Waiting For The Demise

 

(content warning: suicide)

How does it feel to be a death row inmate who knows the very date of their execution, someone who is stuck in a tiny elevation above a mighty raging flood and watching the waters slowly rise and swallow the feeble material they are holding on, a terminally ill patient who has to carry a hastily deteriorating body, a passenger who is on a burning falling airplane, a soldier preparing and walking towards a battle they are sure to turn disastrous or someone who is simply laying on the bed and impatiently, anxiously waiting for the pills to kick in? I have always thought that it must involve a great sense of terror, but it might not be so. There is a certain feeling of certainty, closure and even comfort knowing that whatever is happening to you will pass and your state of affairs will irrevocably change. No more annoying noises of self hatred, gnawing doubt, ever ballooning, the possibility of failure, heart-piercing betrayals and no more room for pessimism. You have truly hit rock bottom, rock bottom is cozy in a strange way., you don’t have to climb up anymore.

Once the ember that warms up your life fades away, you can truly change. You might become more of an amoral creature. Not because “nothing matters”, but the opposite, now everything you do matters, perhaps for the first time in your life, everything you do, to the sip of water in your throat from the spicy bit of the shit in your anus, everything matters immensely. Self importance breeds self-assurance. Self-assurance overrides one’s common moral hangups, anxieties, external pressures. The moment becomes ripe to do the right thing, the right thing that you should have always done. You should have always done this, if you had already done it, everyone would be happier and you would not suffer as much. And look, now you just have to do it. Sometimes fate binds you to do a gross thing. So just dress your best, say your goodbyes and do it. Someone has to bear the sins for everyone else. Those people have real pasts, presents and futures. You, you and I, have nothing, nothing of importance in comparison. So we are the perfect candidate to do this grim thing, this morbid self sacrifice, this act of liberation..

Our view is clear, our determination is iron-clad, our souls are calm, we feel happy. But what do we do in the meantime? How would you pass your last day? What do you do? Reminisce about your past? That’s not an activity. That’s something that already happens by itself. Eat your favorite food, watch your favorite movie once again, talk to people whom you care for the most one last time, write a painstakingly crafted goodbye letter or an overly emotional will, do something obscene or crazy you wouldn’t have done otherwise or be consumed by the thoughts of the moment and simply do nothing?

I think the easiest solution is to merely continue your routine as you do. It might be dull and wasteful at first. Go to work, chit chat with people as if nothing is going on, eat fast food, be occupied with your usual hobbies, finish the assignment, continue the 40 hour save on that game, clean the house, prepare dishes, take a shower, feed stray cats? Just live like nothing will ever happen, just live as if you are immortal.

That’s also a sure-way to dodge any existential dread about immortality. Routines are immortal themselves. You do the same thing everyday because either you want to do the same thing forever or you have already done the same thing forever. This only looks machine-like to an outsider. For the insider, this might feel like heaven or hell, both have the same fundamental appeal: your life will finally become an endless, timeless routine. Best way to get close to someone is often acting like you have always been close forever. Most people don’t think about how they will outlast their pets because they have been looking after them “forever”, a forever of 10 years, 2 years, 3 months or a whole 20 minutes. Infinity is not alien, it is a comfort blanket. Finiteness can make something too valuable indeed. Concepts like “last meal” are true torture fuel, because there can be no meal ever good enough to be the last one, whereas if you just had your regular breakfast you can feel like you are just starting another exciting or dreadful day. Salvation through the same!

And we must always consider the other possibility. Sometimes we say that there is no choice, that there is nothing we can do, that things will surely be quiet forevermore. You might have really felt your doom a long time ago. But it’s not always that certain isn’t it? What if it doesn’t happen? You turn out to be too sturdy, the survival instinct kicks in, you escape at the very last second, things turn out to have an easier solution? What if hope drowns your embers of self annihilation? What if your dreams aren’t completely crushed? What if you can’t be sure? What if your glorious self-annihilation is thwarted? What if the day you have prepared for gets delayed? Delayed! What then, are we simply to languish with our foolishness? Good for us, another day wasted. Now we are alive and we feel even worse and our only salvation might have slipped through our hands for good.

The people who didn’t really want to die and feel merely obliged to, ironically, end up in the worst position because they believed the finality of their doom for so long. Yay, we live for another day. Another day for what? Dreams I have cast away, people I have driven away, good food I put away, books I locked away, the heart I have tucked away, the life I have thrown away? The most foolish of us all shall bear the greatest responsibility. To have to trudge on living. Not for the sake of another person, not even themselves, but simply there is nothing else to do...

And my friends, this is why you should fold your clothes, brush your teeth, wipe the table and do the dishes. There is a difference between spiraling in a clean kitchen or a freshly dusted room and spiraling in a sweaty bed or at a smelly dinner table. There is never enough time to properly sulk about your life’s gigantic failures but realizing that you didn’t scoop the cat litter while doing that? That’s awesome, and you can’t “end it”, you just tried that. Just get up, get up, get up and take the garbage out, you can feel drowsy on the sofa later. Just check social media too, later why not?

The knife, the pill, the bullet, the chasm might be too reassuring, too blindingly bright, too bewitchingly beautiful, too deliriously delightful. That might be the biggest curse itself, unfortunately, there might always be a tomorrow.

So we might as well act like there will always be one.

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons, namely: Effy, Kelsey Fyfe, Laura, Makkovar, Morgan, Olympia, Otakundead, Rita, Sasha. Also thanks to Alex(@punishedgenetic on Twitter) for his perfect editing work.

Gender Dysphoria

 

What is "gender dysphoria"? A mental condition which forms the basis of identity of trans people, a distress born out of mismatch of the body and the mind? Or are we distressed due to the pressure of society's hidden and open expectations, rigid laws, backwards traditions, malicious apathy and even open dehumanization? Is gender identity merely an inner reaction to transphobia?

The truth is certainly not in the middle. If you have seen any study or news about the brains of trans people and felt weird about it, your intuitions are spot on. Natural sciences usually take gender and sex as self-evident truths, otherwise it would risk being too "ideological". Despite the sincere intentions of many, it is hard to believe that psychology can be a stable ally to trans people because gender is fundamentally an unfriendly institution to trans people. I understand that nonsense like "brain gender" might be useful to appease your parents or your therapist but folks, it is not a coincidence that trans people who defend these things the most, the loudest transmedicalists, are plainly bad people who enjoy kicking down poorer, more marginalized trans people. They might hate themselves and don't know how to deal with it without projecting it to others or think they are above being a freak based on getting some validation but either way, they alone disprove the idea that "dysphoria" is an illness that simply requires a cure. Even the most well intentioned versions of the idea concede that certain ways to self-identify are more legitimate. Gender is a social construction, one which fitting in clearly necessitates putting down an underclass of "other". So gender dysphoria has to be a construction as well. Gender is not something that can be merely assigned, it needs to be personally actualized too. There will be those who cannot fit in not just because they don't want to participate but also can't because their actualization goes against how gender is constructed in the first place. Of course, participation is not optional so there are consequences for failing to do so. More than a relationship between body and the mind, gender dysphoria is a cluster of feelings that manifests by the struggle against the punishment.

But why do do only some people carry the type of feelings that forces them into this struggle? People are always more complex than what they show on the outside. Some people come out as trans after decades. Some people struggle with it but for one reason or another don't ever act upon it for their entire lives. But I am still confident that most people don't really have such issues. On this topic my mind always goes back to a Turkish sitcom from years back. I don't know when it aired, I don't remember its name. I did not even watch a single episode start-to-finish. But I remember it's trailer: A guy breaks up with his girlfriend, and as punishment she makes a deal with a witch to turn him into a woman. "He" wakes up, goes to the toilet and finds that there is nothing there. It's not like this show circulated for years and years or I watched TV so frequently that I saw it often enough to burn it into my memory. I did not even think about it during that time. No, it really aired a short while, then vanished, just like hundreds of other Turkish shows. And yet I still remember that trailer in particular, as a memory frozen in time. Safe to say that this doesn't happen to everyone.

Trans people are clearly not distinguished merely by action, be it self-identification or a set of procedures for social recognition but by thought as well. No wonder Western conservatives are so worked up about gender-neutral pronouns. Having a gender-neutral pronoun does not make a society less patriarchal, for example Turks have a very patriarchal culture despite speaking a mostly gender-neutral language. It only makes writing more convenient but no, even this small space of conceptual ambiguity is too much to concede.

