Saturday, January 6th 2024

This blog does not exist.

Do not reference anything I write on here when you’re talking to me in real life. I got completely jumpscared earlier this week; “like what you talked about on your blog last week”. Almost threw up.

I’m joking. I want people to read this. It just always knocks the wind out of me when real people actually do. WordPress provides numbers for site visitors, views per post, average views per visitor, etc., but it’s just numbers. It doesn’t equate to anything real.

It’s kind of hard to gage how this blog is doing at the moment. My post frequency was horrendous this winter, so my numbers are all down in comparison to Q3-2023. In December, I experimented with boosting my site among WordPress’s algorithm, and it worked. My statistics shot up an average of >120%, but who are those people? Again, just numbers, doesn’t mean anything real to me. I want people I know to read this.

I think it’s a good opportunity to answer why. What’s the point of this thing.

I’ve always been a writer, I’m talking like 3rd grade onward. Journals, original creative work, prompts & exercises. I like writing, it’s fun.

One of my dreams is to write a screenplay, or a stage play, and see it through production. I’ve always been a huge movie guy (I even used to do movie reviews on here), and what I like most about cinema is the story. If you look back at any of my movie reviews, you’ll probably notice it’s where my critique usually starts or lingers.

I started blogging when I was 15 or 16. I didn’t have an inciting reason or conscious intent at the time. Primarily, I just liked to write. Secondarily, I hoped it would catalogue my existence; telling the world hi, I exist, this is me. I deleted my first blog after my mom told me she enjoyed reading it. I love my mom. Wish I didn’t do that.

I started blogging again around the same time last year as an emotional outlet. That lasted for 3-4 months, but I started repairing my familial relationships as well as making friends and developing other healthy emotional outlets, so I deleted the blog when I no longer needed it.

The thing is though, I really like writing and my blog reignited a long dormant passion, so I restarted it last summer. Again, I didn’t have an inciting reason or conscious intent. I just wanted to write, and to tell the world hi, I exist, this is me. That’s where we’re at today, that’s why I do this.

I’ve been thinking about death a lot lately. What about that transition, huh? No foreplay. My life the past few months has been very fulfilling, and I am earnestly happy. I’ve become very scared of dying. I have so much to live for; things in my life at the moment I’m thankful for, and things I’m looking forward to. If I die prematurely, I’m going to be so fucking pissed.

Around the same time last year, I came up with a list of roughly 30 things I wanted to improve about myself by the end of the year. I honestly did pretty damn alright, I missed a few of the unrealistic ones, but I also somehow managed to accomplish some of the unrealistic ones. It was such a success that I’ve been wanting to do something similar again. So for the past few weeks, I’ve been working on what I want to do with my life; and the list I’ve come up with is things I need to do before or I die.

This was clickbait, I’m not sharing the list. I never publicly shared my goals from last year, and I’m not going to share this list either. I’ve found that if I share my goals with others, it takes some of the pressure, and by proxy the ambition, off of my shoulders. I think this is because I’m a spiteful little creature. There’s motivation in transcending people’s expectations of you. I’ve always wanted some haters and hecklers, because I know that I positively feed off of proving them wrong. If someone believes I can’t do something, I’m going to fuck d I think this is a big reason why I saw everything through last year; iykyk.

Anyway, I have my list. There’s 3 items on there where I consider my life wasted if I don’t do them. I’ll share them because it’s genuinely important to me and part of who I want to be remembered as.

• Through hike the Appalachian trail
• Summit Denali
• Be there for someone, in the same way Jacob was there for me last year

These are things I consider beyond dreams. I’ve got plenty of dreams, like writing a screenplay, or moving to Alaska, or driving an F1 car, having a bunch of kids. If those things happen, it’d be awesome, but I don’t need it. I need to do the things I listed though. I need to go above and beyond, because fuck you, that’s why.

(Not you, I’m talking to myself). Jake was telling me I come off as pretty schizo on here, and I’m starting to see it.

I want to prove it to myself that I can do these things. I want to spite my old lazy deadbeat self. Fuck that guy.

I am an adamant believer that most things are possible if you work hard enough, and that the primary thing limiting us in life is ourselves.

