Let's Catch Up and Commit to the Future

August 20th, 2011 was almost three years ago.
If you look on my post from that day, it discussed how this blog had expanded to over 2000+ posts, and how I realized just how convoluted the majority of them were, so I cut it down by ninety percent to 200 posts.  I didn't realize at that time, that I also beginning to cut down my presence here all together.  Over the next few months, my only status updates involved when I published a new chapter in my novel (posts which have mostly been removed, because they just don't matter now) or posts discussing the progress of my character in the video game "Star Wars The Old Republic" (posts which have also been removed now, because who really cares?!?).

With all of that said, I've hit a point in my life where I am pretty unhappy - and I don't really have a reason to be like this.  Therefore, in an attempt to change my mental state, I'm attempting to commit myself to writing something everyday - and once again using this blog as a place to do it.  Unlike year ago, I don't mean writing "Bayern Munich scores, Bastian Schweinsteiger was awesome!" and going into match details.  I legitimately mean that I am going to attempt to create some kind of content to post here each day.  It might be a film review, or a discussion of TV series, or a recap of some event that I recently went to.  It might be a bunch of pictures that I go out and take one day, or it might be story concept for books or movies I'd love to create.  Something.  Anything.  Something to make my mind work and my fingers type.  For far too long, I am told people that I was a writer.  I wrote films, I wrote novels (none of which I ever finished), I wrote short stories.  I claimed to be a writer, but then I also feel into the glorified lifestyle I expected from being a writer.  The lifestyle of Hunter S. Thompson or Jack Kerouac, that debaucherous self-indulgent larger-than-life consumption that I thought I required to improve my writing.  Even now, as I sit here outside on the back patio listening to the sounds of the night, I had to open a beer to be my writing crutch.  But it's a double-edged sword lifestyle, because those late night have led to many mornings and days that I didn't want to get out of bed, and just chose to be lethargic and complacent to not accomplishing anything with my day.

I need a change, this is will hopefully be my fresh start.
I need a new place to vent.  My decline in writing blogs was very much influenced by my joining Facebook.  This blog was MY PLACE, my place to put up pictures of my life and where I went on vacation.  I could talk about sports.  I could talk about movies I liked and link to trailers that I wanted to share with my friends.  Every single one of those uses where packaged together and sold to me in the form of Facebook.  One stop shop.  One place to do everything I just talked about - and be ever connected to all of my friends.  While this blog was my place, it required people to go out of their way to hear my voice, or it required me to solicit people to pop their heads in see what I wanted to share.  Facebook didn't require that, it gave the people what I wanted them to see.  And thus, I started using status updates to convey my thoughts, and basically delivered watered-down CliffsNotes versions of what I wanted to talk about.  I've been doing my best to limit my presence on Facebook.  I feel that it's becoming very overwhelming and too much of an addiction.  Twice in the last three years, I've taken sabbaticals from Facebook.  Both lasted less than a month, and in those times I learned how much Facebook controlled my life.  I couldn't see my IMDb ratings - because all 2000+ of them were linked to my Facebook account.  And this isn't an Anti-Facebook thing in any way, this was just a personal moment where I learned how addicted to it I was, and I wanted to step away, back up and make sure I could still live my life without - but it is difficult.

I recently had my thirty-fourth birthday, which was a day that I honestly never expected that I would hit.  I was seventeen years old when Chris Farley died, and in my teenage years, I was a very huge fan of Saturday Night Live.  Comedy Central re-ran the late 80s and early 90s ones, and every Saturday night I would set up the VCR to record the current one.  I was obsessed with Sandler, Myers, Carvey, Spade, Farley, MacDonald, Schneider, Nealon, and so many others.  So, the death of Chris Farley really hit me hard and I didn't know how to deal with.  I felt that at 17, I was having a mid-life crisis, which meant that I too would die at the age of 33.  It was a recurring fear that somehow managed to plant its seed in my subconscious, where it continued to grow and grow for years to come, leading me to make some pretty foolish life choices along the way, thinking that it would not matter in the near future.  I've now crossed this bridge, accepted that my life will still be going on, and I need to start coming to terms with a lot of the fallout from these life choices.  I lack a college education, I lack career that I enjoy, and I need to seriously work on my health.

