COMMUNITY
Truth be told, I man at least 3-4 different communities online. There's the main Method to Madness group on Facebook where you're probably reading this post on or was linked to here that I have a Twitter account for that I honestly don't post on as much as I should. Then there's the Let's Talk Wrestling Blog group on Facebook that spawned from my Twitter account of the same name that I'm sure most of those followers migrated back and forth from FB and Twitter from my discussions and rants on there until I merged the blog with Method to Madness for my sanity in terms of updating things. There's also my wealth of friends and associates that I have met throughout e-fedding over the years and the ones that I have ran and still do to this day. And finally, I know a few artists on DeviantArt. I honestly don't share what I post on there via my blogging efforts as I tend to host more "mature" (read: adult/NSFW) content on there - mine and those by artists that I'm a fan of. If you're interested, I'm sure you can find my handle if you know some of my much older online aliases. I've had an account on there since high school, just didn't start posting much until recently. Hey, I get it, a lot of you guys let you kids read my content so I tend to have a bit of a filter on that stuff in terms of what line to cross on here.
That being said, I do some things that are not really to my benefit as a whole as a content creator - I don't allow all of these communities to bleed each other much. It's not that I haven't tried over the years. For example, I tend to let both the folks on the MtM end of things know about stuff I'm doing for LTW and vice versa from time to time on social media. Some people will bite, others won't, but the content is there on this same Blogspot page. The same goes for when I'm streaming video games on my Twitch channel that would cater to both audiences, but that gets little to no attention either.
To be quite honest, I know that I have myself to blame for all of that as I don't ever have a set schedule in mind when I do stream and it's usually at random or on a whim in terms of hours or what day I decide on doing it. I'm even worse at adding new content across the board, not only for these various blogs but for my DeviantArt as well. I'm still working on new chapters for B3 (Bullets, Blades, and Blood) and it's spin-off(s)/side-story/companion pieces but I'm hesitant to post them as I'm still doing tweaks and I want to design all of the key players in Daz3D/Daz Studio first. Having to replace and reinstall a hard drive really set me back on that front as I have to find and redownload all of my resource files that I had acquired for that program to create 3D models. On top of that, I haven't had the time to finish extracting files from the old, damaged drive(s) and while some files can be used others I have to scrap and rebuild completely from scratch, creating another headache.
My final words are that is ok to admit you need a bit of support and encouragement from time to time. Following your dreams isn’t the easiest thing to do, in fact it might very well be the hardest thing you’ll ever do.
And you don’t have to go the journey alone.
There are many, so many, who have gone before you, and are going with you, you just need to look for them and ask, do you reckon we can do this? I do.
I'm not knocking anyone who has help but own pride is going to be the pivotal contributor whether or not I find success or I fall on my face and completely fuck up all of these creative endeavors. I don't have anyone designing graphics for me or creating a funky, cool intro theme for my channel or webpage. I do all of this shit myself in my free time. What I don't know how to do, I'm painstakingly watching tutorial videos and reading how-to guides to learn to do so. And even then, I still don't ever think what I do is good enough, especially when I look around at what my peers are doing and accomplishing for themselves.
For example, my friends over at Retro Cat Adventures are always doing something neat or having something new cooking up their sleeves. If it's not Retro himself churning out retro gaming reviews or finding the coolest or obscure stuff to post about, he's got multi-talented girlfriend with her various art projects on display from paintings, digital art, and even sculptures - some of that they've used for an original table-top game of their own design. They are always around to socialize and interact with their community with their lively Discord channel to boot. Seriously, they have something for everyone to enjoy there and they don't need me to sound like a broken record that they are doing a hell of a great job at what they do. Regardless, I still tip my hat at what Retro Cat gang is up to over on their neck of the woods.
