The formula for my writing over the last few years is that typically I find a particular topic that piques my interest or inspires words to formulate, and then I write as much as I can about it, and vomit it up onto the brog. I’ve tried not to write for the sake of just writing, but on a day like today, I’m also thinking that there’s a little bit of value in such an exercise as well.
Basically, I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic lately, and I think it was spurred on by an old picture I came across while perusing through some old folders on my hard drive(s). A picture led to a corresponding brog post back from the pre-WordPress days, and naturally it led to that awkward feeling of looking in the past to see how much style has changed from past to present. Undoubtedly, back then, I wrote in more of a diary style that captured more of the mundane and daily living, and I could probably say that I wrote more for the sake of writing back then, then I did with a particular topic or goal in mind.
Sure, that means that anyone who read any of that kind of stuff, it would be safe to say that they might have an interest in my life in general, but for an outsider, or someone who doesn’t know me well, or at all, it’s something that’s definitely not worth reading. However, that style of word slop was often times better at conveying my emotions, moods and feelings, because frankly I was more blunt and obvious with such things when writing about shit like going faster than another car, or my anal-retentive Uncle Tom of a superior at that current job.
I think that my emotions and moods are vastly more muted in my current brog format, because I’m typically writing with the mindset that I should try to be more inclusive to a general audience, and not quite so catered to my six readers, despite the fact that my six readers are likely the only ones who see everything. Subsequently, I guess I don’t really feel like I should be gushing my emotions and moods on a daily basis, and think that perhaps my e-tone should be adequate enough at hinting to how I might be feeling on any given day.
The point is, at least for this particular post, it’s definitely writing for the sake of writing, and with no genuine objective in mind, I just wanted to write about a little bit of a lot, and not quite so goal-oriented.
When nostalgia is on the mind, there’s always a hint of melancholy, and when there’s a hint of melancholy, that means the emotional state is at a neutral point, and not necessarily heavy into the positive spectrum. This isn’t to say that I am depressed or upset, but admittedly I have been feeling a little anxious lately. I cannot rationally come to any sort of conclusion to why this is, but if I had to make an attempt, I think there’s a sense of holiday blues.
Perhaps the pursuit of buying gifts is giving me a little anxiety, or I’m feeling a little bit of guilt that it’s been so long since I last saw my family. I thought about it the other night, and I felt like somewhere out there, I’m letting someone down, regardless of if that is true or not, and I felt concern about it. The more I think about it, the more I feel stumped that I can’t come to any real conclusions, and then I just take a deep breath that feels like an exasperated sigh.
Maybe it’s a feeling of mental stagnation, which is often times the case when I feel anxious about feeling like I have nothing productive to do.
Or maybe it’s the fact that at least in my little bubble, AKA the world according to Facebook, it sometimes feels like all people do is bitch, complain and completely fail at trying to actually converse with other people, and just abrasively blurt out their opinions with little consideration of others’. Then again, the things trending these days range from “insufferable,” “bad,” to “catastrophic,” so it’s really not wholly the fault of the people who wish to opinionate on such things, but sometimes it does surprise me to see the lack of social interaction skills people I know occasionally demonstrate.
And since that segue didn’t work as I had hoped it would, the examples of such particular topics are things that I coincidentally wouldn’t mind chiming in a few words, but not entire brog posts about, as far as I see them in my AKA world according to Facebook:
Insufferable – The Final Fantasy VII Remake. Admittedly, from the sparse footage that has been released, it’s undoubtedly visually impressive. However, my knee-jerk reaction is definitely a “do not want” one, because when the day is over, it’s still a rehashing of (IMHO), probably the most overrated Final Fantasy in existence, because SquareSoftEnixWhatever has transcended to the point where creativity and the pursuit of new storytelling has gone to the wayside, when all the old shit can be recycled, repackaged and re-released for the pursuit of re-profit.
This is a prime example of the slow and suffering death of creativity as we know it, because money is perceived to be way more important than anything else.
I understand if this excites people greatly, but FF7 was never my favorite, and all I anticipate with this is a beautiful money-suck that is going to be full of micro-transactions geared to make lots of money for Squeenix, like when you pay $1 here for an experience boost, a $1 there to get an instant revive when you fail against Emerald Weapon, or just straight up pay $19.99 to get the Gold Chocobo without having to play the breeding game.
I’m not a fan of the idea, and have no intention of throwing any money towards it.
Bad – Gun debating. I am not really a fan of guns in general, but I understand their existence. I do think people have the right to defend themselves with one, and I do think people have the right to go out and get one. But emphasis on the word “one,” because I’m baffled by the people who build themselves small arsenals under the guise of collecting. I do believe that there is a vast over-abundance of firearms in the world, especially the United States, as a whole, and I also believe that it’s absurdly too easy for people get their hands on firearms, which appears to always be the common factor whenever the mass shooting tragedies of world occur.
It’s times like this that I always think of stories, whether they’re fiction or non-fiction, about how there’s profit in guns, and as long as there are people profiting on guns, the availability of them will never, ever decrease. To me, it seems like a no-brainer that there simply needs to be way, way stricter gun regulations, but as long as it compromises the ability of the 1 percenters to make money, nothing will ever be done.
Thoughts and prayers and all that rhetorical bullshit.
Catastrophic – all the massacres and the ensuing fallout. Paris, Brussels, San Bernadino, Colorado Springs, Savannah. A whole bunch of people killed for no real good reason, with firearms that were all obtained way too easily, held by a bunch of psychopaths who did their worst impressions of god and decided to take lives.