I've gotten lazy in my life.  Very lazy.  I've been more than happy to come home, pop down on the couch, eat some junk food and watch stuff on the television all night.  That's not to say that I lack a social life, or don't go out.  But, more often than not, I'll spend my free time sitting around doing nothing filling my brain with more and more entertainment value than anything else, and that's a currency that isn't worth very much.  I need to change that.  I recently moved, and the only downside to my move was that at my old apartment, I had come up with a nice four mile loop around the neighborhood for me to walk my dog and listen to a Nerdist Podcast each night - as the four miles took almost exactly an hour to complete, the timing was almost always perfect.  In the last month, I not longer walk those four miles a day.  As previously stated, I spend a lot of time on the couch, watching television or movies while spending hours playing my Star Wars game or Words With Friends, or any other number of iOS based games that were addictive and required hours of my time.  And I was happy with it, so happy that my XBOX rarely gets used anymore.  Every now and then I'll kick it on to knock out another level or two or a game, but what used to take up hours of my night - playing Halo with many of my friends - has almost completely been replaced.  Since my move, I've been cutting back my video game playing, but not replacing the time with anything productive.  That's something that needs to change.

Change.  That seems to be the mantra I'm going for in this post-thirty-four lifestyle.  I need change, and some big ones.  First, is my commitment to this blog, and writing again.  Someday I need to get back to work on "Perfect Life For Large Price".  Sadly, working on it hit a major roadblock at a bad point in my life, and I don't try hard enough to push past that.  I'm also realizing how much I am allowing my current employment to mentally drain me.  It's very hard for me to work with some of the people I have to work with, and that mentally drains me.  I want to be successful, I want to help make my place of employment successful, but when bitching and complaining are all I hear non-stop, it makes it too easy to tune it out and stop caring.  I need to work for positive and motivational people - not people who love focusing on the negative and complain about how things aren't done perfectly to their liking, despite getting the job done more efficiently.  My current place of employment take a serious mental toll on me that it shouldn't - but I was raised with a very solid work ethic, that causes me to feel guilty about not trying my hardest.  I've tried riding it out as long as I could, I really enjoy the company and they take good care of me - but that is something that is in my control to change, and I need to make something happen.  I need to find a job that I'm not only passionate about, but one that can help make me feel productive in this world.

And speaking of this world - I want to travel more.  I was lucky enough to spend my birthday in Arizona with two great friends and even met Nathan Fillion that day!  It was a wonderful time, and so relaxing to be free from the burdens of normal life.  This trip was also something that wasn't as plausible before the move I keep talking about.  I've been lucky enough to move into a house owned by a good friend of mine,and she has two dogs of her own.  I loved living alone, it was very nice and it gave me a serious sense of accomplishment in life, being able to be self-sufficient.  However, the financial burden was taking a serious toll on me, and I had to be extra responsible for taking care of the life of my puppy.  All of that changed with this move.  I now have the luxury of an amazing roommate, who is more than willing to help in the care of my dog, along with her own.  I am also blessed to have greatly reduced my living expenses - which will allow for some more freedom in traveling.

Travel.  Travel.  Travel.  It's what I have always loved, and I've been somewhat inspired by what my friend Mandie recently did.  After being laid off from her corporate job, she packed up to travel the world and BLOG ABOUT IT.  Now, I'm not to think that I could make that same jump at this point in my life, but I have been inspired to attempt to do more to see the world.  I've toyed with the idea of looking into working for a cruise line or an airline.  I'm always a little slow and hesitant with making large life choices - which is odd, because I'll do the most impulsive and insane things in the moment - but something like this I always wade in slowly with reservations.  I'm poking my head around the internet and seeing what jobs are out there, and what I might think I'd like to try to do.  I'm also a person who gets very dejected over rejection, and that causes me to be much more careful and selective in what I attempt to pursue, most likely to a fault.

I have already failed at my 2014 New Year's Resolution.
However, I now am putting for a few new things for me to try.
1.  Write something.  Every.  Day.
2.  Travel.  Visit friends in other cities.  Go to a European country soon.
3.  Find a way to get paid for either writing or traveling.  Make a future built on doing something I am passionate about for a living.

So, hopefully this site will begin to be populated with some original short stories, ideas, concepts, anything I'm thinking about potentially turning into a project.  Or maybe just a quick update on a project of some other kind that I am working on.  There are more definitely going to be film reviews.  I need to exercise my mind and my fingers just as much as I need to get on a bike or a treadmill.

I just spend ninety minutes writing, but I created 2100 words that were previously just floating around in my brain.  I gave them a home.  And the more words I give homes to, the more free space I have to come up with new words to put together.  I hope I can stick with this.