Business or Pleasure?

I’ve been feeling rather disenchanted with blogging recently, which is part of why I haven’t checked in for some time.  I think the problem is that most WordPress users are here as writers, first and foremost – our role as readers is secondary.  Which isn’t a problem in itself, obviously: there’s nothing wrong with honing your craft and sharing your work.  The problem is that most of us came to this site with certain expectations, expectations that just so happen to hinder their own realisation.  If everyone is here first and foremost to promote their own brand, and one of the only ways (or perhaps the best way) to promote said brand is through mutual reciprocation, then every time someone likes a post or follows a blog it’s with self-interest in mind.

Obviously I’m both generalising and oversimplifying, and I don’t want to be accused of wining about my own wounded pride or anything, because that’s not what this is (well, at least not entirely).  I’d like to believe that most of this is just paranoia and insecurity, and that it’s just a coincidence that the only people who read my posts on a regular basis are the ones whose blogs I read on a regular basis, despite the fact that I have over 60 other followers whose blogs I do not follow, but I’m not stupid: I know a correlation when I see one.

I accept the system for what it is, and I accept that this is just how things work most of the time – I just didn’t have this in mind when I signed up.  I don’t have the ambition or the business sense (a mean part of me wants to say two-facedness, and we’ll allow it simply for the sake of documentation) to put in that kind of effort.  The problem is I have yet to reconcile this fact with my own bruised ego.

I’d be a liar if I said there wasn’t some part of me that secretly hoped, expected even, that my writing’s popularity would soar once it hit the worldwide web.  I think it sort of comes with the territory – writers are nefarious for their uncanny ability to balance self-loathing and pride.  But when I realised that achieving that kind of popularity would take a lot more than simply writing your best, I decided I didn’t want to go to such lengths.  After all I’d come into it for the writing, and I could still write regardless of how many followers I had.  Even so, some part of me still expected the fireworks and the parade.

Not to mention there are certain problems with resigning yourself to casual writing when you’ve also decided “hey, why not make a living off of this?”  Because that’s when things get tricky.  Once you decide you have to do something it takes half the fun out of it.  They say if you do something you love you’ll never work a day in your life, but the flipside of that is turning what you love into work.  Pretty soon the thing you once turned to for pleasure and comfort becomes riddled with anxiety and pressure.  I’ve been staying away from the blog purely because I feel like I should be putting more effort into it: into writing more posts, into reading other people’s posts, into reaching out to more bloggers in the hopes they’ll follow me back.

The point being I’m sort of caught at a crossroads.  On the one hand I want to take my writing to new levels, to take it to a point where I can make a living off of it.  On the other hand I don’t want to feel like I have to do it for any reason other than I want to: I don’t want to taint this beautiful thing with the stresses and the expectations that come with work.  I know there’s a balance between the two: I just have to find it.

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Apologies to anyone I may have offended in this post: just as a reminder, this blog serves as my own personal venting platform, where I can address all the nagging little voices at the back of my head, dragging them out into the light where they can be thoroughly scrutinised, followed by dismissal or confirmation.  There are a lot of insecurities back there, and a favourite pastime of many insecure people is to look for faults in others so they needn’t be alone- after all, misery loves company.  All that being said, I hope you won’t take too much heed in the ramblings of my darker half (or majority).

Update #9 – ProcrastiNation, for lack of the inspiration to come up with a more original title

There’s a thin line between “feeding your creative spirit with inspiration from other art sources” and “binge-watching every single television series and movie Netflix has to offer”.  I know this because I found that line three days ago when I sped past it like a bullet train to the procrastinator’s version of Dante’s Inferno.

All in all it was a pretty great trip, but man was it hard to come back.  Then there was the fact that the Rick and Morty season 3 premiere is out, and if you don’t know what Rick and Morty is then you seriously need to reevaluate your life choices up to this point.  Get your shit together.

The point being I’m not good with time management.  Or self-control, for that matter.  And let’s not forget motivation.  In fact I rarely feel motivated to do much of anything at all.  On a slight little detour down dark street, that’s actually probably one of the reasons I’m still alive now writing this instead of six feet in the ground: I was too lazy to kill myself.  And that’s not a joke- I literally mean that I never got around to suicide because it was too much work.

