Blog 1000

 That makes me feel old

Ring-a-ding-ding, that's the big four digits, baby; I can't possibly top myself now. Once a day, every day, sleet or shine, rain or snow, I've published a blog relentlessly and you know what; I still don't know why I did it. Okay, that's not entirely true: I did it in order to obfuscate the helpless miasma of depression I woke up choking to every relentless day. To try and seize back some semblance of order and purpose in a vacuous, empty life and, much more vapidly, to and stretch that veil of escapism past my idle dreams until it would enshroud and infuse into my very life. Afterall, if I revolved my life around covering something I loved which I used to escape the shivering reality of who and where I am, than I could live that dream forever. Whatsmore, I've always sort of been interested in writing and storytelling, and figured this regular outlet could be a way for me to practice. All of these points have been true from the beginning, although I've only bothered to address and realise them in totality now, so let's go over my progress in each to celebrate Blog number 1000. Yeah that might not sound very sexy, but I've always done what I want up until now, and I'm going to continue.

First, depression, has this helped with the depression? Certainly- I'd like to think so at least. This blog has proven to be a call-to-action that I attend to everyday without fail, which replaced the space left there after I left school. I still haven't managed to secure any permanent employment, and my part-time job is currently so infrequent that I'm going several weeks without any duties, but through that all, this silly little blog had kept me waking up every single morning. Although I can't say it's a cure-all by any means, more a distraction. Which I suppose is all anyone can hope to do when faced with their most invasive foe, themselves. Ideally it would probably make sense to book time with a psychiatrist and attack the route of my problem, but if you've been paying attention than you'll probably realise that I don't exactly have the disposable income to burn like that. Which, of course, has led me to adopt the attitude of not wanting to seek out the service that I can't possibly afford right now, which in turn has moulded me into being the worst possible theoretical patient for therapy because it is crucially only effective on those who want to work with it, whereas I've Jedi mind-tricked myself to think I'm perfectly mentally healthy.

Secondly there's the helplessness and instilling order back into my routine; I've touched upon this when talking about depression and just looking at the purpose of this article (celebrating number 1000) pretty much explains this point itself, but I'll elaborate. Yes, after the end of School and my subsequent lack of gainful employment, I've been decently lost, which feeds into the self resentment and collates into food for depression. I have a responsibility now. Sure it's a vapid and meaningless one, fuelled entirely by my self-adopted want for purpose, but through commitment I actualise it. There hasn't been a single day in the past 1000 that I failed to upload a blog, and if you look back and the dates don't quiet line-up for the odd day, check the surrounding blogs to see and you'll find a double day post, simply because I screwed up a number during scheduling. (I do all Weekday blogs a week in advance, so scheduling mistakes happen.) I've maintained that diligence for me, and nothing short of death or (god forbid) my PC dying could get in the way of that. 

And thirdly there's the quality of my writing, which I suppose is something I have to leave in the eyes of the beholder. Or rather I would, but no one reads this blog other than spam bots, so I guess I'm stuck evaluating myself here as well. I like to think I've improved, I'm certainly more confident. But the way I use language, the consistency of my written speech and how I flow; I genuinely don't know if that's changed even the slightest. I go back to my earliest blogs and they're longer, for sure, but they're much the same style, I'd consider a lot of them decent or even good by my present day standards. I expected that the three years of diligent practice and growth would be marked, that I'd be a different person on the otherside capable of looking upon my pitiful early scribblings and scoff at their rudimentary failures, but I still don't have that eye. I guess that's just another way that my wiring has failed me, and I screwed up trying to slot into my expected endgame. I can't even improve my only craft with hard work: how pathetic.

In truth, I really don't like the way I write. I mean bitterly. I enjoy the act of writing, and I'd have to in order to come back to this time and time again, but the second it comes to creative writing (which I do as well when not blogging or staring at Youtube) I consistently find myself gnawing at my graceless fingers for their ineloquence. I persist, because without this, and my creative writing, I would literally be rotting and could very well have reached the point where I just end it all. But I'm not satisfied, not ever. Recently I've been working on a story, it's not a short story because I'm not talented enough to be concise, even as I've tried, and it has been very slow going. I'm on chapter 4 out of a projected 27, (I'm suspecting I may have lowballed myself) and it's been about 5 or 6 months. 

Getting to the point where I was comfortable sharing my first chapter with others was so much harder than I expected, and I thought all of this, publishing my every daily thought onto the internet, would prepare me for that but I was so wrong. I guess it's because at the end of the day I know that even though people could feasibly read these posts, no one actually does, whereas hand delivering print-outs of my first chapter, even to a friendly face, is welcoming and guaranteeing criticism. So then what do I find so terrifying about that? The truth, honestly. So much of what I do, and why I do it, has been about hiding tough truths from my eyes so that I can continue to function with anything resembling a soul still in me, and having that shattered once I learn that, much as I suspected, I truly do have no talent whatsoever, is perhaps the darkest of ends I can foresee.

I know I'm bad, but I keep doing it. It's not so defiant and obstinate as all that makes it sound, it's actually out of fear of where I'll be if I stop and wipe the clouds from my eyes for a second. I figured time and practice would sharpen me: but we already know where am I with that, now don't we? Everyday I see my ability totally eclipsed, from every source, and though I struggle and say "That's your model, get as good as that!" I end up sitting down to write and spewing out total unusable garbage. It's getting to the point where I'm starting to see myself as the lost cause that everyone who's ever seen my CV seems to already know that I am. I can't get a proper interview with anyone for anything, can't contribute to my passion of writing in even the most basic fashion, and can't seem to improve no matter how hard I try. And perhaps on the otherside of that you can see why this blog is so important to me.

It's not that I have no standards to this blog, it's just that doing this is more like having a conversation. Maybe it's more of a monologue, because I'm writing for myself, but the effect is still the same. It's largely effortless, fun, and sometimes makes me feel genuinely accomplished. Nothing, not even my actual work days, can make me feel deserving of taking chill-time than sitting down and finishing this blog, which makes it the fulcrum that every delicate balance around the, spinning-plate routine which is me, relies on to function. So to the void of the internet, to 1000 blogs and to me, I say thank you for keeping my afloat. There won't be a 2000 blog milestone, for whichever of the numerous reasons above, but I'm glad I managed to somehow make it this far in the first place. Now I don't really have anymore milestones to shoot for, but I'll continue to drag this thing out so very far past it's prime because at this point I'm too scared not too... cheers.