I find great amusement out of the fact that I have, for the most part, until right in this moment, stopped writing completely. There has been a lack of interest in writing, and without desire, there is no force to push one forward to go ahead and write a few pages of nonsense. In addition to this, I love that there was a moment in time in which I had decided to write and create video content on this platform, while maintaining and utilizing a furry mascot, and that gained any degree of attraction from individuals on the platform. However, in recent times, especially in the drought of words, which has been exceptionally pleasant, anything that I might’ve shared has had a lesser degree of response from the individuals that supposedly have come around to take a look and peer into what I might have to share. I don’t believe there to be anything wrong with this, in fact, I quite enjoy that fact, and I hope it continues, but it makes one wonder: What was offered previously that is not offered now?
To give a proper preface before attempting to answer that question, it might be well and good to assess some of the things that have happened to me, not excepting the things I have done to myself. At this time last year, it could be argued that I was doing my best in some regards, but in that, it was also my steepest and most acute decline. I was working a job I didn’t exactly care for, but did not hate, and the time I had to spend on things I believed to have mattered were also quite minimal. Despite these taxing qualities, I was still doing much better than the year previous of that one, so much so that they couldn’t even be compared in a rational manner.
As it happens, that job passed, and the rate of my writing also steadily decreased, not in tandem with the lack of employment or during the range of the employment, but instead, as a natural result of the reality in which I don’t have much left to say. There became this nasty quality that came in numerical values, and I wanted to keep up and progress those values into the direction they had unexpectedly been going for a few months, but there was inevitably a slowdown period that couldn’t have been avoided. During this period, that I am arguably still experiencing, I didn’t have much to say, nor many words to share with others. This helped transition me into music, which has been the new focus of mine recently. Before reaching into that, I want to speak a little more on the quality of writing that was once shared and the form in which the video content took.
During the initial phases of the slowdown period, I didn’t quite let myself slowdown properly. Instead, I was forcing out words and presenting ideas that hadn’t been quite solidified nor properly integrated with myself. Due to this, the videos might have been relatively fine to some, however, to most, or so it would seem to me based on the values presented, they didn’t enjoy the videos very much. They might have noticed a particular flavor of decline or a lack in quality, and this was less agreeable with their interests or desires. I am not exactly proud of much of the writing I presented during this period. Not that any of my writing has been exceptionally good or bad, but this period offered less rather than more which had already been seen in previous writings. Not only was there a slowdown in my writing, I also had spent less time reading. Previously, I was reading constantly, but then it came to a halt and arguably went away to a significant degree until many months later.
This period had changed what my inputs and outputs were; mostly music, listening and playing. Still yet, I have not covered much of the ways in which the literal video content, the visuals, have been altered and changed over the past few months.
For the most part, I have taken it upon myself to use a furry mascot and record in the platform VRChat using their virtual camera system while looking upon my writing in a virtual desktop screen. This system worked relatively well, no doubts about it, with the exception of the headset’s resolution being a little too low for my reading. Despite this, I made it work, and I tried ways of maximizing it, to little success, but it still could function and be a relatively decent method of presenting the information I wanted to share. The alternative to this was to instead simply record my face, which doesn’t inherently repulse me, but I’m aware that method would be less desirable than the furry character. Not only that, I wouldn’t want to stare at my face while editing, that would be a nightmare on its own.
This was the initial phase of my creation, eventually, after being unemployed for quite some time, I found it wise to sell all the VR equipment I possessed. Was it the right choice? I’m not quite certain these days, but at the time, I wasn’t using it as frequently, and I had nothing I wanted to write nor say, and if I ever did, I thought I could just write it and share it in a different manner, which was and is true. What I did not yet realize was that this would be a turning point for me, because whether I want to admit it or not, the reason I had obtained any sort of viewership, the reason people seemingly cared about the words being shared, was more as a result of the furry avatar than the words being written and carefully analyzed for their quality.
It can be hard to admit that this is the case, but I can’t get around it. Yes, there was a decrease in the quality of the writing, but to properly measure that, I doubt anyone, including myself, could properly do that without an absurd amount of bias. I’m simply acknowledging it, and with that, I’m also going to place in the fact that I stopped using a furry character to present the ideas with, right along with the decrease in writing substance. These two things worked quite well together, with the initial idea to present these ideas to a particular group, furries, with the belief that in doing so, the ideas would reach a minority of individuals from within this minority group and the content would appeal to them, and they would want more. Did exactly that happen? Yes, I believe so, and the reason I believe so is through the numerical values, not excepting the possibility of algorithms being irrational beasts, but I have had more “success,” if one can call it that, through that sort of format. Along with this, during the absence of that form of content, including now, there has been a lack of response from viewers, or a lack of viewers entirely, which I understand. One came to see a furry character talk about nonsense, not see them having fun or being absorbed in a conversation that they find value within.
