(Just in case the date doesn't show up correctly,) April 6th, 2021
Whew. It's been a while.
And by that, I don't just mean, "It's been a while since I wrote on this blog." Rather, I mean, "It's been a while since I wrote. At all. This feels weird."
I suppose it's fitting that while I'm in this state of mind, and this state of life, I show up here again, one last time, to tell you that I've made up my mind: I'm not going to keep doing this. This is officially where I stop this blog. I return one last time to wield "The Sword of Peace," only for the purpose of giving one last look to any who care, before sheathing it and putting it away.
Now, much as I could (and did) complain about it, not all of my posts on here were seen by exactly zero people. Some of them caught the eyes of one or two people in some part of the world far distant from me. A few of my writings here even caught the attention of thousands, which was a little bit encouraging. (Thank you for that, by the way.) As such, I think I owe it to a few of you out there to give a proper explanation about why I'm leaving, and maybe give a sense of closure here. I think that's important. Personally, I hate it so much when people don't give closure to matters, and instead they deliberately disappear without a word, leaving issues suspended and unresolved. I don't know if anyone else hates that as much as I do. Maybe I'm just projecting.
Regardless, I'm not going to do the same. I won't disappear without another word, leaving you with the ambiguous message of silence and the confusion that goes with it.
Before I sheathe this metaphorical sword and put it into its metaphorical coffer, I will permit you, metaphorical or literal adventurers, to look on it one last time. Let's sit by the metaphorical campfire and have this one final talk.
Despite all of the metaphorical language up in the introduction, I'll try not to be too melodramatic. It's not like I'm putting someone to death, or threatening to toss a valuable treasure to the bottom of the ocean. All I'm doing is giving an official ending to something that never really got going in the first place. It's a blog. A blog that virtually nobody cared about. Melodrama is not necessary here.
So. Let's see if I can explain this (relatively) quickly.
Novice Swordsman
I created a blog known as "The Sword of Peace" in the end of the year 2010. Believe it or not, I only did so because of the urging of a girlfriend I used to be dating back in those days. Though language and communication weren't exactly her strong suits, she believed my writing had value, and she used to encourage me to try sharing it more widely. Of course, she had to explain to me what a "blog" even was, because I had never heard that term used before.
Have blogs ever been massively important to the Internet? Or to... well, anything? I suppose it's kind of telling that blogs had been around since the early 2000s, and yet by 2010 I had never even heard of the concept.
Well, once I learned what a blog was, and I understood that it was a place for me to take thoughts out of my head and display them in writing, I set this one up, and tried to think of what I would use it to write.
...And honestly, I never really got past that stage. If you scroll through the history of this blog's posts — even among just the ones that I haven't reverted to drafts — you will see a very eclectic mix of everything:
We have poems I wrote about mental health; sad stories about losing one of my best (canine) friends in my life; treatises on what video games taught me about fleeting glory, and about the role of violence in our lives; thoughts about cultural influences on how the undead are portrayed in media; posts where I tried to explain certain religious beliefs, without trying to proselyte anyone; my frustrations with how telecommunications and social media culture have destroyed our ability to meaningfully communicate; and that one peculiar 26,000-word post, where I wrestled with my thoughts and feelings about annoying video game babies, who somehow managed to touch my heart a couple times.
What was the theme of my blog? It didn't have one. Not unless you count, "So, this is what's going on in my mind right now. Want to listen?"
I suppose it's fitting, though. When I began the blog, its original purpose was just for me to relieve emotional and mental pressure that was torqueing its way into crushing depression, anxiety, and mania.
...Sorry, I said I wasn't going to go melodramatic. What I mean is, the only reason I started a blog is because there were thoughts and feelings inside of me that I needed outside of me, and I figured I may as well share whatever I was extracting from inside me, just in case it might help someone in some way.
To that end, I suppose this blog did serve its purpose once in a while. I got things outside of me, and I kept from self-combusting. That's a major part of the reason I gave this blog the title it has; words — which are sometimes likened to swords — lanced through my afflictions, and this brought me peace.
Congratulations, Sword of Peace. You accomplished that objective, at least. It's kind of too bad that I had hoped to accomplish any further goals here.
Apprentice Swordsman
At some point in the past ten years... I think I'll tentatively say it was in 2015... a certain leader of mine expressed compassionate concern for the way my life was going. I had been financially obligated to drop out of what should have been my final year at university. I was essentially bankrupt, and out of desperation, I'd had to move back into my parents' basement. This leader thought he saw potential for me to get out of my horrible situation. He knew that not only did I enjoy writing, but he also believed that I had a good amount of talent in it. He genuinely believed that I should be utilizing that talent to improve the lives of people around me. Besides, he had personal interest in my life, and he was eager to see me succeed well enough to move back out of my parents' basement, and start being happy to live again.