There is probably nothing wrong about trans people's brains but there is probably something in there. Because no matter how hard it is repressed, gender nonconformity is always present somewhere in all of human history and the patriarchal society demands its continuous repression. It might be labeled a sin, a bad influence, a rebellious streak, a mental illness or a subversive ideology. But it must be ironed out from children by proper discipline. Failing that, adults must be made into outcasts.

If you offered me a dress when I was little I would have considered it insulting. I remember trying to get into football many times because most boys liked it. I had never been curious about my mother's makeup. At least the way most people saw it, there was nothing unusual with my interests. I just had a myriad of daydreams about a girl that grew up with me. She did many things but always thought like I would and acted in a way I admired, strangely very close to my personality without its most noticeable flaws. Strangely she never ever spoke to me or existed in the same thought-space as me but she was quite frequently in my imagination. This only intensified in high school, in a glaring way that affected my school grades. (They were still good but nowhere near good enough to justify the total hours spent on attempts at studying.) Even though I wrote very little about it, I conceptualized a lot of stories where she was inserted in my favorite media. And yet, I never told anyone about it.

For a long time I have not even thought about what those daydreams were. Perhaps I was thinking of my ideal woman? There were times she was romantic with generic non-descript guys and even was pregnant in some scenarios. For some time, I have thought that I would one day get married, have kids, then get old, just like other people. I frequently thought about how I would care for my future wife. But I have never seriously thought of myself as a groom, a husband or a father. I hated wearing fabric pants and those leather shoes adults wear. It took me a long time to get used to wearing belts and jeans, mostly succumbing to exasperation. I hated anything that made me look like an adult man. Especially the beard...

Even though no one really bashed my head on how "men do this and women do that", no one restricted my toys, no one in my close proximity was openly sexist. Despite adopting a mostly "live and let live" outlook and having a clear sympathy towards things that aren't "normal", the society I grew up in clearly ironed out my behavior. Maybe I had read about it in newspapers once or twice, but I didn't even have a conception of what a trans person was. If not for a series of chance encounters I could have just lived my life getting more alienated from the world day by day. But even if the repression became complete, I would always look at my own photos, and hear my own name and feel a little strange without ever understanding why. The thought was always with me since I knew myself. I would always think about her. Did my brain separate itself from my body at birth? I don't know. But there is clearly a large separation between my physical existing self and what I have always wanted to be. Today even if I had the perfect guarantee that everyone would perceive me as a woman I would still not like how I sound, because puberty happened without my input and I don't like the result. Truly if people thought of me as beautiful and desirable but my voice remained the same as now that would make the disconnect worse. Trans people who are confident in their voice are cool, admirable and uniquely captivating. But I always wanted to be a cis woman, I am sorry. I ignored how much this irked me for so long already so I don’t think I can ever be convinced to quit being bothered by this. I have a deep seated issue on this subject in particular, passing is really a secondary issue.

Had I grown up in a different society (without oppression) would I feel different? Perhaps. Of course, in a different society I would be a different being. In a better society, we would be able to take any steps we need in the ways we want to look without any judgment. Then perhaps a specific designation like "gender dysphoria" would not be necessary. perhaps differentiating between trans and cis people, or even men and women would be obsolete. But perhaps I would still be dissatisfied with my puberty. But even if we somehow knew it wouldn't matter, because I grew up in this society. I know that I have certain desires that have been with me for a long time and know several things that would satisfy them at least somewhat. But any sort of idea that suggests these desires would go away in this or that scenario is not only irrelevant but fails like all naturalisms do.

Humans are inseparable from their environment and we can't view humans as something that simply takes a parameter from society and gives a result. Bio-essentialism asserts that the environment can be reduced to mere cause and effect and a "pure human", an "essence" can be reached by sufficient isolation. However, this supposedly anti-essentialist stance agrees with that. Whether the pure human is heritable or a clean slate is actually a small difference. And not even a very sturdy one. Here, the criticism of the beauty industry provides an excellent case study. In a push for impossible beauty standards, young girls and women in particular are continuously disempowered to make them isolated unless they join in to the painful and expansive perpetual consumption. It is clear that there are a lot of industries that are sustained by this pain. Diet, cosmetics and fashion are among the largest offenders. When someone says something like "Makeup is fun" the obvious response is that personal experiences and societal trends can exist in opposition and they should be critical towards the advertisements targeted at them, especially when the advertising is done by their peers. No, that sounds too sensible. The "choice feminism" needs to be completely defeated. So, it turns out that women actually never authentically enjoy makeup, they always do it for men and it's "fine" to do it but you are giving in to the system. People have dyed their faces everywhere since humans learned how to, you might want to specifically appeal to other women, women pursuing beauty at all is also considered vain so perhaps patriarchy as a whole is less about specific actions of women and more that "woman" itself is wrong? No it is very simple, capitalist patriarchy in, makeup is out, no capitalist patriarchy no makeup. Thus it becomes necessary to imagine a "pure human" that is not contaminated by capitalism. Unfortunately we see this a lot in discussions where the anti-patriarchal argument falls into naturalism by making assumptions that are both irrelevant for those who are alive currently and can be easily modified into supporting an oppressive system.

But even if essentialism did not creep in, the argument would still be reductive. If dysphoria merely reflected oppression, why, even though many trans people do, do I not dislike my height? No matter what the world deeply tried to instill in me to equate smallness and womanhood but it could not. I might feel insecure about it if it caused people to clock me but in that case, it becomes so easy to distinguish the external pressure. Many trans people are comfortable with their genitals, or would care much less if the society did not fixate on them. Some trans people’s drive clearly is motivated not merely by dysphoria, but other thoughts that are still, fundamentally, very transgender. There are those people who explicitly don't want to be seen as man or woman, others aspire to become a "butch woman" or a "femboy". There are those who are mostly fine but nevertheless decide that they would be happier as a different gender. For some, autism makes the cis society difficult to swallow and embracing being trans becomes simple. There is probably a good case to be made for why neopronouns could emerge in an early 21th century Western society, but it could seldom explain why people are motivated to adopt them. What we can clearly understand is that they are personally important to some people. The more someone deliberately chooses to be outlandish about gender, they become motivated less by society and more by themself. Surely, part of it is a reclamation of the outcast identity but the larger part is that people clearly find pride and enjoyment in having a fire-forged identity right out of their hearts, living as unbothered by the boxes of society as much as they can. Gender is a theater and all trans people reject their roles but some people want to be playwrights, they want to play in their own play.

Trans people are persecuted ruthlessly over mundane and trivial requests. We, especially those of us who live in particularly repressive circumstances, deserve the world for staying alive each day. By the merit of our struggles alone we can say that our wishes about ourselves deserve special attention. But the struggle does not define everything! I would love nothing more than just waking up as a cis woman tomorrow and yet, despite the struggle, I find some joy in deciding who I really am. Despite the prevalent opinion, I am fine with the MtF label, because I see it as an acknowledgement of my own decision to become myself. Our names are more deserving of respect because we choose it for ourselves. Years of thinking made me understand myself in a way that most people will never bother to do and that's why I can be certain that my self-image issues come from a wrong puberty, thus I need and deserve any medical procedure that undoes the damage. Gender dysphoria, euphoria, confusion, decision, none of those are meaningful just by the mere act of struggle, they mean something because of how I decide to shape myself.

Very often however, this is seen as a rhetorical inconvenience. I have seen sentences like "X is good/justified because it was born out of oppression" a bit too many times, the x can be really anything here. The lazy materialism is bad enough but the implication that the oppression passively bestows virtue is even worse. We hardly ever need this clutch, something can be good or bad on its own terms. Most things don't need to be justified with collective trauma. It is not less serious when we feel pain or simple comfort for reasons we don't entirely understand. Oppression just sucks. It doesn't bring validation. There is nothing enriching about having to choose between filial love and self-respect, between my safety and dignity, between paranoia and ennui. It is all cruel, heavy, crushingly dull and heavily maddening. But I will never accept that I am merely a sponge absorbing my misfortune. My infinite appreciation for pleated skirts will always triumph over the lost time I am accumulating each second I am in the closet.