I’m tired of reading the news only to be inundated with stories about massacres, hate crimes and prejudice. Yes, I understand how the media works, and how if it bleeds it leads and all that sadistic bullshit, but it is absolutely so exasperating when it’s pretty much all that the media ever talks about. Yes, everyone is afraid and hates Muslims, even Donald Trump and all this other bullshit, it’s just so old hat and tiresome, that if not for the sake that I would sometimes be bored out of my skull to craziness, I would really like to tune out the news outright.
It’s like there’s one good, positive, heartwarming story every now and then, but it feels like it requires there to be ten horror stories of tragedy, racism or hatred in order for it to come out. On a long enough timeline, it doesn’t become worth it anymore.
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An alternate to the depressing news I’ve found more recently is Longreads.com, because I’m a nerd that likes to read, and long-form is a style that I often enjoy. I’m too poor and cheap to float any money towards the site yet, but occasionally, I find some truly interesting articles that are able to engage my mind, as well as successfully eat some time when work is slow.
Like this story about how a blogger for The Atlantic created an online community of commenters that actually succeeded in expanding knowledge, horizons and thinking, instead of just devolving to political, racist and horrible remarks, that is synonymous with the current age of internet commenting.
It was an interesting read for me, because I felt like it resonated a ton of similarities to when I was a writer for Talking Chop, the Braves community I wrote for, for four years. I don’t want sound like I’m bragging about how I created a culture, but I will proclaim that I felt like I was at the forefront in creating a community that was based around conversation, proactive commenting, and actual, real-time bantering, where Braves fans could discuss, learn, and occasionally simply chat and communicate.
The (at-the-time) site’s own owner, never participated with the community, but I was one of the writers that would engage the commenters, banter back, and actually converse with everyone. By doing so, not just myself, but all engaged and involved parties developed voices, personalities and identities, and in doing such, a fairly well-established community developed, and actual people began to interact with everyone else for a pretty good period of time.
For a year or two, I loved being part of the site, and I gave so much of myself to it, writing weekly columns, doing a ton of my own research and analysis, and injecting as much of my own personality into it all, trying to humanize the ever-dehumanizing game of baseball analysis.
But eventually, things change. People change. Behaviors change. With each passing season, more and more people showed up, and when more people show up, communities alter; sometimes for the better, more often times for the worst. Everyone wants to be heard on the internet, and in lots of cases, people will take whatever route gets them heard the quickest and loudest, even if it unpopular to a community. Contrarian behavior, often times for the sake of being contrary. Trolls, passive-aggressive jabbing to straight up bullying.
Much like the story of The Atlantic writer, I found myself in the position of spending more time having to moderate rather than write, and as I’ve told the story several times now, I simply got tired of it, tired of it all, and then left on my own volition. But it was interesting to read the article, because I found it to be very mirroring of my own experience having created a pretty good commenting community, only for it to change for the worse and crumble away, but not after I contributed myself to several publications along the way.
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Speaking of the Braves, they just traded away another asset, in unloading starting pitcher Shelby Miller to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Sure, on paper, the Braves might have gotten a pretty good return in getting the 2015 #1 draft pick, along with near-ready starting pitcher, and a major league outfielder, but the fact of the matter is that the Braves took yet another step back in fielding a competent 2016 squad, in unloading another current player for players for tomorrow.
I’m beyond the point of exclaiming my disappointment at the team’s sheer transparency of completely giving up on 2016, and the rhetoric that things will be great in 2017 and beyond when the Great White Flight Park opens up, but it’s become very apparent that the current modus operandi of the Atlanta Braves is that absolutely anyone, major league-ready now, is available for prospects that are major league-ready: tomorrow.
That said, in spite of the team’s rhetoric about how guys like Freddie Freeman and Julio Teheran are safe, neither of them truly are, because they’re both on long-term deals that pay actual money, that the Braves organization would rather not pay, and would not hesitate to unload for multiple minor league prospects. And if any of the guys on one-year deals show any sort of value, you know there would be no hesitation at flipping them for any minor leaguers that project to be good and ready in 2017 or beyond.
I don’t know if I could ever fully truly give up on the Braves, even if they unload Freddie Freeman, because when the day is over, I like having a team in my home (region) that plays for my (region), but I think I can remain steadfast and adamant with saying that I do not respect the organization, and the whole story behind the move to Cobb County is racist, deplorable, and simply greed-fueled.
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Backpedaling a little bit back to Talking Chop, I have to admit that a part of me is tempted to create a new account, solely because I have a great pun-ny idea for a user name. But the problem is that the player involved is a high risk to get traded, therefore making obsolete the name; and the fact that if I really wanted to have it have any impact, I’d have to actually participate and engage in the community again, and ain’t nobody got time for that.
Anyway, this was more or less an exercise at writing for the sake of writing, and not committing too much thought onto any one particular thing, but writing a little bit on several different topics that have crossed my mind over the last week or so.
Amazingly, I feel a little mentally unburdened in doing so, something I was not necessarily expecting to feel upon taking the time to write. Makes me want to go out and get a nice sandwich or something.
Overall, life is good. It should be, in spite of the blues-y feeling I had prior to writing all this crap. I’m not suffering in any substantial way, and everyone important to me is seemingly doing okay, and I still feel the disbelief in the fact that I have the mythical girlfriend whom I enjoy being with.
This ended up being a lot longer than I had anticipated it would being, but whatever, ultimately, that’s kind of what bragging is all about, simply writing.