So, this leader suggested that I should start blogging. I informed him that I indeed had a blog, even if I hadn't posted on it in two years. He was delighted to hear that, and encouraged me to start writing on it again. He promised me that by continuing to write and share the things I was passionate about, I wouldn't have to worry about not being accepted by official publications; sooner or later, my self-published writing would speak for itself, and it would catch the attention of some company or another, who would see proof of my ability to be useful to them. Supposedly, they would want someone with my skills, and would reach out and ask for my help. All I had to do was prove myself with my writing, and someone would take care of the searching for me, or so he said. He assured me it would work, sooner or later.
Pues, hermano... ya es "más luego." Y incluye ahora, nunca he visto ninguna evidencia de esta promesa llegar a pasar. (No lo sé que debo pensar, jej.)
It hasn't happened. And I don't have any faith left that it will. Believe it or not, I have given a goodly amount of effort to this blog. According to what you can currently see, as a reader, it might seem like I've only written a single blog post every year for the past few years. But that's only what I have left visible; you can't see all of the posts that I wrote and then hid or destroyed. Believe me when I say that I gave an honest effort for a number of years, seeing if speaking my mind was going to attract the attention of anyone who would want to employ me.
Heh. Sure.
Journeyman Lone Swordsman
After receiving enough rejections — more frequently in the form of silence, rather than official rejection slips — in my attempts to publish my writing, I determined that I must have needed to work on my writing style some more, and improve further. Besides that, with my writing not earning me anything, I've often needed to go and seek out those supposed "real jobs" that so many people pressure me to take. Thus, I turned my attentions away from professional publishing, and more often I tried to reach the people I knew. I mean, English major or not, I could always stand to keep learning. As Ernest Hemingway aptly said of authors, "We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master." So, back to my own training grounds I went, hoping to improve whatever people apparently found wrong with me.
Yet it continued to be discouraging, trying to share my writing with people I know in real life. Those rare individuals, like that former girlfriend and former leader, naturally drifted out of my life, and I am generally left with... well, other less-enthused people. I can ask for help and feedback from people who know virtually nothing about writing; or people who would be going beyond the norm for reading a full newspaper article; or people who are decent (or even talented) writers themselves, who would only respond to me with anger and envy if I asked for their evaluations and suggestions to improve, etc. You know, all sorts of people.
Whether it's a novel draft, or a half-page write-up on a topic I think is important to explain — like rebuking someone for supporting violent racism — or even something as short as a haiku, my friends and "friends" either ignore my requests to look over my writing, or they flat-out refuse, making up excuses for why they expect to be solidly busy during every waking moment of the next seven years, give or take a week. Whatever their true reasons, the people closest to me have a great aversion to lending me support when I need it most.
The reason I find this so crushing is because every successful artist I have ever seen, ever, will always, always tell you that he or she chose to pursue his or her art as a career because the people closest to that would-be artist believed in and supported him/her; and/or that the artist started to get a lot of positive feedback from strangers who happened to like his or her work. It always begins there. Nobody begins as an overnight success, even when it might look like it. You can't always know the years of time, effort, and practice that went into creating that "overnight" success. And you won't be the one to see the moments and the people that encouraged that artist to keep on trying and practicing throughout all that time, nor will you be able to see what inspired that artist, long ago, to begin learning and practicing in the first place. I will say that in virtually all cases, if not 100.00% of all cases, every artist begins with the consistent support of some individual or group who consistently believes in him or her.
Well, this is something I've striven after for years. I've tried sharing writings that are supposed to be for the benefit of other people in my life. I've tried empathizing and thinking about what they would like to read, rather than what I would like write. I've tried appealing to their humanity, and giving gratitude in advance, when asking them to give me some honest thought or another about my stories, or expressions, or poems, or what have you.
Literally anything would have been more helpful than what I received. I would have been overjoyed if only someone could have told me, "I didn't like this. This turn of phrase doesn't do it for me," or, "This isn't half as good as you think it is!" That would have at least told me something!
Even saying, "This is terrible. You suck at writing. You should give up this craft and never do it again," would actually have been very helpful feedback to me. After all, I only had one "friend" who would ever say something like that, and he openly admitted in high school that he envied the way I could write. So, if he read any of my works as an adult and then said something that snarky, I would know I was on the right track.