I’m not shredded to gills just yet because I know I’m leaving gains on the table and can be doing more. I know I need to get the fuck off my phone and go to sleep, I need to be eating more, eating cleaner, I know I can probably toss an extra 2.5# plate on most of the time, and I know I can probably do more reps.

I’m not saying these things to diminish my progress, or that I expect perfection, but to say that “perfection” / accomplishing the impossible task is possible if you actually work hard enough. Except for shit like shooting lasers out of your eyes or bringing the dead back to life, you can probably fucking do it with enough willpower.

“There is no mountain you cannot climb one step at a time“, or whatever the fuck.

Anyway, timeline for doing these things:

• Appalachian trail is probably off limits for at least 5 years.I’m still dead set on getting into the army, that’s been my primary objective in life at the moment. Once I get into the army, I’ll have to decide where I’m at in life in 4-6 years and whether or not I’d want to reup my contract. I’m not expecting to, so I see myself doing the hike the following year, meaning I’d be around 29-30… Jesus. I can’t do the hike for a couple years anyway, because I’d like to have ~$8,000 in the bank before doing so; to cover gear expenses, and have something to come back to (trail takes about 6 months to through hike).
• Denali is a similar dick in the ass. I’d need about $10,000 in the bank beforehand, and this after the previous financial fuckery, so this is going in my list of shit to do before I’m 40.
• As for the last one, I think this one will take the longest to do, so I really hope I don’t die before I’m like 50. I had a teacher who was a similar figure in my life, and I want to go back to school for anthropology / archaeology, so if I were a betting man, I’d say that’s probably be the place it happens. Who knows though, life is weird.

God, if I die in a lame car crash or in a dumbass accident, or if I just get cancer, I’m going to be so fucking mad, you don’t even know.

I’m pretty sure I said this last week, but it’s hard to imagine life being any better. I don’t need anything more than I already have. I’m nice and warm in this vintage sweater, snow slowly falling outside my window, coffee on my desk, my unnamed cat sleeping peacefully on his bed next to me.

That’s my secret sauce. Romanticize the little things, be thankful for what you have. Like I said, I don’t desire for anything more.

Ironically, I’ve been treating myself a lot more lately; buying myself nice things, have a nice sit down meal, and I’ve even started a collection / decorating my room. I like and want these things, but I don’t need them and am perfectly fine without them. It’s weird.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s no thing; person, place, item, action, anything, that would make my life better than it already is…. aside from shooting lasers out of my eyes and bringing back the dead.

I go into these posts with an agenda of things I want to cover, and every single week I just freestyle rant whatever’s on my mind. I was supposed to talk about the snow, my job, and my cats today lol.

I love my cat so much, he is such a good cat. I bought him some new toys and he seems to really like them. If he’s happy, I’m happy.

My mom has her cat, she can keep him. Then there’s the family cat, who lives downstairs, he was originally my cat, but my parents fell in love with him and he is a behavioral disaster so he is the family cat who lives downstairs. But my nameless monster is truly my cat. I love him so much, I think he’s my favorite thing.

Here’s a picture I came across saved on my PC from last February; the text says “(REDACTED)’s starting to walk all over my desk and keyboard. I think I need to keep tonight’s post pretty short and sweet so I can give him some love and attention“. Also, I don’t know why all of the pictures I upload are black and white.

I might return to weekly / scheduled posts. My work schedule has finally returned to the same uniform schedule – fuck peak season. Anyway, I think the structure is good for me, and I need to improve my confidence in my writing. I shared a link to this blog on my socials for the first time in 6 months, the effort nearly killed me. I’m definitely NOT doing that with this one, a little too intimate. But the goal is to overcome that barrier and share all of them, because that’s the whole point, right?

Please feel free to share your thoughts on my writing with me. I know the comments on here are clunky and you have to login to comment, which I personally wouldn’t do, because, like I get it lol. I’ll look into setting up anonymous comments, but no promises there. Just feel free to talk to me about this blog if you want to. I’ll probably turn into a tomato and want to crawl up and die, but deep down I always appreciate it.

I’ll see about getting something out around the same time next week, but no promises…. (that’s a promise, expect something around the same time next week).

See ya 🙂

This week’s playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6yAIruiOQq90Gky1jDN2mh?si=9af6bfcf84914cc5