sundrugs

[sundrugs]

30 days. I decided a month ago I needed to reassess my relationship with alcohol, and figure out what was making me use the stuff even when no one was around and I was just wallowing in my own mediocrity--

It turns out, the answer is: nothing. There was no reason. It's just a bad habit.

I actually intend on returning to drinking socially at some point (never a problem for me, god's honest truth), but I'd rather not ruin my body and health by doing it by myself. Alone.

Since the answer was nothing, I've replaced it with nothing... and I'm surprisingly fine. ¯\_(ツ)_/��

[sundrugs]

I wasted 2021, which I know now because I'm not wasting it anymore.

It seems like I return to this point a lot, a liminal space in which I'm fed but not overly satisfied, stone cold sober, and just kind of waiting for the daily process to add up. This time, at least, I have something to show for it after almost a month; the problem is, I keep "disappearing", so the only people who would notice are those whose opinions I couldn't care less about (entirely my fault).

Still, that's only surface level. I've also been grinding -- out of necessity -- in terms of procuring a nest egg, to the point now where I could really disappear for a good year or so and come out the other end just fine. It's not that I want to do that, it's just interesting how I care much, much, much more about vanity than financial stability. I haven't even noticed the latter, whereas the former is a daily thing.

Why?

Well, I don't know. It just is.

"Priorities are strange," he concluded while eyeing a bottle of melatonin and deciding to finish the evening with a dose of it instead of poisoning himself with alcohol, having gone back and forth on it a good seven times.

[sundrugs]

 This is gonna be inside baseball.

Over the last two and a half years, I have recorded 178 episodes of my podcast. I have spent countless hours (I cannot begin to stress how many) editing it, promoting it, wrangling guests, managing the Discord server, and beyond. Well over 200,000 people have tuned in.

This show has been my life for basically a quarter of a decade. And I am now considering ending it.

In 2020 I had to scramble to soft-reboot it, 149 episodes in, after my co-host #1 left the project under pretty hostile circumstances. It took an incredible toll on me at the time, and it made things weird for the show, because one of its two major elements (the hosts) was gone. One of the two things that made it what it was, just wasn’t there anymore. That whole era of the show’s backlog has someone completely different on it than there is now. People who listen to current episodes, like it, and start from episode one are always going to be left confused. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

I was fortunate enough to pick up my creator friend #2 as a replacement, and then for him to bring his creator friend #3 on as an addition. The show survived despite the blow, and arguably got a lot better. The only downside of this era was that it was two people coming in to an established project with its own goals, rather than two people who helped conceive of that original idea and care about it on the same level I do. A little bit of magic is lost there.

Now, in 2021, #2 is having to step down. And while #3 is now a friend of mine, his motivations for coming on were to support #2, and he feels weird about sticking around without him. (Totally fair, by the way. While #3 and I have developed our own friendship since then, I get why he’d feel this way.)

It’s like... yeah, I could do another reboot and massively fuck with the premise of the show (at least in terms of its hosts) for the second time. This will be the case even if #3 stays, though to a slightly lesser degree.

But, creatively and logistically, do I want to do that?

I don’t know.

I’ve built a fanbase from the ground up. It’s not massive, but it’s sizeable, especially for a podcast. I realize this is going to sound pretentious, but it’s 100% true: If I killed it off now, there are a decent amount of people who would probably end up going through serious grief. And if I’m being honest, I would too. This has been everything to me for such a long time.

But keeping it going feels weird, exponentially more so now that this is the second major regime change. Being the lynchpin next to a revolving door of co-hosts is a lot of pressure, and it gives the listeners zero expectation of some consistency that I think is deserved. I keep getting people invested in the roster and then having it change entirely on them. 

I guess if they can do that without complaint for sports teams then they could do it for me, but part of me is just thinking now might be a good time to call it.

The problem is, I have the content creation bug in me and I can’t not create something. It’s in my bones to the point where I get antsy when I don’t do it. I’m not interested in a “civilian” life.

So then the question is, what would I do instead? I have no answer for that.

fuck

[sundrugs]

20 down. (!!!)

[sundrugs]

... Back on almost everything over the last three or four years (well, stuff I actually posted, not reblogged).

The only thing I can't really recreate is the sort of novel, naive sincerity of it all, but otherwise I think I'm pretty much on track.

There's nothing left to do but continue now. I'm getting to about the 10% mark, which is amazing for a single month. I just hope, beyond everything else, that complacency doesn't rear its frequent head again.

[sundrugs]

There’s a light

An endless amount has happened and I can’t even begin to cover it all. Covering, that’s a good theme word though. It could describe practically all of my 2020, which I see now (after looking back) consisted of all of two posts on here.

It’s been a long time since I felt the need to chronicle anything on this website, mostly because for about two and a half years now, I’ve talked on the internet to an audience every week, the last year or so of it being more or less “who I am”. Anyone who wanted to keep up with me could have just tuned in.