Instead I received nothing. Nothing. Not a word of affirmation or criticism. Not even an acknowledgement to say, "Oh, yeah! I did read that thing you sent." In fact, for a brief time when I shared writing on Facebook (when I was still using Facebook), the view counter kept track of who was reading what I wrote, and there were multiple instances when people clicked "Like" on my writing, without ever finding out what the post even said. It may have seemed like someone was trying to be nice, but this was worse than nothing. Despite appearances to the contrary, still I was receiving word only from the trio of sisters who stand in opposition to the Muses of legend:
Silence. Ignorance. Apathy.
Now, I haven't attempted suicide in 10 years (I'm pretty sure I've written about that on this blog somewhere). I'm on better medication now, and I have no intention of ever attempting such a grave and drastic measure again. But in full disclosure, I will admit: on rare occasion, if I still fall into a depressive episode, suicidal thoughts can still make unwanted appearances in my mind. Well, I fight such dark thoughts, from the moment they start fluttering in like rabid bats. But some days are harder than others.
Most of the time, it's enough for me to remind myself of who I really am, and to dig and swim through all the layers of mud and mush around my heart, and recall that dross is simply what floats to the surface when gold ore is being purified. Or, to say that with metaphor aside, usually I just need to remember that I'm not as bad as my meanest thoughts would tell me to believe; if anything, the practice of pushing on through my own personal darkness is refining me, helping me to be a little kinder and more patient than I was before. Most of the time, I can pull myself onward, by keeping this in mind until my malfunction fades. Most of the time.
However, having such stark reminders of how unwanted my writing craft has been, has sometimes led evil voices inside me to say, "Yeah, you could be dead, for all it matters," and, "If you no longer lived in this world, it would make no difference to your relationships." On rare days like those, such empty reflections don't exactly help me to stave off those suicidal thoughts very quickly. When you have just as much presence or significance to people in your life as a ghost or a memory does... it's disheartening. Just a little.
Eventually, this is what led me to stop writing to my peers, and instead I retreated to my final writing venue, to try writing to strangers. Ergo, more blog posts. As I said, trying to relieve my mind and heart from the overwhelming pressure of thoughts and feelings unexpressed, was what had led me to go through with creating this blog in the first place. Writing posts in those first years of its existence got those thoughts out of me successfully. That was healing to some extent.
But secretly — and this only became all the more powerful as time marched on — the thing I really hoped to receive, from writing to strangers, was assurance. I yearned for some kind of validation that proved I wasn't just conceited for thinking that I had writing talent. I wanted some second witness that confirmed my grades in writing classes weren't just flukes, or evidence that I had appealed to the biases of my teachers and professors.
That validation and reassurance never arrived here. And I'm going to be honest instead of hopeful now; I will never expect such validation or reassurance to find me here.
And that's ok.
Adept Wounded Swordsman
So, knowing as I do, I am aware that creative people who succeed begin with a band of supporters, no matter how small it is. Those supporters aren't just mindless yes-men, either; they're sincerely caring individuals who have honest opinions, giving praise and credit where it might be due, but also being honest, and just critical enough to encourage improvement.
I'm never going to have that — at least not here. Blogging in my remote corner of the world's wide web, and sharing my internal contents, like some kind of living geode, is not going to bring what I was seeking. Like I've said before, in some other post on this blog, we live in a world where the majority of people like what is easy, accessible, non-challenging, and conducive to developing their own egos. We live in a world where people are so proud of their own stupidity, there are plenty who will downright mock you, or call you a liar if you know how to express yourself with the slightest modicum of depth or dignity.
I vaguely and vainly hoped, at one point, that carving and plating up slices of my soul would help me to find the supporters I wanted. Not just for blogging; I hoped this would help conjure people who would one day support me in taking on greater works, and in turning writing into a true career, instead of some maligned hobby or parade of rejections.
I realize, now, that it won't happen — again, not here, at least. And I realize that my lack of supporters has caused me to stall for too many years. I was never totally willing to risk my life and livelihood, trying to form a writing career that apparently nobody would ever support. If the only voice that is:
a) positive and encouraging about my creative work, and
b) knowledgeable and honest about my artistic medium...
...is the one in my own head... then I don't trust it. Not in isolation. I will not stake everything on that voice that rewards so many of my leaps of faith with nothing but painful injury and greater setbacks. If I do not have a single affirming voice that I trust, giving me some outside validation that there is any value to my writing, then I'm not going to invest more of my time or energy into that writing. If the only feedback I ever receive is deafening silence and apathy, then my writing is doing me more damage than good.
