an update! finally

where i last left off things seem as promising as ever for me continuing to regularly update the blog. but as you may have noticed i have really fallen off. without taking zero responsibility…. I will of course first blame my job, and after that will blame my lack of seriousness about this platform (or any platform really). they say consistency is key, and I know it’s also helpful algorithmic-ly, but unfortunately it hasn’t been one of my strong suits. the cognitive dissonance I have for this entire situation (the situation being having a blog but not posting on it) is very strong, and it has not gotten better since adding an instagram profile to the mix. in the beginning of this website I had strong negative feelings towards social media as a whole, and now, well those feelings have not changed, but I did become more desperate.

really my desperation came from feeling isolated or stunted in who I could share my new found interest of creating a monthly subscription with. which of course makes sense, because who I can share my subscription with was limited to people I have contact with IRL and a couple friends who live elsewhere. my goal was to reach more people with similar interests online. what ended up happening was an increase in spending hours and hours scrolling trying to make up for my lack of understanding of the online world. now, just like I was seriously debating getting an instagram account again, I am now seriously debating getting rid of it. and because I have plans to move to the much more populated area of san francisco I think this could be a possibility. but again, I am seriously debating it.

beyond my life online things have shifted as well. my work life has changed to a role that has much less responsibility, and my personal life has become more focused on my relationship and home rather than friends and extra curricular activities. I have been enjoying it, and if anything, often prefer it. I wouldn’t call myself an extrovert, but wouldn’t consider myself an introvert either. instead I would gladly take the new found title of otrovert. what this means for the future of having more people around and more opportunities for friendship? I don’t exactly know, as I haven’t lived off of this island for 22 years. when I lived off the island last I was a preschooler in the san luis obispo area and my closest friends were two boys both named justin. one would often bite me and the other I can’t remember much about, which I am choosing to assume is a positive thing. growing up on whidbey, customers at work who find out I grew up here often ask how it was to grow up here, which I always reply with a similar sentiment about how I am glad I grew up here because I learned about the beauty of nature and at the same time it wasn’t easy to grow up here, but where is it easy to grow up? etc etc. because.... growing up, hormonally and socially is hard for people generally, so I feel in that aspect it is difficult to grow up anywhere. and plus, I don’t have anything to compare it to as I didn’t grow up in multiple places. so how would I know. either way the sentiment I have of whidbey is positive. since as I have grown older and matured more I have been able to understand that the negative things I have experienced growing up may or may not have changed depending where the growing up happened. the isolation or lack of extension of the island however is real. and not having access or exposure to things kids who grow up in cities has affected me... positively I would say, but also I am not sure, because once I get into a city and have more exposure to more people these things may be harder for me to adapt to, but c’est la vie’.

something I have touched on in the past is struggling figuring out how to make all of my passions, my work life, home life & social life, come together in one big happy way that makes each thing feel fulfilled. I am not ashamed to say that at 25 years old I still do not have an answer for this, because I know that this is normal. and honestly, if I come out and say I have anything as major as this figured out before the age of 35 dismiss it, as most likely there is some aspect I am diminishing without realizing it.

I suppose another thing is that I have become even more analog. the more I see the future of social media the less I want to be part of it. something that has become more and more important to me is having things that are tangible and personable. I much prefer a cd to a song or album on my phone. this of course in todays world is difficult, and requires more effort and money than most people find worth it. which I also understand, in the money aspect anyhow. as far as effort I think everything important in life requires it. relationships, friendships, passions, work, self-reflection, organization, cooking… the list could go on but you get the point. I often bring this feeling of effort back to the rise in AI, which is a major part in us as a society losing the idea of effort as being a positive thing, but also more than anything is a bi-product. we have, as a society, been making things easier and easier for ourselves for many years. for example, we no longer have to feed ourselves by producing our own food, we now have the grocery store, where we can buy food to nourish us with little to no effort, but tons (and now even more tons) of money. the advancements in air travel so we can get from one place to another easily, the introduction of the email, and then text messages and now facetime. or being able to buy something online only for it to appear in front of you a day or god forbid a week later… being able to listen to a song whenever you want, instead of, like vincent explained… listening to the radio until they play the song you were hoping for and then doing everything you can to remember the song name, and band, so you can hopefully find a cd soon.

and god I don’t know … the ease of it all.

it’s really been frustrating me, because even though I am not perfect in this and also love a good instant gratification moment, I think it’s dumbing it down for us. it feels like we are all babies who need need need and now that we have everything at our fingertips we want want want. I just think that sometimes the need should be more like a hunt. where you and a couple friends; or just you, go into the woods and set up a tent, and maybe you wait days or hours. but you believe the outcome will be positive for you, you family will eat, so nevertheless you sit and wait, and when it’s time you shoot and you kill it... the gratification you get it immensely because you spent time & energy on things that now benefit you. it all comes together in this way that comes across in your mind as the ultimate success. going back to AI, this same idea can be applied to it. for example, for the ease of myself i could have put into chatgbt the idea of this update and with half as many words it could supply me with something twice as long and maybe something that in a professional’s eyes gets my point across better. sounds great! but what does that take away from me? the process, the hunt… the process.

many writers of music and films etc have hit this issue recently, for example seth rogan, saying “if your instinct is to go through that process then you shouldn’t be a writer, because then, you’re not writing. go do something else. and if you don’t want to go through the process you shouldn’t be a writer, like the whole idea of a tool that makes me write less is not appealing to me, because I like writing.” which pretty much gets down to the basics of it.