Another example? My buddy Chris Wade has his graphic design business up and running, dubbed VISUALCRACK. He lends his artistic talents to the benefit of both graphic design and musical avenues. Hell, he even has a podcast going too. Dude's making waves on all of those fronts. I couldn't be prouder of my friend. I doubt he knows but I have recommended his work when people have asked me to do graphic design work. (Laughs) I changed majors from graphic design after the first year in college. This dude's much more qualified than me at that stuff. I still fumble my through PhotoShop to this day.
Then there's BouKan and Sn0H. Both them have built their own respective channels on YouTube and/or Twitch and has a loyal, yet faithful viewer base. BouKan is always recording something of some capacity on her YouTube channel and enlightened me of a lot of games I would like to try someday. I envy the hell out of the time she has to play through all of these various titles to 100% completion and to have time to record and edit hundreds of videos to boot. Sn0H hit Twitch Affiliate status last year and got a sponsored spot to stream at Dreamhack Atlanta earlier this year. He's also one-half of the Lazy Gamers channel on YouTube that I guest-starred on their panel at the start of the year. Two content creators that I honored to call my friends, but even better all-round good natured human beings. They've both gone out of their way to offer to help me out from time to time, but I have respectfully declined over the years. Like I keep saying, this is my grave to dig and lay in. I do't want to drag anyone down with me when they already got good things going on their own. No need for me to muddle that up.
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| My thoughts exactly - one of many reasons I identify more with Squall than Cloud if I'm honest. |
I tried to start a community effort on Discord but I felt that project was a complete failure. I ran several communities on that in hope to connect the folks I liked interacting with on one platform but it just drew me to alienate myself from the platform completely. Twitter and Facebook are notorious about various notifications and what not, but when you're the administrator/moderator for said chat boards, it's just downright frustrating that this thing demands like 24/7 of your attention. I would go to bed and wake up to like about 200-300+ notifications on my phone from unread conversations on my servers. See, here's the difference between Discord and traditional message boards. A message board you can just read all of the threads/conversations that you missed at your leisure. Discord on the other hand, demands ALL of your attention no matter what time it is.
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| God, that line is misquoted horribly. It goes like this: "If everything truly has gone nuts, then I'll believe in myself and keep fighting." |
There lies the problem - I feel like I lose the sense of control of my own creation, thus that triggers my anxiety. I'm in my mid-late thirties and I have lived with anxiety for well over two decades. Situations out of my control is one of my triggers. The simple answer is learning to merely adapt as a sink-or-swim response but tell that to my brain. I have come to accept that I'm just not wired like everyone else. That concept is easy to grasp on paper but to actually do it? (Nervous laughter) Yeah, it's better said than done.
I know someone is going to be a wise ass and say "It's just the internet, get over it..." And that's the kind of insensitivity I don't tolerate. Truth be told, my anxiety got to the point where I despised even entertaining the thought of checking and managing my own servers and even checking notifications and messages. Most of you know how that ended - I deactivated all of them and haven't looked back since. I have seen how Discord has been a benefit for a lot of thriving communities, but for me, it was honestly just a pain in my ass just to micromanage when I have more than enough on my plate as is.
Maybe I should have assigned some mods to police stuff while I'm not around, but you can ask any of my e-fedding friends, I have absolutely next to no trust when it comes to trusting people to do things for me, especially when I've been stabbed in the back at almost every turn when it comes to that stuff. For example, I have some members with VERY limited staff powers on my current e-federation, but I vastly handle everything myself from writing shows, posting results, booking cards, editing/updating the roster lists, etc. I know I'm driving myself crazy and possibly to an early grave but I rather handle it myself or see things spiral out of control again like they have on numerous occasions in the past.