Gender dysphoria is not enough to define me. It is not the universal trans experience. It is certainly much more than a collection of heritable impulses, if they exist at all. Society is at fault for our distress. Yet, even though I can't say this for any other trans person, I am the problem to myself, I am the only person that can fulfill my oldest wish.

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons, namely: Effy, Laura Watson, Makkovar, Morgan, Olympia, Otakundead, Sasha. Also thanks to Alex(@punishedgenetic on Twitter) for his perfect editing work.

Falling and Standing Up

 Last September I announced that I was heading towards a much more productive path. It went nicely for two months. Then the stress accumulated from my parents’ relationship problems from last summer, coupled with the amount of weird waste of time errands I’ve been tasked with, combined this all together has completely destroyed my pace. I slipped back into old habits. Watching Youtube videos that don’t entertain me all that much, getting to bed and waking up late, feeling sleepy randomly during the day, not wanting to cook, not wanting to shower, not even playing any video games properly. I was even too much of a mess to upload cat pictures sometimes. 

Perhaps most importantly, I have become more fragile. Sometimes even small inconveniences bring me to the verge of tears or plunge me to despair. Some bad words from others, dropping stuff onto the floor, slight delays, some leftover food turning rotten, waking up late, falling asleep during the day, seeing the bed untidy,  things of that kind… Recently when I was cleaning the house, the vacuum cleaner’s lid was open and some dirty water spilled onto the carpet, which made me lie on a sofa for three hours thinking how much of a failure I am…

In a way it is a good analogy for my life.

Are these excuses for my deep fundamental laziness? Perhaps to some extent. But it is obvious, in this instance, I have some external reasons that keep me from doing things. To what extent does this play a factor is the question. I could always be more diligent, more disciplined, more patient. Nothing technically keeps me from having a regular sleep schedule, being attentive in school, having regular updates on the blog, studying Japanese or learning to cook better food. I don’t have any debilitating physical issues (sans my crippled hand and foot but they are not relevant here), I have pretty a good standard of living with a nice apartment that has good heating, adequate clothing, a variety of healthy food, constant Internet and good equipment, enough money to go around, and perhaps above all, still being able to study without worrying to much about a career. My complaints do sound like mere excuses, in the past I had this excuse, now I have that excuse… What about people with much more unstable lives, people in terrible jobs, people who live in war zones? What about their dreams? Most of them probably cling to their desires more than I have ever done! 

Even writing this very article is excusing myself. Isn’t this a way to say “oh look at me, I am conscious about those who have worse than me, validate me, tell me how much you understand me,and let me linger on my pathetic existence” Even acknowledging this is a form of self-flattery isn’t it, like, really, sincerely, who cares about whether I am self-aware or not. Writing this means I am beautifying the ways I am allegedly suffering. Choosing words carefully, patting myself on the back when a sentence pleases me, why the heck is my mood so good when writing this? Is this catharsis or mere egotism? Maybe both?   

But is this a rational way of thinking? Can I even judge what is rational or not? I fear that such an ability is above me, at least on this very matter.

I mean at the very least, the fact that people read what I write, some even directly telling me about liking it or even donating money to support it means that it is valued in some way, right? At some point my self-flagellation feels gravely disrespectful to those who believe in me. No, my significant others don’t just placate me when they praise me. It feels even more egotistical to say that everyone is either putting up a charade or falling for mine.

No, the simple truth is, whatever the reason, I am a failure to some extent. People see something in me but I am unable to live up to it. I dream a lot but don’t act enough.

But I am not a total failure.

I have friends. I have long ongoing relationships. I have been more attentive lately. I am able to get up early and get through the day without sleeping. During the last couple of months, I was still able to get progress in some projects. My recent leek dish was quite good. My love of computers and programming has increased, I am slowly becoming a full blown Linux person. I am keeping a diary and semi-reliably archive my thoughts, emotions, night dreams and habits with promising consistency. I have been getting back to studying Japanese too. The word game “Kotobade Asobou” and Duolingo have reactivated something in me. I have been doing pull-ups, I have found that it is a good way to clear my head and fight my worries, my weight has stalled, or is even, ever so slowly decreasing as of writing this. My Youtube relapse could have been so catastrophic, but the time-wasting errands paradoxically prevent it as much as it enables them. I am just too self-aware of watching stuff for the sake of it usually, and still don’t find much joy in most things I have been watching. Instead, I was able to watch a couple of movies, which might be a topic for later. Even various errands and chores aren’t always bad. There is nothing wrong with walking under clear, refreshing wind and I have discovered a domestic side of myself. As much as I have found easy to get desperate, recently I have found it to easier to bounce back too. And, for what it’s worth, even in my darkest moments, I have never contemplated escaping or finishing it all. I have never given up for good.

Things are getting better, maybe?

There wasn’t anything erratic from my parents’ side recently. I guess that helps a lot. Too much perhaps, I fear what will happen if things get heated again? Will my fledgling sleep schedule get reset in one stroke like that? But in a way, being anxious over that makes me more mentally prepared, however little.  

But no, things are getting better because I am trying. What you will read might sound pathetic to you, but it was a true moment of change for me: For the last couple of weeks I was occupied with the game called Red Alert 3. (And its standalone expansion, Uprising) I played it way back in high school, but I was never really good at strategy games. The game has a mode called Commander’s Challenge, a series of loosely-ordered maps you are tasked to beat, unlocking more units as you do. Back then, it kicked my butt. But after playing the game with a  friend, a voice in my head called for it. I felt as if the game challenged me personally. 

Then I played it, and completed the mode, finishing the levels under par times too. Then went ahead and finished the campaigns on hard difficulty. It is not quite as impressive as it might sound, I have taken plenty of help from the Internet. But I have used my own tactics too, and the execution is still mine. Above all, I have proved something to myself. Mere days ago I was too washed up to even play video games. But now, something has awakened inside me yet again. And thanks to that, I am able to write this article, with remarkable speed too..

Obviously there are lots of areas to improve but it’s not all bad, right?

Perhaps the vacuum cleaner is a good analogy, the spilled water wasn’t an important problem and it didn’t affect the cleaning in the end. Just like that, despite relapses and setbacks I can get up. I might move slowly, I might need to get faster, I might stumble a lot, but I won't go back. I really don’t want to do that.

In September I announced a somewhat bold schedule, but was only able to deliver a single article. Now I am wary of actually promising anything. I have even delayed publishing this article for about a month, I didn’t want to give a false impression. But I  truly want to write about something fun in the upcoming weeks. Otherwise the all-consuming void will return and now the void makes me irritated, because the time I spend crawling, mopping or walking around in cold sweat means even more wasted time. I also would like to keep a decent sleep schedule. Just like how not being able to continue anything makes it harder to return to productivity, when I get productive even a little in one area it just gets all that easier to start being productive in something else. 

So, yes, I apologize for the umpteenth time for under-delivering. I draw great strength from all those who keep believing in me. I will fight harder. I can’t say “look forward” without feeling bad, but, just… don’t be surprised if I release an article about something besides my personal woes soon! I hope this isn’t worrying, I just don’t want to break promises. I am supposed to be deliver one honestly-in-most-respects a short article a month, and I should be able to do it, and I want to do it, not for merely clearing guilt, but because it will pleasure me.

If you decided to endure my rant and think you haven’t totally wasted your time, I am really grateful. Hopefully, see you later again!   

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons, namely: Effy, Laura Watson,  Makkovar, Morgan, Olympia, Otakundead, Sasha. Also thanks to Alex(@jyhadscientist on Twitter) for his perfect editing work.

Challenges of Time

 

September 2021 marks the fourth year of this blog. So it’s a good time to reflect on myself.

I believe the quality of articles has increased this year. I don’t like bragging, but I can’t help but feel like I put a little bit more effort into my words nowadays. Of course, the editing contributions of my friend Alex cannot ever be overstated. It’s thanks to him that my essays look as professional as they do .

Have I made good on the “an article a month” promise so far? We have 4 months and I need to deliver 6 new posts (counting this). I need to make up for the past years as well, 2020 was kind of an embarrassment for the blog all things considered If I give myself 2 weeks between each article, I have the potential to deliver 8 essays, anything more would make me run out of topics pretty quickly, somewhat hurts the visibility of the posts and I don’t think I can even deal with the workload. But, an article every 2-3 weeks is not so bad, and I am quite confident to keep up my promise from now on. How? First, a little story:

When I was a teenager, there was not much going on with my life. Most of my time was spent on school and related activities and was quite isolated in many ways. But then, I started going to university. My English was now proficient enough and I had lots of free time, so I could finally surf the Web.