But back to the point.  Even with the attention span of a small rodent with ADD, there are some things you can’t just walk away from.  For me writing is one of those things.  Sometimes it just takes a few days or weeks off to remember that it’s a part of my life that can’t be ignored.  And even when I do take several weeks off without typing a single word, I know that when I do eventually get back to the drawing board those keys will welcome me back with open arms.  Metaphorically speaking, of course.  Keyboards with tiny arms would just be weird, and quite frankly a little unsettling.

So I hope you’ll forgive the occasional and sporadic lapses in content in exchange for the knowledge that it will never be permanent.  At least not unless I die, which… you know, the cards are still up in the air on that one.  But until that happens, I wish you all the best of luck out there, and so on and so forth.  Stay tuned for new content, although for the life of me I don’t know why you don’t just read through the damn archives while you wait.  Whatever.

On Doing Things and Not Doing Things

I haven’t really been in a productive mood lately.  I know; what else is new?  Motivation has always been a big issue for me, coming and going as it pleases and leaving me drowning in unfinished projects and half-baked ideas.  And I’m not just talking about writer’s block, because this has become a universally reoccurring trend in my life.

I was never anything more than mediocre in school because I could never bring myself to care enough to try.  I’d do good in classes that interested me, because the work was never really work, but the second something bored me I would completely lose interest.  And heaven forbid I fail at something, lest I immediately give up.

Sometimes I’ll look at other people and I’ll just marvel at their capacity for doing things.  Just the fact that they’re able to do things, and continue to do those things, is awe inspiring.  It’s like, how have you not stopped doing that thing yet?  How have you not given up already?

It would be nice to simply say I have a short attention span and call it a night, but I don’t think that’s it.  Or, you know, not all of it.  Maybe I’ve just become so accustomed to failure and disappointment that I no longer expect anything more than the bare minimum from myself.  Maybe I’ve resigned myself to the role of “bitter disappointment” as an excuse for not having to try anymore.

Or maybe I’m just wired differently.  Maybe it’s a good thing that I don’t have the patience to waste my time on things that have no meaning to me.  Life is short; why waste it doing stuff you hate?

I’m sick of comparing myself to others and then inevitably feeling inferior.  I’ve always felt like I didn’t fit in, and maybe that’s because all this time I’ve been trying to squeeze myself into the wrong peg hole.  I think it’s about time I stopped worrying about other people’s expectations and started worrying about my own.

That’s not an excuse to just lie about the house all day watching cartoons though.  It means knowing the difference between when I’ve resigned myself to failure and when I’ve actually failed.  It means knowing my own limitations, and knowing where they end.  It means going at my own pace, and no slower.

It means I need to stop trying to be someone I’m not.

Update#6 – New Endings / Old Beginnings

Maybe I’ve been looking at this wrong.  Maybe it’s not about using art as an excuse to live.  Maybe it’s about using art as a reason to live.  I do want to complete my books.  I do want to become a published author.  I do have dreams and aspirations, regardless of what the cynical asshole might tell you.  Maybe I need to stop looking at the negative aspects of life (barring for the moment the inconvenient fact that they seem to find me just fine without my help) and start trying to live for my art.

This isn’t me making a vow to turn over a new leaf or anything as dramatic or romantic as that; I’m just thinking out loud (on paper (on my laptop)).  And no, I’m not going to suddenly become one of those self-help preaching optimists who believes in “good vibes” and all that bullshit (although if I do please find me and kill me).  But I’m starting to think maybe suicide doesn’t have to be how my story ends.

It won’t be the first time I’ve attempted to make a change for the (relatively) better, and needless to say they haven’t exactly always gone to plan in the past.  Most notable among these was my first year at university, in which I attempted to reinvent myself and everything went to shit, which coincidentally enough just so happened to set off this whole mess of a blog in the first place.  Which I guess just goes to show that maybe good can come out of bad after all (oh god it’s starting someone please kill me).

What does all this have to do with Updates and Other Such Boring Real-World Stuff?  Well, I’m glad you asked.  I’ve decided that hand in hand with this not-so-new new beginning is that I’m going to really start going ham on this blog.  Yeah, you heard me.  HAM.

Seeing as I’m nor really doing anything else with my life anyways, I’m going to be investing more time in my writing, and hopefully you’ll start to see it come to fruition in some more new short stories, maybe even (dare I say it?) coming out at less of a trickle and more of a flow (yeah, right).  By the way, perfect segue into some self-advertisement: have you read the new one yet?  It’s called │, or for convenience’s sake you can call it “Untitled” when you tell all your friends and family about how great it was.