ONE VS. THE WORLD
There's moments where the thought that I'm ultimately wasting my life working on this stuff creeps up into the back of head. Most of the time I can push it aside and continue on with my day to day life, but rough days like the past week, it's hard to ignore. I was binge-watching the entirety of GLOW Season 3 on Netflix last weekend and it really hit home when Ruth (one of the main characters) was doubting her own path in life and wondering if she's been wasting her life up to this point, living others' dreams and not aspiring for her own. I would be lying if I don't think about that almost every time I pick up a gaming controller, flip on the TV, or do remotely anything that's not in association to what I went to college for. I mean, that's normal right? You see your friends getting married and having kids, then making career moves/changes/promotions, and despite your happiness and admiration for your friends, family, and peers' successes, you start wondering, "What the fuck am I doing with my life?"
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| The ironic thing about this quote is that I used to identify a lot with Heero Yuy when I was younger, but the older I get, the more I realize that I was on Zechs' path that he describes here all along. |
If I'm perfectly honest with myself, I started blogging as a justification that I was putting the skills that I went to college for to good use. I have two degrees in Media Arts & Film Studies and Information Technology. I apply my critical and analytical thinking to the stuff I love in nerd culture (gaming, comics, film, etc.) and discussions on professional wrestling while using my web design knowledge on maintaining this site for those skills won't go to waste.
As much as I enjoy blogging, I can't help but be a loss on what to exactly write about more days than not. I read that piece that I linked at the start of this article and I just thought it would be a good idea to just talk from the heart, tell you guys what's going through my head. I'm an introvert - I spend a lot of time to myself as I don't really like letting too many people in. VERY few people get that privilege, but I feel comfortable enough to share tidbits in articles like this from time to time. I've done it on DeviantArt for a few weeks and stopped as I was pretty much just rambling to myself. I remember having a LiveJournal account back in college and I would chronicle everything from day to day endeavors and routines. That too I grew tired of as I felt it became a chore as I was boring myself with it. It was completely private so that's all who I was writing to - an audience of one.
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| Hmph, a lot of my decisions I've come to regret or have come back to bite me in the ass as of late... |
I mentioned one of my anxiety triggers earlier and I have another - clingy people. I've dated some clingy women no problem over the years, but I'm talking about the people who pop up into your mentions, DMs (Direct Messages), or IMs (instant messages) literally the second you log online. That shit gets me every single F'N time, especially when I get home from a hard day of work and just want to turn on the PS4, put on my noise-cancelling headphones and not worry about a goddamn fucking thing for while escaping into the realm of video games for a few hours. But no, you can't tell people to fuck off or leave you alone, that's when you get called a jerk by the vast majority who don't understand what introverts go through on a daily basis. I have to "recharge the batteries" so to speak and take a break from being social. I'm not a social butterfly in the least. I feel bad about sneaking online at random times "invisible" just to check and respond to a few messages and pop right off as I know there's going to be a flood of messages if I did pop online normally. I get it - people care - and I appreciate and value that a lot actually. But clingy people make me feel extremely uncomfortable as if they are forcing their way through my barriers/walls of personal privacy. (Sighs) The only thing I ask is to back up a bit and let me breathe, goddammit.
When I let people in, it's baby steps, much like this blog entry, not all at once. Call me crazy or whatever but that's just how I am. That's why I'm overly cautious about respecting people's boundaries and what not as I don't want anyone to feel like I'm smothering or annoying them with my presence. I get it - people have lives outside of the Internet and have other people they rather spend their precious time with. I don't need to be in constant communication with everything under the sun in everyone's lives. That's one reason why I go out of my way NOT to check Facebook or Twitter at times. There's far too much information about people in the open.
I don't think I will ever understand having that much information about yourself in the open for the Internet can know about you more than you know about yourself, especially from all of this data collection compiling that companies like Google and your ISPs (Internet Service Providers) do on you on a regular basis. At the end of the day, I'm content with sharing with you guys and gals the cool stuff that I have come to enjoy while at the same time, getting personal with my readers on an emotional level to let you know where my head is at times.
For the few of you who have read this from start to finish, thanks for allowing me to bare my soul a bit. To the rest, thank you too for the constant reminder for the audience that I'm playing to.
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