And surf I did. On various forums, sites like Wikipedia and TVTropes, I have devoured every novel information like a starved animal, most of which would be obvious to most of you, but not to me, because I was living in a bubble. One website in particular would prove quite influential on me: Youtube.

There were let’s plays, media reviews, little weird videos and all kinds of interesting stuff. I have watched so many videos, for years. A lot. Admittedly too much. However, I got a lot of out of it too:

• My English jumped from “usable” to “casually good”

• It gave me motivation and a pop culture foundation to start this blog!

• I discovered a good 95% of the music I listen to here, especially anything that’s not from a game or anime soundtrack.

• Some of the best things I have watched were on Youtube. Both educational and artistically. (A recommendation list is a decent idea for another blog)

• Youtube, for everything bad about it, is actually a quite amazing free source of constant and easily-available entertainment, both to listen casually and to actually learn things from.

It is also “the constant and easily-available entertainment” part that has bitten me quite a bit in recent years. Easier than studying, creating, working, reading, playing, messaging, showering, cleaning… I won’t say it’s addicting. For one, I have never craved it constantly. I could do just fine when I did not have access to a computer. Also, I was well-aware about its ability to eat my time for years.

But it was so easy. Just watch this video, maybe that one too. Just a 10-20 minutes before getting into any kind of work. While distracted, the mouse hovered on Youtube again and again. It’s just so easy to watch when you just hop on the computer, taking a break, eating something, feeling tired at night, or just want to do nothing in particular. Serials or movies are not really the same for me, they require commitment. Youtube doesn’t. It’s always there. Occasionally, a circular interest takes over me and for a time, my use of Youtube will be limited. But, I always return to it not long after. Occasionally, Twitter has proved itself to be bad for my productivity as well, but nowhere close to Youtube. Youtube was always there, was never noticeably dull, and most importantly, demanded nothing but my time.

I knew this was draining me slowly and making me quite unproductive. “Productivity” is a heavily loaded word, but I use it here for anything I want to do. I love learning, getting better at things, or just engaging in some art, you know? So, I tried to fight back against it.

My method was putting them in the background. Most Youtube videos are quite understandable without actually seeing them. Occasionally, it worked well enough. I was writing articles, playing games, chatting with my friends

and while catching up to the good content.

These spikes of productivity were the exact thing that deceived me. After all, under enough pressure or with a burst of passion I was quite capable of having a nice couple of productive days. This is exactly what made idle watching so dangerous. It is how Youtube proved to be “draining”. “Listening in the background” stretched one hour of writing into a whole day. Paying attention to anything for long proved quite difficult. Scant few types of videos are actually non-distracting, but even they can open a door to distracting videos. For every one decently productive day, I was having a week of trying to do anything in the middle of Youtube and Twitter feedback loop. I was zombie-watching.

About a few weeks ago, I said enough was enough, and stopped watching videos.

This was not giving it up cold turkey, I tried that and that doesn’t work. Old habits eventually creep in. No, this was a fundamental shift in how I was going to use the website. I decided that I will watch Youtube only in two cases:

• When it’s maybe one-two hours away from sleep and I can’t think of anything better to do.

• When a video is genuinely worth allocating time, I will still prioritize watching it in “off-work” hours, unless it is relevant to the work I am doing.

The immediate effect was to realize how truly draining the zombie-watching was. Like wow, there is so much time to do things now. When I want to sit down and study for a couple of hours, I can do that now. I can write articles without the ebb and flow of my attention, I don’t have to look at the same screen the whole day just to be able to write a couple hundred words. I don’t need to scapegoat responsibilities like cleaning or shopping for my lack of time, I have time. I don’t need to turn to the same Youtube videos I have watched a dozen times or refresh the page again and again just so I can distract myself from the gnawing feeling that my life is slipping away. When I lay in the bed I don’t have to think about how I am useless and unable to achieve anything. I have never been this productive for this long even with some external force pushing me. It doesn’t feel like a sprint either, I just have the willpower to start and finish any task, something I have lacked since I began 10^th grade. Knock on wood...

After not watching for a while, not watching indeed has proved quite easy. This is how I can say with certainty that I wasn’t addicted. Regardless of the quality of their videos, I wasn’t following most channels I did out of active interest. They were just good enough content that I can use as someone would get drunk to forget the pains. Quitting made me actually appreciate the limited time I now spend watching videos. They feel enjoyable in a way that the never-ending mill of content I was half-watching while trying to do something never was. They stopped being “content”, they became comedy, opinion pieces, documentaries, tutorials, cute animal videos again.

The final revelation was that I was, actually, quite bored. I craved something that wasn’t Youtube, that wasn’t just someone else's opinion or research. I wanted to engage in art, to learn and to create! After a long time, I played video games again, and without trying to listen to something in the background, without Alt-Tabbing every ten minutes to check the timeline or refresh the Youtube page! And I found out that my habits made me somewhat fragile! A couple of years ago, I was able to play games for hours and hours without breaking a sweat, now playing more than about 4-5 hours makes me somewhat tired. But it’s all good, it means the brain is getting used to paying attention again.

Part of the reason why the new posts were coming so erratically was that I was plainly having a hard time coming up with something interesting. Living so passively drained my creativity quite a bit too. The topics I have written about for a couple of months were either long in the drafts, or were found by mere accident. Sometimes, old ideas did not help either. Some topics have been in the drafts for so long that I have completely forgotten my opinions about them. In retrospect, it is actually miraculous that the posts turned out as good as they have.

My sole steady creative output was my amateur constructed language project, which I gave a little introduction here last year. After a couple of months, it too succumbed to my circling interests. There were other excuses too of course, like school and housework. Months later, I returned to work on it, but didn’t like where it was going, and began anew. It’s 90% thanks to that project that I was spared from falling into serious mental issues, quite similar to how I was using this very for a similar effect back in 2017-2018. That time, being enrolled in graduate school saved me. This time, it’s entirely through my own efforts and some feedback from my family. No more trying to write anything in between endlessly chasing every new video or tweet. I am really determined. I won’t feel terrible for my own foolish habits! No more!

So then, what will I do instead? Maybe watching some anime I wanted to watch for years, reading and finishing some physical books, paying proper attention to my school, doing real programming work, actually planning a program to study Japanese in a disciplined manner and so on…

What does this mean for you, dear reader? Well, as stated before, I intend to release a new essay every 2-3 weeks. I can’t always guarantee that they will be as big as the previous one, but hopefully, you won’t be disappointed quality-wise.

I don’t like to publicly declare article topics because I can change ideas fairly easily, but you might see a couple of articles on video game genres. That topic is quite interesting to me, and it’s something I can endlessly talk about. I could also remake more articles. The ones that are old enough that most people won’t remember. A lot of stuff on the website could use a clean up. Perhaps my opinions have even changed since then. In particular, Battle of Middle Earth articles still stand out as disappointments to me. Other than that I won’t promise anything too specific, just your usual video game musings, and perhaps some other media critique as well. I hope you enjoy those!

One topic that was in my head for quite a while is how to present my conlang project. Should I do it when it is developed to a certain point or should I release small stuff while I am doing it? Unless you are already greatly into conlangs, neither seems like an interesting prospect. I want to make it appealing to a more general audience, and maybe get people more interested in languages too? Lofty ideas, surely, but a woman can dream.

Certainly, I have a lot of dreams. One of them is to have another 4 years writing this blog. 4 good years. Perhaps one day, it will be more famous. But I don’t care too much. Enjoying that there is a place I can organize my thoughts and knowing that other people also get to enjoy seeing it matters by itself. Being able to make an allowance on top is already miraculous enough. Perhaps one day I will gather confidence, discipline and enough literature background to try fiction writing too.

For that to happen, I need to avoid falling back to destructive cycles again. So far, it’s going pretty alright, but there are still improvements to be made. Some say that worrying about time efficiency is a product of capitalism. Which is largely correct, and we need to all remember that we are not factories, that mindset is equally destructive. But no matter what, I plainly don’t like the feeling that I am doing nothing with my time. If I could live in a society where I could sleep all day without any repercussions, the feeling would still haunt me. At its core, it’s not really about a sense of responsibility towards others, but something deeper. Not a cry to “Create, create, create!” but a raw desire to keep the thought-mill spinning. Daydreaming has been my most defining trait since when I was a wee child. Dreams forever await me to weave. And for that, time must be used cleverly. There is no merit to cry over wasted opportunities, no point in worrying about an uncontrollable future. I just want the seconds slipping away at this very moment to amount to something. Just not empty-brain watching life as a film reel.

