The Wall
2026-03-27
I might be hitting a wall.
This project has helped me so much in learning how to write, develop routines, and instill a sense of stability in my life that I haven't felt in a long time. I am so grateful to those of you who keep coming back to read my work; it's really given me something to look forward to in life. This act of exploring my thoughts and turning them into something helpful or entertaining has given me so much, but it can sometimes feel as if there's something that's not all the way there. More than likely, that feeling is going to exist regardless of whether or not I continue writing, but the act of working through it can be tiresome in its own ways. It's easy to feel like I don't matter or that the value conjured in these entries has an opportunity cost I'm overlooking. It makes me wonder what else I could be doing with my time, but whenever I start to think about it, I get stuck.
Yesterday had some challenges. They weren't anything I haven't dealt with before, but they were felt nonetheless. The day prior, I felt a sort of emptiness after getting back home from trivia. It was a good time and I was glad to see my friends, but I couldn't help but feel like something was missing. Then yesterday morning after writing my entry, there was a certain wave of emotion I started to ride. Some days after writing an entry, I feel accomplished and like I did something valuable, but some days when I write more emotionally charged entries, I still experience a certain degree of angst that persists throughout the day. Around lunchtime, I was eating a bag of chips and my muscles randomly twitched and most of my chips spilled onto the floor. This triggered a meltdown and I was having a tough time getting through it.
Usually in the afternoons, I've started to take a small dose of buspirone and do a session of non-sleep deep rest before heading out to the gym. I was in a heightened state of emotion, so I took my medication and decided to lay down and decompress. This ended up turning into a 3-hour nap. I don't like it when I take those naps during the day because it makes me groggy and tired when I wake up in the evening. Most days, I try to push through it by having another coffee and heading to the gym. Usually I start to feel more awake and alert as I'm driving there, and I typically feel a lot better after my workout. But yesterday, I couldn't make it to the gym and decided to take it easy that evening.
As I'm writing today's entry, I'm still feeling that post-meltdown sadness a bit. I think in this state, it can be hard for me to think and write about more cerebral or interesting ideas, and it can feel like a disservice to my readers because there's a certain obligation I feel to make my writing more entertaining to read. Within my more emotionally charged entries, though, I think the value in them is in keeping a record of each day as it is. There's a certain level of genuineness in that, which to certain people can be valuable. I know that when I read a lot of blogs, many writers have a ton of filters they're writing through. I can sense the blockages in their prose; some sentences feel forced or they talk around a certain idea instead of trying to pierce through it. When I write, I make a distinct effort to be direct and honest when saying what's on my mind. I don't want any room for circumvention. More than that, I want my prose to have a certain rhythm. There's a flow I'm always trying to keep here.
It's an odd balance between writing for self-discovery and writing to be read. Everyone reads for two main reasons, information and/or entertainment. So as a writer, I am trying to encapsulate my words somewhere within this dichotomy. It can be tough to make a diary feel this way, especially when my life is generally quite mundane. If I were some kind of ultra badass who was out doing cool shit, the diary would be more entertaining to read. Most days could feel like a real and true story, but when my life is as mundane as it is, that can be a tough thing to pull off. I don't mean that to self-deprecate, but to be honest about the nature of this work. I think many writers have this idea that they have to warp their ideas or sense of self to please their readers, and for some projects, that can be necessary. But I have a more unique opportunity here: I can give people a genuine way to connect with me, and there don't have to be all these expectations surrounding it like there are with most relationships in life.
I give people the opportunity to come in and observe a life in practice without any expectations. I don't ask you to share my work; I don't ask you to validate it with metrics; I don't track when or how you read my work; I don't explicitly ask for anything in return (though I do keep Bitcoin donations open), and I think the value in that comes from the waves I make in the lives of a small pool of people who don't have to do anything but just check in when they can and see what's going on. A lot of cultural critics have pointed out the decline of social media; all the major platforms have seen less engagement over the last few years. That on top of generally poor public perception has pushed a lot of people into trying to find real connection through the internet, and not any of this data-mining engagement-bait bullshit.
Beyond that, those critics have observed and speculated on the changes in the so-called "Creator Economy." Instead of chasing large followings, creators are leaning more towards building smaller communities of dedicated viewership around their work. Some butthole said something along the lines of "if you want to make a living with your art, all you need are a thousand true fans" or something to that degree. While I've felt a certain inspiration to monetize somehow or try to garner "true fans," I keep circling back to just how stupid that is. There's this weird phenomenon where people romanticize a struggling artist, but then when that artist starts to become commercially successful, people start to see that artist as a disingenuous sellout. Some successful artists have pointed this out in interviews and such, and they'll try to either signal that they're still the same as they were when they were struggling or simply just flat-out say that they don't care what anyone thinks.
When I think of where I stand on this issue, I think there's a certain degree of truth to that weird phenomenon. Intellectual property law exists around the idea that a creator has the right to be compensated for their work. I think that's bullshit. Anyone who actually has respect for artistic expression knows that once you put something out into the world, it's no longer yours. When you give the world that art, you can't get it back. Once it's in someone else's head, you can't just take it out. It's in there and it's going to change the world in some way, no matter how small or insignificant that change may be. And anyone who really understands why they make art knows that they're not doing it to get compensated for it; they're doing it to literally change the world.
So fuck the money, fuck entitlement, and fuck anyone who's in this shit just to make a buck.
I'm changing the world, whether anyone wants me to or not.
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