Haven’t written in a while, cuz of like a weird fear, I’m trying to wrap my brain around this, like why do I resist sitting down and writing in this journal? It’s not quite like dread, it’s like this laziness, I just want to sit in front of the TV and watch my stories. Why is is it so hard to force myself to sit down and start writing? If I didn’t enjoy it, it would make sense, if I didn’t get value out of this it would make sense. But I do really enjoy this writing and I do extract a lot of value out of this activity, so why do I resist doing it? Is it fear of truly fulfilling my destiny, fear of really understanding myself, fear of making an impact on the world?
I’m out of excuses.
Most of my adult life I have this recurring pattern where I create something that I’m really proud of then I just let it sit there and I don’t promote it. I did this with all of my books and stories–I mean, back in high school, half my lifetime ago I was sending things out to magazines to get published. Without much luck of course. I have been published in an EVE Online magazine and an obscure kink/fetish magazine way back in the day, but I do nothing to promote my books, and now I have this data management system that I’m using every day for a variety of purposes that I’m convinced could add value to a lot of other people’s lives and I’m doing nothing with it. It’s just sitting there when I could be out there being an entrepreneur.
My life is too comfortable maybe. Threw a big party Saturday, Jiu Jitsu monday night, had a nice italian dinner last night, tomorrow going to play mini putt, model railroad convention on Saturday. My life is just so much luxury and comfort and I know that’s silly to be all “boo hoo my life is too comfortable and fun” and I’m not complaining, but I need to recognize that my life is wonderful because I’ve spent time and effort contributing to society and limiting my cost to society and if I want to continue feeling this sense of zen, and continue appreciating everything that I have, I need to get up and really work to give something back. That’s one life lesson I’m sure of: the more you give back to your community, the more joy you will extract from it. It took me far too many years to realize that.
I want to move on with my plans. Actually start promoting this stuff. I ain’t gonna do it myself though. That much I know now, I’m just not cut out for social media or marketing. I need to hire someone. I should just do it. Just make an entry here where I just lay out everything I want from a marketer and then start asking people I think might be a good fit. It wouldn’t even take all that long and it’s well within my budget these days. So what’s stopping me?
My whole life I’ve had this sense that I have this mission to express new ways of looking at the world, to change the way people do things in ways that make their lives better. There’s so much to my message though, it’s not just about peace or moving toward a teamwork based mentality, getting rid of our outdated us-vs-them mentalities, but there’s just so much to say. Whenever I sit down like this it just flows.
Listened to Making it so by Patrick Stewart. Made me decide to listen to Imzadi, the classic Star Trek TNG novel that I never got around to reading til now. It was… I dunno. There were nude scenes at least.
I also listened to Let Us Dream by Pope Francis and I’m still just flabbergasted by how much that guy really gets it. I mean, he does see abortion and euthanasia as deeply wrong, but it’s like, even though I technically disagree with him on those issues on the surface, I have a real respect for the way he talks about them. He doesn’t condemn the people who have abortions or euthanasia. He never states that it should be illegal. (though granted he never states that it should be legal either) It’s more like he feels these are symptoms of much deeper problems with our society that need fixing and from that perspective I am right on the same page. Like I wish we lived in a world where abortion wasn’t necessary. I wish single mothers had the support they need from their community and government, but they don’t.
Which brings me to The Pitt, an HBO show I’ve been recently sucked into. Takes place right here in Pittsburgh, with a whole lot of Pittsburgh references, which I tend to look up and almost all of them are real. I guess this is a quite accurate emergency room drama. The cases supposedly are very realistic–granted it feels like they take a month’s worth of emergency room drama and cram it into one 12 hour shift–but the actual drama is supposedly quite real, which I appreciate. It’s done like 24 style, basically real-time, each episode is a literal hour in the emergency room, but without the beeping digital clock like they did in 24.
Also been watching Doctor Mike review the episodes.
I’m not sure why I feel the need to go through all the media I’ve been consuming here.
Played through Black The Fall, a side scrolling puzzle platformer with a dark theme similar to Inside. It’s rare for me to find a video game I genuinely enjoy like this, but I just keep trying anyway because one out of every 15 or so seems to work out for me, so it’s just enough to keep that gambler’s mentality going, taking away time I could be using on more productive things.
I also, so weird that I’d do this, but I bought the pixel remaster of the original Final Fantasy and I’ve been playing through that, though I do try to listen to my books while I do it.
Listened to the last book of the Little House series. Did not realize it was never actually finished. Laura Ingalls Wilder died before she finished the book so it was basically a rough draft that they published. Also finished the Little House on the Prairie TV series and boy it just kept going downhill farther and farther and farther. I still highly recommend the show… if you stop around season 5.
Also listened to a book called You will Not Recognize Your Life, kind of this autobiography of this vanilla/heteronormative woman who is trying to find her sexual freedom despite some wicked medical issues with her bowels. I found it interesting. It’s good for me to consume stuff like this because I forget how vanilla people do things. It’s just so so different from my culture and how I do relationships nowadays.
But you know, vanilla people need sexual freedom too. Often times people in the queer culture forget that. We complain about how we were looked down on for our sexuality by the vanillas when we were kids, then we grow up, find our tribe of other queer people, and turn right around and cast judgement back on the vanillas, looking down on them, sometimes in the same conversations where we complain about how they look down on us, in virtually the same ways they did to us.
But at the same time, this book kind of did showcase some real problems with vanilla relationships, where they see it like this all or nothing kind of thing, where they plan it out and make schemes instead of letting the forces of nature guide you, but at the same time, they don’t have the same rules of respect that we create. They just make it up as they go and do the best they can… which, that’s what I did too for many years until I discovered the kink and polyamory community.
Like she’s dating this guy who believes she’s this fitness buff and she doesn’t have the heart to tell him she’s not that serious about it and doesn’t have the nerve to tell him about how serious her bowel issues are, trying to pretend herself into this state of sexiness and has to go through all this pain and confusion to finally come around to being who she truly is and accepting the situation. I guess that’s not so different from myself. I spent a lot of time back when I was heteronormative and vanilla… well, pretending to be vanilla, not understanding that’s not really who I am. Even after becoming kinky and poly, it still feels like I did it wrong for many years.
And so many people in the world just never come out of that. Never learn to be truly open, even with their partners and family.
It’s really hard to be truly open about who you are, no matter who you are. But it’s one of the most important skills you can learn.
But you know, maybe it’s like Allen Carr says about smoking: it’s not actually hard. It’s a myth that it’s hard to genuinely be yourself. We just need someone to tell us that it’s easy.