My advice for you is the same too, dear reader. If you sincerely feel that Twitter, Youtube, Reddit, a Discord channel, a video game or any other nominally recreational way to spend your time is making you miserable, then quit! Perhaps you don’t need to give up entirely, then restrict yourself! Customize the social media for your benefit, don’t finish the series you don’t enjoy. Stop making memes about how you keep doing the thing you hate. Change is not easy, it took me so long for me to fully gain this level of consciousness, you might have many additional problems that push you into this cycle, and the entertainment industry very much feeds on people’s bad habits. Something in our hearts wants to keep us in perpetual misery in regret and yearning. It seems inescapable at times. But know this, you are never too late to reclaim your present, no matter how many times you have relapsed. Your day can always be a little better...

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This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons, namely: Effy, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar, Morgan, Olympia, Otakundead, Sasha. Also thanks to Alex(@jyhadscientist on Twitter) for his perfect editing work

The Black, Gray, White and Purple Of My Life

"I am ace" written under a picture of attraction layer cube
This text includes discussions of sexuality and mentions of sex, genitals, porn and descriptions of discomfort associated with them.

Black

At the dawn of my puberty, feelings I have not yet encountered entered my heart. Girls' bodies were now kind of different to look at. An incredible urge to look at them, perhaps even touch. Never understood what that feeling is exactly.
Years later, it is still an unknowable dark hole.
Well, not entirely accurate. I am conceptually aware what that is, it is a feeling I am supposed to have. The feeling every other kid is supposed to have...
Why then it is still so weird? A complete dark hole.
Women are so pretty, always feels nice to hold hands, to give and receive headpats, to be physically close,  to snuggle, to kiss, to feel each other's bodies, to sleep together...
But between legs? A complete dark hole.
Penis is much more even so, presumably heightened by dysphoria. Everything about them is so weird. Why would anyone touch them, or insert them in their bodies? Or desire the liquids that come out from them. Salty, people say. No, I only feel the stench.
Just a sweaty, smelly, sticky, scary dark hole.

Gray

Why scary? I do not hate sex. I did not have a trauma causing an aversion. But my understanding is just like an academic textbook: Coldly describing as a physical act, as a social relationship, as a literary trope, something provenly exist, yet remains mysterious, as it can't be experienced first hand.
Like a gray recording of an alien sighting by an old camera.
Yet, like aliens, it lives vividly in imagination. And, like aliens, sex is something too otherworldy, it is not part of my dream world. Scarlet of romance, rose of passion, icy blue of future, orange of connection, forest green of joy, even lavender of fetishes but... no sex.
Presumably it could be brown, white, pink and red but in my world... it is just gray.
Why do I have a sex drive? Wood in the cold, wet, rusty stove. It would be more useful anywhere else. As it is, it just feels rotten, uncomfortable. But also wasteful and broken, the stove might be fixed with some work, the wood might be warmed up with some effort. If I tried harder, I feel, I could light the fire. And with the warmth of romance, there seems to be something close to an ember. That makes me feel guilty even more. I am not trying hard enough.
As it is, only smoke comes up, a feeble, gray smoke.
For years, I have put up a massive facade to prove my masculinity but even something beyond that. I joked about bedding people, constantly roasted other boys and got roasted by them with "gay", "masturbated", cared about size of my junk, had a giant stash of porn my friend gave me, long expected to marry one day and have kids. Because that's just you do, as a boy. But also, I still had this connection, a connection that have always haunted me.
An ash-gray thread that's too thin to follow, but too strong to tear. A gray-asexual I am.

White

I wish when I saw a picture of an attractive woman I had Proper feelings of a woman-loving-woman. That rushing feeling of desire I am sensing in most people. It is impossible not to sense this. A secret party you are not invited to, but one so massive that it is impossible not to detect, one I am casually expected to be part of, and something feels off that I am actually not. It is impossible to not feel like something is missing about me.
Some parts are left blank on my character sheet, a white empty space.
I wish I was an adequate partner. My lovers tell me this is not a problem. That might be correct too, since they have met and took a liking in me as a shapeless internet being. They could also have other partners for that stuff. Yet, it is impossible not to feel like I am depriving of feelings they could have with me, and that they have to tolerate something lesser to be able to form a bond with me. Certainly, many thinks what seperates friend from a partner is sex. The trejectory any and all relationships go to. The peak of human connection. The event that consummates the marriage. And look at me, a virgin complaining about sex. Even if I looked pretty, most other people would flat out fulfill my lovers' needs better, someone who is not a weirdo. This is just something I always have to live with, something that always hits on my face, something that always leaves a shadow behind me.
A blinding white light I can never escape from.
Most animals want sex  And for more social ones, it fulfills needs and desires beyond procreation. The omnipresensce of sex cannot be explained with such innocent causes however, it developed as a part of ideology of the capitalist society, namely, the sex as the core truth of an individual. A human is not a true person unless they define themselves and act through a sexuality, so that they can be optimized for a productive heterosexuality. Not as mere partner preferences: but body parts, brain, apperance,  healthcare, adulthood, gender, personality, legal placement, and all of the activities which might possibly seen as sexual. To be openly "asexual" then, is to reject this optimization, and so, define yourself as less then a full person. This is much more than self-identification: To be nude is to be sexual, unless you are a medical subject or a criminal. Insufficiently attractive cis women and effeminate cis men are deemed asexual unless they can conform into being regular heterosexual agents. Trans people are in a more interesting situation, they are being repressed into stop their transition, but also the transition itself is pipelined into a fetishized and medicilized process to acieve heterosexuality. Trans people who fail at both are rendered inhuman, asexual creatures. An asexual trans woman is then, a true eldritch horror of this societyç
The same horror a white guy with a white face and a white coat in the white building feels when he is talking about how hormones may decrease your libido.
Having a marginalized sexual identity is to be excluded from having an essence, and lacking an essence is to be a soul deprived of a body. Endlessly searching for a body, we fight against ourselves, and everyone else to fit in one. We fight, because to canonize ourselves in the society,  we are expected to give up our agency. The language of validating an identity ofen emphasizes past lives, trauma, workings of nature and fate while denying an identity emphazises actions, choices, vanity and re-identification along the lines of former. "You are not [label], it's just [verb], real [label] have [painful condition]" and "[label] is [description of vain action], you are actually [another label] but just [verb]" are ever-present sentences in the Discourse. Even communities who push back against open essentialism does not escape this. Trans communities are positive towards self indentification for example, but the collective trans identity is still heavily centered around medical processes and destined-by-the-stars narrative. So called "micro-labels" can also be see in this light: Many of us feel that our experiences are not relevant unless we can catalouge them in detail and naturalize them into time-transcendent capsules. I myself contexualized my asexuality the same way in this very text!  But the backslash against them is even more indicative of an essentialist thinking: Why would anyone be riled up at words that presents no harm to them and makes the people who use it happy? It always comes down to what is a "real identity", what is a core truth, something that can be traced back to a documented pain, a productive purpose of existence, the established scientific and political language, and most importantly; brain wires. While this behaviour can certainly escalate intro bigorty, I can relate to this desire, the desire to have a stable place in a society.
Essentialism is a sweet white sugar, white as the light shining on Foucault's bald head.

