April 2023, Mac Demarco dropped a 199-song record that's "about" 9.5 hours, according to Spotify. I've been making my way through it the last three days and have very much enjoyed it. It's a bit extra on top of his already weird and groovy tracks, and a lot of the songs don't have lyrics.
Making the journey to song 199 even slower, most songs are in a date format without delimiters -- or, ISO 8601 standard -- so if you switch to listening to something else and come back, you don't have "Stairway to Heaven" to look for and remind you where you were.
Few people I've paid attention to seem to have as much unique style that looks this effortlessly lived out. There may be a certain luxury (generally) to do so when you're in a position like his -- making a living on your music -- but I'm not sure he gives much thought to it. I think he's just living as who he is, and he calls that good. That's why I'm so attracted to his music.
In my young 20s, I had more of this offbeat individualism that I got wrapped up in in the best way. As in, I loved who I was expressing I was through how I dressed and what I did with my life -- or, what I didn't do. Straight from college I lived and worked on a fruit and vegetable farm because I was curious and it seemed like exactly what everyone else wasn't doing. That desire -- and certainly willingness -- can get lost rather quickly. Maybe often for good reason, too. E.g., I attend less to my clothes because I'm attending more to my kid's.
I'm not sure the World has any particular agenda, but people just might, and conforming the individual to the group's safest expression of what's useful or necessary is a product of that.
Glad for good examples of being fully who you are.