Instead of using a furry character, I have, for the most part, been using video game footage. The last video of a similar format to this one had Team Fortress 2 as the footage for someone to peer upon, and I might’ve done a few things to get it moving around so that people saw it, but it otherwise would not succeed like many of the previous videos already mentioned with their sort of format. The other kind of video mostly had Minecraft as background footage, but I was doing more of an improvised form of video; instead of writing it beforehand, I would try my best to speak it out in the moment and work from there. There are benefits to both methods, and I prefer the improvised method, but I would want to build upon it with a little more structure, something like bullet points perhaps, and then clean it up afterwards. Will that happen? I guess we’ll find out, it wouldn’t be the first time I teased the idea that it might come along.
Finally, after getting through all the talk about video content, I can speak a little bit about the things that were happening while I wasn’t making videos, writing, or reading. It ended up being one thing really: music. Music has the glorious ability to take up all your time and still have you feeling like you will never be capable of doing what you want to do, assuming you have a clear vision as to exactly what you want, of which you would only obtain by knowing what is possible and having the physical ability to do it. It’s been a painful experience, but not painful in a bad way. If anything, music has taught me that either all musicians are masochists, or I am simply a masochist. It is the closest thing I could assert to being of Sisyphean quality whilst also being inherently pleasurable. The hours upon hours of practicing one thing, moving onto the next thing, and doing that for hours; the learning; I could talk about it forever, but that’s not my intent. What matters is that it has been something in my life that has taken up the majority of my time, while not working of course, and has led to a few songs of a pretty poor quality.
Do I know why they were of a poor quality? Yes, absolutely, of course. Some were lacking in musical ideas; others were lacking in mixing and proper audio editing. There’s still much for me to learn, I could see things of a decent quality being produced in a year or two, because whether I like it or not, that is the amount of time it will take for me to learn many things and for them to solidify. However, after that much time, it would simply be about production. The fantasy is for it to be like how I experience writing; I simply write, and then I go back and work through it. The larger the scale, the more desire and need there is for structure, but for the most part, it is being within a flow-state, and that’s the most desirable thing I could ever want, and if I could be like that every day, for hours, then I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Aside from the music, I have had a few different jobs of varying periods of time, and having any sort of position provided an element of stability whilst also taking great amounts away from my soul. I don’t literally mean they took away parts of my soul; it’s more like they displaced them, which makes it difficult to produce anything, whether it has meaning or value doesn’t matter.
In many of my struggles, I have attempted to seek out help from others. Something I have learned is that I shouldn’t take advice from others. While I don’t mean this literally, I do assign a great amount of truth to it, because no one else is me, no one quite understands myself like I do. They cannot see the things I do. However, in my folly, I have attempted to appeal to others in order to obtain their approval and obviously, in desperation, one will do anything in the hopes that things will be better. Of course, things did not get better, and in fact, they only got significantly worse. Psychiatrists are quite evil, and therapists are better laughing stocks than the average person, and I now know I don’t need either. However, it took me experiencing a significant amount of pain and likely irreversible damage to do this. Believe it or not, these types of things will impair you from creating right in the moment, if you’re me, of course. Over time, however, it might lead to a lot of creation, because as we all know, pain is a great emotion for stimulating creation.
These experiences might lead to more later, but as it is now, as I still have to feel through them, they tend to take away. This form in which things are taken away actually impairs one from giving, because I cannot use the tools I know to give, nor do I believe I have anything to give. In reality, I can use the tools, and I have an indefinite amount to give. I could give forever, because there is always more to give, and there is never any sort of drought or lack thereof. However, there are times when the connection between the heart, soul, or whatever you want to call it, becomes blocked off, which makes it awfully difficult to share all the indefinite goodness that is within it. I have recognized many of the ways these things that I’ve roughly described have negatively impacted me, as I don’t need to be explicit in order to orchestrate the idea that my heart has been further blocked off. Trust me, I’ve had enough experiences for it to be blocked anyway; now it has simply been more difficult. Thankfully, it has been recognized, and I’m slowly getting back to myself.