Purple

How much of our agency it's worth to destroy to fit in? As painful as wondering aimlessly can be, trying to squeeze in to something I am not would be much more painful. I am just a sex-averse weirdo and there is that. Sure, it is often quite alieanating, but I have pretended someone I am not for way too long, and it is a mistake I won't do again, especially not so that my life can be appopriated for some reactionary narrative on sexuality.
I have embraced my eternal ethereal existence, flying in a lonely purple heaven, sometimes scary, but sometimes oddly pleasant.
Pleasant, yes. Let people treat me like an alien, I will also welcome them as such. Let the light of expectations tries to blind me, I will turn my past to an umbrella that will protect me. Let I be the wrong kind of sapphic woman, my partners love me, they love me for who I am. Let people call me incel, my lovers yearn for my touch.
My fire might be feeble, but when it can be lit, it has pretty purple flames.
This might seem like narcissism, but I have really felt I have been free of a burden I have been carrying so long. It's the exactly same feeling I have felt discovering my gender. It didn't "obscure my identity" like some believes, on the contrary, I have at peace with my love of women as I haven't been before. I am still very insecure, but I am aware that I don't have to be, I can be confident too and it is thanks to people talking about things and people giving names to experiences like me.
I am a colorless, boring plant, but with enough care I can have cute purple flowers.
It hurts not having one, but I don't need a core truth for myself. I don't need to use my insecurities as a foundation, I don't need to find a medical condition to make this more legitimate.. Something about my birth, something I saw, or just an aversion, it doesn't matter. If I change in the future, the feelings I have now won't lose any worth. This is not a report of a blood test. This is my story, with all of its troubles and wonders. I am just some kind of asexual.
It is my black, gray, white and purple of my life.

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This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.

 

Daydreams or Daily Nightmares?

Content Warning: Suicide mention
High school days... dreamy, busy, melancholic. Go to school everyday. Do homework. Worry about exams. Worry about your body. Daydreaming from childhood days continues with higher intensity. Ideas about the world starts to formulate. All dreams, non-existent history knowledge, aesthetics over actual concerns. Would be amazing if a benevolent leader ruled over us, yes? Yes...
University... A return to shell... isolated from most people,  including yourself. Starting to learning about world, the history, the people. Contemplating, devising, dreaming. Always knew the world isn't nice, but now old shames, ancient monstrosities, persistent evils have revealed themselves. Why they have to exist? Why we just don't get along fine? And the world is on progress, despite many attempts to stop this. In time, all injustices will be swept away and we can live in an egalitarian society just like humanity always deserves. But.. what to do? More healthcare, balance income with taxes, regulate the economy, more secularism, equal rights to all. An army dedicated to defence. A truly democratic, pacifist state.
Some more years pass... Should you vote? But the more you look into things, parties look more alike. Corrupt, false promises, only care about staying in power... Even their rhetoric gets similar to each other... No-one cares about your values, no-one brings up everyday's people's issues. All of them lie, in fact.. the nation itself lies. You knew the imperialist powers of the world... how bloodthirsty, genocidal they were, and still bring only misery everywhere they go. But you believed for long that your nation was not one of them. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't one of those nations. Your ancestors didn't attack innocent people for no reason... All of the knowledge is wrong. The old history books, the flag that you felt cozy about now are as cold as death. War, my god why so many wars? Why your own state oppresses its own people so much? An answer, you need an answer...
Four years end. You are now supposed to graduate. Some of your dreams have fallen apart. You wanted to make video games, to be able to touch people's hearts, just like the ones you played. But all the voice you hear is different: Enter in a bank, start in professional life. Carrier, social climbing, project managers. ...Software is soulless. What does this really do besides making money to someone else? Other jobs pay too low, or require you to have the experience you don't have... Hate all of this... You always wanted to create, make people happy. Never wanted to be rich, just make a living and do whatever makes you happy... some nice house, food on table, don't like cars, enough to buy some video games and books. Maybe would go aboard, like Japan. Marriage, marriage would be so nice, but it is so impossible?.. No one would like a ghoul like you... but it is fine. This, this job thing, this professional life is not. Ties, suits, that adult-men shoes?.. No way... I am not that person... I like my daydreams
Twitter, you have friends there. Now nice, some real interaction, with people after a long time. They speak differently, so differently, but yet so same. Your old truths, old dreams fall apart but the older truths and dreams resurface. The world needs to change, deeply. No borders, no power to bigotry, no more poverty, hunger, homelessness. No more selfish destruction of environment. Somehow, you always you knew this, but now you truly realise how deeply unjust everything it is.  All sources of domination must be dismantled. No more class society, no patriarchy, no hatred of LGBT people, no racism. Produce according to the need, not profit. Care of all. No more nukes, no more millions of deaths, no child will be a victim of war. No worry of your future, Pursue your dreams. Yeah, communism, perhaps something you always wanted. But now you know it, no political party, no benevolent leader, no supernatural being can provide it for you. People must do it for themselves.
Learn... you learn more, but not usually for the good. People rose so many times and it failed just as much. Things are going worse. Fascism is on the rise, bunch of rich people will burn the world, even when people get a little breather, it gets all rolled back. It's all personal too. You just want to dress like yourself, get a simple medicine. Just want to be a girl... Why people hate this so much? Why such basic, miniscule desires get so much pushback? Your friends get affected by it too... They need money, they are not safe, they suffer for being themselves, misery of oppressed people's continue as harsh as ever.
And you can't do anything about it! Can't defend anyone, not even yourself. Can't pick a  gun, your body does not allow it. Cannot join anything without being a burden or sacrificing yourself for nothing. You don't have plans to help, you don't have words to inspire. You can't even send a penny to your friends. Cannot even achieve your dreams... Too lazy, to inadequate... It all seems so distant, so impossible... You won't be able to hold the hand of your darling. You will wither here, in the closet, in a soulless job. You can't even properly leave this word bravely. That's what you deserve. Mere empty daydreams.. Perhaps you should despair,what can else you do? Even an artificial bliss before apocalypse is impossible. You know too much. You can't go back to a day where you only worried about the grades. So despair, hopelessness its the only rational thing... Everything will get worse and worse... and you can't do anything about it... trapped forever in misery...
No!
Pessimism is for the privileged. People are fighting their lives, for survival... always... continuously. Why they don't constantly despair? Perhaps they can't... Perhaps the momentary smile, the momentary happiness is all the have. They don't have an apocalypse they can passively wait. For some people, it's already there, everywhere... Yet still they cling to life, they still fight for their smiles, their dreams, a better future. And that fight is in many forms. sometimes being bravely yourself, being able to be happy is a fight in itself. They exist, and their existence matters to other people.
Maybe, my existence matters too? People say they enjoy reading what I write. Some people see me as a friend, some people say they find me cute, they love me. I am bad at many things, but I am getting better, steadily. I can be more useful. I can't save the world, but I can make people happy! One day, I will help people's dreams. I will make people smile. I will make people safer. How many people, probably not much, but even one person feeling better matters... I will make my own dreams come true too... I will see my darlings' eyes, I will feel their lips, I will wear nice clothes...
I don't have the privilege to despair, I can't rot away with my daydreams. No, my daydreams will be my torch. They won't isolate me from the world, they will connect  me to it. I will try my best, because I care, because the world that hates me certainly won't, because there are those who care about me, because I can't allow the evil world total victory over me. Things might be heavy, retreats are allowed, but I will carry the light for all who cares about me, because if I am good at one thing, it's carrying optimism. Perhaps some naivety, but mostly hope. Hope, not because good things will magically happen, hope because it's the magic that makes things happen. Hope, because we deserve better...

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Maciej Paszkowski, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.