But wait, there’s more!  Not only will I be going ham on fiction writing, but I’ve also decided to go through with my previously mentioned idea of another category, in which I break down and explain/analyze my short stories.  You know, the one I asked your opinions on and received no feedback whatsoever?  That’s right, I’m guilt-tripping you.  Deal with it.

Speaking of new categories, some of you may have noticed that I’ve already got one: Favorites (Of mine.  They’re my favorites.  Even if they’re no one else’s).  And in case you were wondering, the answer is yes: this is another attempt to guilt-trip you.  Basically these are just my favorites (duh) from all my Journal / Random Thoughts entries, all compiled into a quick and easy read for anyone just hoping to get a sense of what the hell is going on in this blog before they dive in.  Note: short stories are not included in this category, because I love all my short stories equally (except for one.  You know who you are).

Alright, I think I’ve rambled on for long enough.  I guess I’m in a good mood.  Maybe this one doesn’t have to end in tragedy.

Good luck out there, my lucky (holy shit!) 23 followers.

– The Modern Leper

Living in Limbo

I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, but instead of trying to figure it out I watch Netflix and surf the internet all day.  I distract myself from my responsibilities, from my deadlines and commitments, choosing to live in fantasy worlds rather than this dull reality.

I was never really good at “real life”.  Sometimes I think I must have missed some crucial class in elementary school, one that taught everyone how to be normal, how to function in everyday situations, how to cope with the crushing weight of day to day existence without going insane.  Who knows; maybe I was in the hospital that day.

There are things I feel like I should know, things that everyone else seems to know, that I can’t even begin to wrap my head around.  I don’t know how to operate in the real-world, and what’s worse is I have no desire to change that.  Maybe it’s a case of the fox calling the grapes sour, but I want no part in this world.  It just seems so… needlessly complicated.  People are complicated, school is complicated, relationships are complicated, jobs are complicated.  I have no energy left to try and work those things out, far less to carry on feigning interest in them.  I can’t fathom what I’m going to do today, far less for the rest of my life.  So instead of trying, I just turn my back to it all.

I’ve created a sort of limbo for myself, one in which I can wallow in the blissful ignorance of believing that this is what my life will be like for eternity.  I don’t have to think about reapplying for school, or getting my own place, or finding a job, or killing myself.  I just glide along in perpetual oblivion, cut off from the world outside this room and all the stresses that come with it.

But eventually that world is going to come crashing down around me.  I know it will.  It’s only a matter of time.  Eventually I’ll be forced from my standstill, shaken from this tree by cruel reality.  And I’m beginning to worry the fall might break me.

 

On Growing Up and Giving Up / On Innocence and Ignorance

What happened to us?  Where did the years go, all those moments we thought would last forever, those days spent doing nothing, worrying about nothing?  Where did our innocence go, our belief that the world was good and people were kind and the question of whether or not you were a good person wasn’t even so much as a sliver of a cloud in your clear blue sky?

What happened to us?

At what point did things start to matter more than they ever really had to?  When was the last time we looked in a mirror and liked what we saw there?  When did we stop enjoying life, high off of the simple fact that we were alive, that existence was a gift all on its own and one you thought you would never grow tired of?  But even the shiniest toys are tucked away, lost among other forgotten memories in dark closets where they collect dust and the sheen of their prime fades into nothingness, until the day comes when you take them out for the simple joy of nostalgia, of escaping the present and reliving the past as best we can.

When did we give up on life?

When did we pack up our motivation, our will and desire to live, our hopes and dreams and loves and passions, our very essence?  When did we give up?

Why did we give up?

What drove us to the edge and off the side, what made us bitter and hateful and grim and cynical?  Was it the world, corrupted from the beginning and only beautiful when seen through the stupidity and innocence of youth?  Was it life itself, the terrible joke we play on ourselves, a scenic road trip where we only see the cliff when we near the end?  Or was it something in us all along, a fruit that grew rotten and sour as we aged?

Were we destined to fall from the very beginning?

Or did our spirits crumple under the weight of this life, fragile things meant for the frivolities of innocence and not the crushing pain of reality?

Would it matter, either way?  Or is our fate already sealed, an inevitable and just dessert for the things we’ve done and the things we should have done?

Maybe growing up and giving up are one and the same.  Maybe it’s just a ride, and you close your eyes to the truth and try to enjoy it for as long as you can.  Because once you’ve opened them, no amount of squeezing them shut again will ever erase that image from your mind.  Innocence is a one-time deal, no refunds or warranties.  Once it’s gone it’s gone, and there’s no getting it back.