have written here, since sometimes it is easier to understand what I am thinking through sifting through what I said as opposed to listening to me say it out loud, not because I'm shy, but because I have a tendency to not talk about myself if I can help it in meatspace. But I'm not too anxious if there are really few (if any) people who read my blog entries; maybe a little disappointment, and that's probably it.

After all, my blogs are mostly ways for me to vent whatever is eating away at me, a type of catharsis where I can safely put away what I would like to think about, but not obsess over.

It seems to be working well for me so far.

Hmm... seems like I have indeed run out of things that I would like to say here for now. Okay, in that case, I'll just leave it till the next update then.