A "Fantasyland of a Dreamy Girl" Retrospective

5 September 2017 is the day first article has been released in this site. And September 2018 is the time where my life started to turn in a serious positive direction after soe time. I have never fond of September, it reminded me of start of school but thinking back, it generally held good developments in my life. Perhaps, a month that is full of well-known tragedies being positive for me is a sign of my curse... But it's also a good time to do something different: Let's talk about this very blog itself a little... "Talk" is especially apt here as I will use a more casual format, like a monologue or thinking out loud, rather than an essay.
The idea of this blog goes as back as Spring 2017. In fact, that was when I opened up the sate. But it was just an idea, a vague future plan, like my millions of vague plans. The name is pretty basic, I daydream and overthink about things pretty often and this blog is where I write about those thoughts. After a busy school season and a rough summer I finally had free time, motivation and energy to actually start doing things for myself. don't remember what exactly made me to do so at that specific time, it seems unlikely that I would do it without serious motivation though. Anyways, on that fateful day, A Half Life Retrospective was finally out!
If you have been following this blog for a while, you can realise I have a certain structure on articles. If it's about a media, I first begin with a central idea or feeling I am trying to convey then examine in on the media that is the topic of the article, or talk about a certain aspect of a media. That's not wholly present in all articles though. The low-key feel of Half-Life is probably the driving force of this article, but it is too much like a review, which something I would not write today. There is nothing wrong with reviews, in fact I enjoy them quite a lot. That's never what I quite wanted here though, yet I haven't decide a certain direction back then; and this was the result.
I often return to my articles after I wrote them, making little improvements and fixes. I have never touched on this article though. It stays just as it exited the first draft. It didn't even get spellcheck, I didn't know that was a feature back then. It has some awkward sentences, many missing prepositions and conjunctions, random typos and a generic review language that slightly annoys me. Considering it was my first ever long freeform English writing for an international audience however, I think it's not too bad. I think I will preserve the article as is, it is important to see where I have started and the article  has some nostalgia factor too. I might round-up the thesis of this article in a larger Half-Life related article, if I get the chance to play other games in the series.
When I talk about media, I try to bring a perspective or an issue that has been not touched on a lot or try to cover stuff which I feel is deserving of more popularity. My second article is short but I think it communicates what I feel about Eternal Senia better. It has set the blueprints for my other media articles as it represents "my style" much better. I sometimes diversify a little by making listings or comparisons, but even then I still try to give a central feeling or a trend which deserves attention.
My 3rd article is kind of an odd ball. in that it's extremely short. Today, I honestly would not release something that short, I either wait it to grow and blossom into an actual topic or just make a thread about it on Twitter. Still, I guess it's not too bad for putting on this blog,  after all one of my goals is to experiment and find my own voice.
However, things like video games and anime isn't my only concern, I like history and of course all corners of my life are surrounded by politics. I want to learn about history and political theory and want other people to learn more as well. This is why I wrote an article about the nationalism and liberalism.  The information is there can be easily found but, I thought my followers on Twitter was fairly unaware of recent Turkish history, especially from a radical perspective. Overall, I think they do their job good enough. Back then, I thought of more articles like these but found out my knowledge is too lackluster for this. So, right now I am trying to learn as much as possible instead, as there is no shortage of misinformation and poorly thought or bad-faith arguments on the Web.
On the other hand, I can talk about things which directly is about my own identity much better, such as feminism and trans issues. Not necessarily because I see myself as some sort of authority or even a voice with any semblance of importance, but because they are about my experiences. I am trying to talk about these issues for the curious as well, but they are primarily about my (mis)adventures about making sense of... just about everything. This is why this blog partially feels so empowering. I am in fully closet in my offline life. Being open about myself and freely talk about things in my head probably improves my mental state a lot. Not to sound dramatic but without being able to just write my thoughts and people who even mildly care about "real me" reading it, I'd probably be had a much... emptier year.
And now, I am actually somewhat proud of it, even though as I am writing this I am anxious about sounding like I am bragging. With Trails in the Sky article series, I proved myself that writing is really more than a passing interest and I might be able to become an actual writer one day! I gush about something I really like, talk about game design issues which I don't think many popular games media do and with being a series of articles it is somewhat in-depth actually, like some long reviews I got the inspiration from! Speaking of which, I shamelessly stole both the idea of series of articles and making articles about game OST from queer_queenie (I highly recommend checking out by the way) I am happy to say I am actually nowhere near finished with it, not only there is room for more articles, there is also the entire Trails of Cold Steel games which are waiting to be covered here!
I am also proud of my anime articles, PMMM articles in particular. Not only the amount of thought I put into them, but I also feel good about the fact that I managed to talk about and praise Madoka Magica without using the word "deconstruction" once. It might sound funny, but if you know about anime discourse on Twitter or YouTube, you'd quickly see how much people love that phrase when they want to sound smart, especially how PMMM is so special. It's kinda of sad actually, because I do think , PMMM is truly special; not because its edginess or its meta importance. But because it is just meaningful on multiple layers and it truly touches to my heart on a fundamental level. That's what my blog is mainly about in the end, just things that gives me feelings. This is why I want to write about animation more as well! I love animation, but don't watch them nearly as I should, but I am slowly working on that as well.
Writing about other people's creations are always fun but I had always a deep-interest for fiction. A fictional world and stories about them is my one of long-time dreams. I want to experiment about them here too, things I did so far were mostly gifts to my partners, but they are not enough. One of my definite goals the future in blog is to have more place for small literary works, especially about fantasy fiction. I want to create my video game out of my fantasy universe or even write novels and stories. I don't know whether I will have the skill and means to be able to achieve it, but if I ever create something that is positive for people, if I have a good place in people's memory, I could truly feel my life has been meaningful. This, and the fact that I want money for my transition and moving out of my parents, is what made me to motivated about something this year.
In May 2018, I opened up my Patreon and this changed things in many ways. Of course, this blog will always be free to view for everyone and this will be always a place for turning the clouds in my head into words first and foremost, but I can't deny Patreon gave me a place of motivation where few things could. It's not even amount of money, which is by the way great as it is, but the mere fact that someone gives me money so I can continue doing this in a little more comfort, possibly as a serious money-making job in the future just makes you feel more responsibility. Having said this, I can't deny the terrifically low output in July and August, which one again I am deeply thankful for all those who held faith in me. But now, with the lifestyle and mindset changes I have made I am confident that I can be truly worthy of actually running a Patreon, perhaps even making some living out of it in the future.
Truth to be told however, I don't have much idea about how to actually grow right now. Most people who are decent at Patreon either do something popular, such as YouTube videos, can produce something that can be exchanged with money well such as drawing commissions, has a very good niche that draws people such as a comic or podcasts of a particular topic and often they start with a decent-sized fan base. I don't have any of it I was a small-ish twitter account and a small blog about my nerd ramblings isn't exactly exciting, to be honest. I can't give writings in exchange for pledges for the same reason too, but even if I could, it just doesn't feel right. This is not about how I have oh so great morals but it feels just wrong to put my knowledge, my mediocre articles and random opinions behind paywalls like this. Selling novels or games are different, although I could make them free too if I could and I am aware there is no realistic way about being completely fair about this under capitalism, but at least there is a certain time and effort investment in long projects that requires having a large amount of money. I think, if my Patreon is to seriously grow, it will probably come from something like that. I have some ideas in my mind, I can't give anything right now, but as I said before it will be related to a long-term creation.
I have more concrete plans what to do if I get a decent amount of money. I could pay for a WordPress server so you would be tormented with ads no longer. Regularly being able to buy newer media to write about has been a goal of mine for as long as I have opened the Patreon. I could comfortably make really in-depth research about interesting topics; like retrospectives about entire huge game series, history, niche literature, things that require travel etc.  Aside from being able to write longer stuff, I could do physical publishing after I get out of current situation and create a somewhat decent living for myself. I could maybe start a video channel for essays alongside this blog. I will give further information as things continue to develop.
I think "video channel" part deserves further explanation. Normally I am cold towards it; I don't want to get my horrible voice exist on the web for a serious project, my usual content is not long enough for a video anyways but also I like writing as a medium as a whole: I usually prefer people read my stuff over watching it and to be honest, a lot of video essays could be just as good as text or pure audio. I would only make video essays if I see using video as truly beneficial to subject. Otherwise, I have an idea for video/streaming channel that could happen in 2019, but it wouldn't be related to any essay stuff, just playthroughs or random stuff. Essentially a gaming channel version of this blog. But remember, no side project will be prioritized above the blog and long-term projects.
Talking about positive developments, goals and dreams is always well and good but not everything is pasta and yoghurt. I certainly made mistakes along the way. My old working schedule was one for example. I wanted to create as much as content as possible and gain a good discipline of writing but an article every two days was clearly not sustainable for long. I usually forced myself to write in late nights and struggled to find good topics to write. I am not really ashamed of any article in the blog, but some articles could really be deeper, could be written better, some articles especially ones that talk about meta-topics definetely need a reevaluation, there is a noticeable fluctuation of quality between some articles that got released in the same week.
Today, I am following a 2-3 articles a week schedule and it's working fine so far, save the week where I got ill. It reaches 8-12 articles a mouth, unless I release longer stuff. It is a pretty good and reasonable number, I think. I don't think I will reach it this month, unfortunately, unless I can my side Pokémon project stuff, which is also going well. For October however, from some of the things I have talked about, you can be ready for some exciting stuff!
To people who supported me emotionally and financially, who read my blogs and even read it for the first time with this article, I am deeply thankful! This autumn really feels hopeful, I hope can be worthy of your support even more in 2019!

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson and Spencer Gill.

