purpose and influence of art

I've been having a lot of thoughts lately about the purpose and effects of art in our society, and I wanted to get them out into words. I think these thoughts stem from my post-attempt cataloguing of all the films and books I've consumed in my life. I've truly consumed a lot. The main melancholic thoughts I've been mulling over are:

Is the purpose of art to give us emotional connection and guidance when we are lacking it?

Do I consume sad art because I'm sad, or is it the other way around?

When attempting to understand, internalize, and empathize with a piece of art, do we subject ourselves to the trauma in those stories?

... idk, maybe these aren't interesting questions, just shit that's been brewing in my head that's more appropriate for a stoner conversation.

I spent a lot of time today reading men's rights and mgtow forums. They depressed the fuck out of me. The fill me with incel black-pill thoughts that make me want to just give up and die. I try to avoid looking at that kind of stuff, mostly because I think it's unproductive, but for some reason I went on a binge today and I regret it. It's so depressing to see radicalized men and women that have drawn a line between themselves so deep that they almost consider each other different species. It makes me not want to be a part of the human race. I tried to make myself feel better by reading some feminist blogs, but I could feel the utter contempt for men that some of these women have. The hatred hurts. I know that it's not directed at me specifically, but it still hurts. The vile words that men and women hurl at each other makes me think the end of the world is imminent. I think that people are forgetting that other people are... people.

I stopped talking to the racist girl. I tried to tell her about my lift for the day and how I under performed, and she replied with "womp womp". Then she kept going on about how nobody likes her and nobody wants to date her, and when I told her I thought she was cute and I liked her, she just responded with "lol goodnight". God, what a bitch. There were so many better rejections or redirections, and you went with "lol goodnight"? Fuck you. Maybe it's for the best. She's truly not very intelligent (she once asked me how mirrors worked), she doesn't strive to improve herself in any way, and, to reiterate, she's legitimately racist.

I'm still really struggling with porn. It's so hard. I start the day with the intent that I won't watch porn, that porn is bad for my brain and bad for the women in it and its bad bad bad, and then, later in the day, something shifts. I feel the need. I start rationalizing to myself: "It doesn't hurt anybody. It's fun. Don't you want to watch someone akjdnnhIDGJOAIJG???" I've set up all of these systems and programs to block myself, but I'm constantly smarter than me and I blow through all of the restrictions. Everyday I beat myself (haha no pun intended), which is disheartening both because I can't see a way of stopping the horny sex-crazed fuckhead inside me and also because somehow my horny self is more motivated and intelligent than the normal me.

Who am I? Who's in control? If I quit, who am I without it? How do I separate my sexuality from my addiction? I can carry out an entire conversation in this state, I can perform complex tasks like bypassing restrictions, I can even look right at a note on my wall that reminds me to be strong and still I breeze right past and violate myself. I feel like a fucking crackhead. The complex logic system and problem solving machine that is my brain is melted by the will of my dick. I sit in chat rooms and flirt with other men sometimes. I'm not even gay, I'm just doing it disassociatively, just to see something salacious on screen that scratches that itch in my stupid mushy brain. I jerk off to weird, perverted, cringey shit that would either be comical or disgusting to someone normal.

And, of course, once I cum it's all over. Before I've even finished cumming, the self hatred and disappointment flood in. "idiot. pervert. failure." Why can't I stop? I want to stop, why can't I stop? Since the breakup, I've sunk lower into addiction than ever before, and I don't know how to get out. I'm tempted to break my computer and phone at this point, but I'm a goddamn computer science major and class is impossible without them. What do I do?

Maybe I don't really want to get better. Getting better would only make sense if I thought I would keep living past this, but maybe I don't. Maybe I'd rather die in ecstasy than become stronger and live life. Maybe I don't care to get better because I still desperately want to die. I don't like that thought. I wish someone cared about me enough to get better, because I don't. I don't think my parents or my sister care about me in a personal way, they care about me because I'm "family". I feel like my friends are receding, and maybe that's not true, but my paranoia and anxiety is telling me it is and it scares me because I don't know how to hold on to people. I feel like I'm always the initiator, I'm always the one that reaches out first, and it makes me feel shitty and unwanted. Everyone is always busy or tired, and I'm trying hard to not take it personally, but its really hard to not feel like everyone hates me. FUCK! I don't know, do they hate me? Am I annoying and weird to be around, or is it just the anxiety fucking with me? I want to be objective but how can I know what reality truly is?