There was something that greatly disturbed me for quite some time. It was the belief, and arguably reality, that there was a point in time that I was actually getting quite better. Yes, I was, a little over a year ago, but things in my life led to me blocking myself off, and in the beauty of spirals, I continued spiraling down further and further. What I love about spirals, and cycles, is that they don’t ever end, and I could keep going further down and I would never reach the bottom; there is no bottom. I say all this in order to encapsulate and recognize that I can start opening up my heart again, and start properly healing. It might take a long time, but I’m not exactly looking for things to be rushed. I’d rather have it take many years and be a beautiful and safe process rather than rushed and I fall right back into the pit and go many spirals down in the depths of the lost soul.
I was previously able to offer my soul, and with time, that has been more and more difficult. I was able to offer it up, showcase it, articulate it, and the form it would be presented in was very specific. Now, I am slowly becoming more able to offer it again, but I am being careful in the ways that happens. I don’t mean so much the form, but in the ways I recognize it. The soul is not something to be offered up to others, it is not for them to judge, and it is not for anyone to judge. It is for you to recognize it, and you can decide what to do based upon that. What I desire to do is create, and create I will, and as I open up my heart more and more, I hope that the everlasting energy that the soul provides will enable me to share as much as I possibly can. Well, it doesn’t even have to be sharing, it just has to be the creation of something; that’s all I truly want.
That seems awfully akin to a conclusion paragraph, and it is, but I wanted to move onto a related topic: What comes next?
It’s actually quite difficult to decide what I want next. There are so many things outside of my control that I don’t know in the ways I will be pushed and pulled. I can, however, provide some theoretical paths of what is to come, although admittedly, nothing is confirmed and none of these things could actually end up happening. It’s up to you if you want to listen on, if anything, I’m setting you up for disappointment with these ideas; but we all love expectations, don’t we?
There is one path where I return to what I was doing previously, if that’s even possible. Obtaining VR gear again is not the difficultly, soon I will have stability again, as in, work consistently, and that will enable me to have one aspect of stability: financials. Despite having so much time to myself, it probably hasn’t been worth it, and it hasn’t benefitted me in the ways it might have done in the past. However, the first aspect, obtaining the hardware, shouldn’t be a problem. The other aspect, writing, however, might not come back, or it may, but at a decreased rate, so that it may no longer be the forefront of what I wish to provide. There are other forms of content that can be done in VR though, specifically VRChat, that do interest me, and so I will touch upon those too.
I like the idea of theatre, or skits, or some equivalent to those terms. I think a VR environment has the potential to take advantage of the fact people do not need to be in the same room, and so, with the help with others, stories and dialogues could be crafted for not only entertainment, but also rhetoric. I have no idea if this would come about, but I do like the idea of it. I have some experience with something similar to this, but it’s a very serious and focused endeavor, and calling it theatre is done on stage for a particular purpose, as well.
Still keeping in line with the virtual reality ideas, I do like the idea of some streaming content, but only as a reason to focus on the idea of improvisational content. Videos almost always are locked down and intended to be pieces of media with a particular structure, formulated, and cleaned up before being shared. However, with live media, this has some truth, like maintaining some sort of structure, but there is the freedom of not being locked down to something like, let’s say, reading and practicing particular lines of dialogue. This leads to a lot of freedom and things could potentially happen that otherwise would never be considered acceptable by any party. This could be done in a video format, but in truth, I don’t think anyone cares about that if it’s in video.
There’s another path where I provide content like this, in the format that this is presented within, and that’s simply all there is. That would mean it would be a rarity, but that’s not a problem at the end of the day. A few good videos here and there is better than a large amount of slop in your feed, assuming that you want to provide something good to people. If I had any interest in providing or making slop, I can’t say I would want to do it with this particular label, as the archetype that I’ve created, and what people know me as.
In addition to any of these paths, I’ll probably share whatever musical things I find worth sharing. I hope with enough time, I’ll be able to create something I’m proud of and I think many could enjoy. I’m still not at that stage; there’s still much to learn and feel through. However, music, or so I think, isn’t going anywhere in my life.
Unfortunately, I don’t have many other ideas to present to you at the moment. This probably has come off as a sort of “update” type of thing, which is kind of weird to me, because I didn’t ever see a purpose to them. I felt the urge to get some words down, and I don’t suppose it hurts to share these things. I hope that with some time I will be able to provide some more to you, but of course, time will tell.