A New Path Forward

Wake up. Eat breakfast. Open the computer and scroll in Twitter. Watch some YouTube videos. Eat lunch Watch more Youtube videos while pretending to write, read or study something. Take a peek on twitter again. Then look at Youtube to see anymore videos to watch. Think about all the games you want to play, all the books you want to read, all the animes you want to watch, how good it would be if you studied Japanese more, learned cooking, got better at programming, were more active on some Discord channels, talked to your loved ones more shaved, or even went outside a little. But, if anything leads you get off from computer, disdain every second because it wastes your precious time. Precious time you can use to do so much things! This is why you must stay in front of the PC monitor as long as possible. Then eat dinner. And surf on the Youtube with maybe some daydreaming in between. Feel bad when you did nothing all day. Stay up late because you want to get rid of the feelings of being empty. Then go to bed, thinking about you will surely change this if you focus a little more. Repeat everything tomorrow and the next day after that and the next day....

Okay, it is not always like that. Sometimes a huge splash of motivation comes. So, start being productive. Write a lot, watch an anime start to finish, start playing a new game maybe start a new programming project. Build a nice momentum and continue it with passion. But, life changes, things happen and the ember of passion dies out. So go back to what's comfortable. Remember how you felt so fulfilled and full of purpose when you wrote or played that game. Squeeze yourself to last drop of your will to be able to write some. Eventually guilt builds-up. A single article in a month. Finished that game in 5 months. Brilliant. Tell yourself this wouldn't happen if not for having too much responsibilities. If you just had a little more time, if you could stare at the computer in peace a little longer, right? Then go back to your regular cycle...

If you read my articles regularly (thanks a lot btw) you will realise I had a massive drop in quantity (and perhaps quality?) of articles and you can see in the tables above. It really shows how much difference a spark of motivation makes . It also shows the dangers of being dependent on pure motivation to do anything. To put in perspective, before last month, I didn't read anything for probably good 6 months. The last time I played a video game was last month. I also attempted to seriously give myself to programming 3 times these year. First went down when my PC's memory had to wiped out, second when I gave it up for fully focus on my writing (did not work), and third got failed because there were exams to steal my attention. Even my Twitter usage went down quite sharply. It cam e to the point that it took an immense amount of energy to force myself to do anything, besides watching videos, re-watching videos, surfing for videos, checking my subscription page every hour or read Tvtropes pages instead, because why not?
It has gotten to a point that even my family got worried about this, they had a long talk with me about two weeks ago. I was upset at this intervention at first but they did help me even they complained a bit too much about it. I decided to cut YouTube and everything that renders me passive in front of PC (Twitter is nt one of them, surprisingly), promised myself to shave every 3-5 days at max and go outside a little more. And the first thing to do was, shave my beard, right there, the moment I have decided. If I want to change anything at al, I must be able to channel my will into something I don't really want but should have done ages ago (not the beard, I hate the beard, that's partially why I hate shaving too ironically.) One week later, what changed?
At first, it kinda felt empty. I was not addicted to YouTube, but I simply didn't know what to do without it. There were times I couldn't access to the site in the past, such as during visits to grandmother, but I have never been away from it this long and while it was so easy to access, this was a new experience to me. But, I had to something else eventually, and I did! I indeed shaved again this week.  I have been able write two articles at once. I am regularly reading and studying programming again. Walking away from PC no longer feels painful. I wake up, make a rough plan of what I want to do that day, as long as I can reach time, I don't feel like I am wasting time. It actually feels pretty nice overall.
With my experiences and things I have been witnessed/heard from my friends, I learned such practices and rules to follow:

• If you decide do something right now or planned to do it at a certain time, give everything you can to do it. It can be very devastating to be able to not do it, I personally find very hard to muster same energy if I get deflated the first time.
• That's said, don't let it get to you too much if you can't do things you want because of unforeseen events. Things happen, that's life.
• Planning your activities is good. But do them daily or two or three days ahead at most. Working with certain minutes /hours might work for you, but personally it never does to me. I am too dreamy for that, I like small-scale but flexible goals like: "Today I will finish this article, read some then go shopping etc..."
• Do one thing at once. Some people can do two things at once well but usually takes years to get there. This includes things like "listening a video while working." That doesn't work for me at all. The most I can listen in the background are relaxing sounds and very specific tunes, stuff like YouTube videos and podcasts either 100% siphon my attention, or I can only actually understand them on re-watch/listen. But some people can listen even audiobooks just fine while they are busy. Find out what works for you and be honest to yourself.
• Also, don't do stuff like checking Twitter every minutes while writing. That slows down a lot. Concentrating is very hard for a lot of people and keeping stuff that gives notifications around doesn't help.
• If something is really, really on mind and it distracts you from doing something else, doing that instead is usually a better idea. People advise you on studying-almost-always when preparing for stuff like national exams, but that's so useless actually, just play that game you really want, just make sure you didn't develop an addiction towards that.
• Clean your room sometimes! Weekly or bi-weekly is nice. "A lion is understood by where it sleeps." says Turkish proverb, too-dirty rooms indeed just suck the energy out of you, not the mention dust is actually unhealthy. It doesn't entirely have to be orderly in a conventional way either, just make a living space that's actually convenient to you.
• Just because you are passionate about something, it doesn't mean you have to be motivated about it all the time. It's ok and often prudent to take a break from your regular habits. Make small changes in your life, like how I stopped YouTube for a week. For example, if you often find yourself to think "The games just don't feel good, like in general", then maybe don't play games for a while.
• Make sure you are able to stay away from stuff you regularly do/like to do for a while, it can very quietly turn into a obssession. You should be able to walk away when you no longer truly enjoy something.
• Passive activities can be good to decharge, but make sure most of your time is not passive. Even something like watching a video is much better when you are actively paying attention and thinking about it.
• On social media, learn to scroll down and let go of things. You don't have to think about or comment on every nonsense sentence a random person says. It's really better to block/mute a person when they make you uncomfortable, people aren't entitled to your attention. Not only it keeps you from doing literally anything that can be better for you, People who can't resist the temptation tend to complain about social media the most. If I may brag a little, I have become decent at this months ago and Twitter stays a nice experience for me, despite its large list of problems.

I am happy about the progress I have made but I definitely don't want it to turn into another failure. So I have put down a long-term path for going forward, not necessarily goals to reach but principles to follow:

• Watch YouTube videos only when you are done for the day, unless it's for an actual educational purposes or occasional short video.
• Never surf on YouTube, never jump video to video. Look at your subscriptions or stuff that you heard is good and watch only them (1-3 videos mostly) Don't search for videos to watch.
• Don't subscribe to channels that out too much videos
• Let's Play channels are quite no no. Funny bits are occasionally fine and longplays are can be good for articles or when you actively want to watch a game, but don't sit down and watch an 20 part let's play series
• Don't put videos, podcasts and music in background (Chill streams are fine for low attention tasks.)
• In general, avoid anything that gives "tv ad" effect like a plague, that is stuff that has no engagement but just keeps you watch passively.
• When you watched what you planned to watch, close the tab and don't go back.
• Don't re watch videos, unless you planned to do so for a purpose
• No Tvtropes, or overly researching/listing about a certain stuff, If you find yourself in a state of over think, turn that into a side project.
• Write down stuff you daydream/over think about, however trivial they seem to be
• Set small goals, divide large projects into small parts, everything looks so much bigger otherwise
• Don't over devote yourself to a single task, it makes you tired of even things you love, like writing. 3 articles at most seem like a good number for both keeping a good pace and not get exhausted at the same time
• Break the mold every once in a while, do something you usually don't do. It's better if does not involve pc
• Never make your beard grow longer than 5 days
• Find a way to shave your legs at least once before winter
• Make studying Japanese into a habit
• Study programming by actually programming (again, little stuff, don't let it became scary)
• Don't forget to regularly check your loved ones
• Make space to play games and watch anime/movies, no matter how busy you might look otherwise
• Find a way to express your femininity for yourself without giving a clue. Surely you don't look too masculine if you don't see your hair.
• Prefer walking over busses when you have time and the weather is friendly.
• Watch the rain and the night sometimes.
• Reading books in park is a good idea.
• Mobile twitter is ok but use it mostly for checking in
• Give yourself time to become more active in some certain Discord channels
• Try to talk to people who you would like to know more

These are enough for now I think. I hope I can keep a regular pace for myself this time and thank you for reading my open diary!
This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson and Spencer Gill.