Unfortunately, as much as I kinda liked the solitude and post-apocalyptic thing that was all last year, it got me realizing that I was treating myself sordidly. Instead of doing anything about it, I covered myself in more metaphorical dirt, using a sort of half-excuse half-definitely-true “the world is going to shit right now” as the reason for it. Talking to almost no one outside of content creation, doing nothing sociable, taking incredibly poor care of myself.

And really, it’s not as if had I been firing on all cylinders, things would have been remarkably different in 2020; it really was the Gas Leak Year. I just wouldn’t have had to (necessarily?) spend most of January 2021 paying off debts I had taken out on my own body, for absolutely just starters. 

I like me at the end of January. I like what I am on my way to in about a half a year as well. I also liked where my mind was at on December 31st, but it bothers me that it took so long to get there.

Time wasted truly is time wasted. There are things I’d rather be getting to now which have to wait because of my own Year of Nihilism, but I am precisely a month closer to them than I was. 

I want to repeat that time wasted truly is, because I’ve made this post before, and before, and before again. It’s weird that I can barely convince myself that this time is different, even though it’s objectively true; I accepted that certain things couldn’t continue in a way that has only ever happened one other time in my life, and did the actual things required to change it.

People are starting to notice, so I’m on the right path.

I guess at the end of the day, as much as I wish it wasn’t, and as odd as it feels to write at this age in my life, this post is ultimately about her.

Her changes, but it’s always the case.

At least I feel fucking fantastic right now.

[sundrugs]

A little over a year later, almost 80,000 people have tuned in. We’re booked solid until April or May with guests as it is, and will probably never run out. In June it’s off to Vidcon to connect with some of the people we’ve had on and meet new ones. I spend my days lately just editing, working with our agent, talking to fans, and taking surprisingly good care of my health.

I think I’m barely, just barely, starting to make it.

[sundrugs]

Last night I got an invitation I never thought I’d get, and I’m both excited and terrified. 

I hate ending episodes lately, which is actually a good thing. 

Every month I look back and see that 30 days ago I was comparatively nowhere.

This last year and a half is continuous strong evidence that everyone should try something other than just existing.

It feels weird to have even one fan, let alone a server full of them.

I know what I need to do now more than ever, and some of it is going to be difficult, but a day in the near future will make it all worth it.

Now would be the absolute worst time for a relationship unless she was satisfied with us never seeing each other.  😛

[sundrugs]

Candid

An interview I conducted recently inspired me a lot. He talked about a metaphorical diversifying of one’s portfolio. Having multiple things brewing. He chose one of them to be getting in shape. Ironically, just after the interview he lost the very thing we had him on our talk show for, and I think having something else to fall back on probably helped him. 

It spoke to me during a week when my show was literally at a peak we had never seen before. The truth is, I knew it would be temporary, and the week after it would settle down. I needed something to fill the gaps.

I fucking hate the gaps, by the way. I’ve gotten a taste of notability many times because of this goddamn show (“that sweet sweet recognition” as Sorrow TV put it on his episode) and it is much better than any earthly substance.

But I needed something to fill them, and eight days later I’m here working with an absolutely ravenous dedication to do so. 

I’m getting back to my old health habits. Not my old self, which doesn’t exist. But patterns in the past that served me entirely well then, and are serving me entirely well now. It’s time to stop destroying my body, and boy has it been thankful to me that I did.

The last time I started around March and it took until October to get somewhere truly significant, so I’m prepared for the long haul. I’m also kind of typing this out so that I don’t have any excuses to call this yet another false start.

That’s the thing of it, isn’t it? A major thought experiment has always helped, where I imagine two possible futures. A year from now I could be healthy, svelte, and in a really good place. Or I could be wasting away and kicking myself for spending the year furthering the damage.

I think if I post more on here it’d help, but I doubt I will. I wish I could fix all of my problems instead of working on only a few. 

Oh well.

[sundrugs]

Anything, anything at all I could post right now would sound like a flex. Even on my own blog.

Every day I feel like I am in a brand new place.

[sundrugs]

There are times when I haven’t felt in control of my own destiny and it’s wrecked me. Then there are times like right now where destiny seems to be walking me in a direction I couldn’t walk myself. 

Not filling any void, just bored.

I’m on to something.

A year from now I could be there entirely, and it’s incredibly appealing.

[sundrugs]

[sundrugs]

"leaving a beautiful girl on read" was a favorite pastime back when all of this made sense and goddamn do I enjoy its return

Lars is back

[sundrugs]

[sundrugs]

Haven’t touched alcohol in a few weeks now and it’s not like it really had a stranglehold on my life by any means but it was definitely habit forming and my head is oddly clear on a consistent basis now and

boy things are boring

[sundrugs]

악몽

/

思217雲

insta-think_of_217

[sundrugs]

never stops being true

26 matches today and nothing to show for it: a pointless everything