To think... I created a blog called "The Sword of Peace," referring to words' ability to sever darkness and bring healing, and here I find that I'm the only one being injured by it.
Master Swordsman (in the making and un-making)
I think I've always known that I enjoyed making up stories and expressing feelings. From the time I learned how to write, I was writing stories with my own illustrations. And I was happy. That makes me no different from the vast majority of small children; plenty of us, the whole world over, would use our newfound writing ability to tell stories and share our immediate feelings, before ever considering using writing for any other purpose. And naturally, it's very common for such activities to bring happiness to the writer in question. I definitely knew it.
But it wasn't until I was 14, freshly transferred out of military school and into a normal junior high school, and suffering from my first recognizable bout of CPTSD ("complex post-traumatic stress disorder;" I don't know if they use that same abbreviation in languages other than English), that I realized I loved writing. It was wonderful to be able to scratch symbols onto a sheet of paper, and have the hope that my thoughts and feelings could be heard some other day by some other person, even if nobody at present did.
It wasn't until I was 16, reading "100%" and positive feedback on my final English project for that school year, that I took any consideration of writing for a profession.
It wasn't until I was 21 that I recognized what potential existed to do good with writing, and I made up my mind to act on it.
And then, somehow, we arrived at today. My attempts at professional writing have been universally rejected or ignored. Despite my trying, I have not been paid a single cent for anything I have ever produced.
Bizarrely, that even includes a novel I self-published in 2014 (I think? 2013? 2015? Somewhere near that time). Apparently some of my family members and former friends bought copies of my little book, and didn't read them; and meanwhile, Amazon's bookstore is set up so that they will not give you a single penny of profits until monthly sales of your book reach a certain threshold. (How sad is that? This is a scenario where I actually got people to buy something of mine, where I should have been paid, but haven't been; and I am still being ignored and rejected by the people closest to me. Who would have thought this was possible?)
...
(Whew. We're really venting here, aren't we, TAB III? Well, let's just bring this through to the conclusion, do a bit of editing, and then end this.)
My point I'm making here, is that a lot of time and work has contributed to whatever amount of writing ability I have today. It might be presumptuous of me to call myself a "master," but throughout all of this time, I have been striving for mastery.
But in the process of that striving, I've recently learned something I never would have expected: I don't just feel downcast when I experience failure after failure. Rather... even the prospect of success leaves me cold.
At this point, if I were to succeed at gaining an audience, or even recognition because of my writing on this blog, it wouldn't make me happy. That would be a hollow victory. After trying so hard to alter my written voice, until I don't know if it even sounds like my own; after hardening my heart against the people closest to me, knowing that they don't support me; and after my dreams of making a living doing this have all but died... what consolation would it be, at this point? "Hey, I read your blog! I really like the less-mature writing style you had back in 2013! Why don't you write like that anymore? At least I can understand you from back then!"
You get the idea. If I kept swinging this Sword of Peace around, and eventually made contact with something, it would feel little better than being the last man left standing, in a war that has eradicated every living person around you. You win, and congratulations on the nothingness. Your prize is nothing. Don't spend it all in one place.
Former Swordsman
Yes. This is why I'm laying the figurative sword to rest; I'm sorry to say it, but this blog is nothing but a relic from my past. I mean...
Consider the fact that on this blog, and exclusively on this blog, I still go by the alias of "TAB III." It's a reference to something that nobody else on Earth would understand. My first-ever attempt at writing a novel, back when I was 15, featured a character whose name wasn't just similar to mine; it was identical to mine. As in, his first, middle, and last names were all the same as my own in real life. The premise of my story was that I was not writing a fictional story; rather, I was supposedly translating an ancient record from my ancestors. (Believe it or not, I had no idea that J.R.R. Tolkien had ever used that premise in his own work, pretending that he was translating an ancient record, not just inventing his own stories. I hadn't yet read most of his books, and I didn't know that little fact.)
The main character of my story (who absolutely was "not" a self-insert) was supposedly the ancestor I was named after. In fact, according to my made-up history, there was another ancestor later on in the line who had the same name as that ancient hero; allegedly, I was the third in the family line to bear that name. Hence, I began calling myself "T***** A**** B********* III," or "TAB III" for short. There. Now you know the story behind the name. At last that great mystery is solved.
But think about it. Do I really need to keep this up anymore? Does it do me any good to dwell on the past like this, continuing to develop an old blog that reminds me of a stage of life that I am trying to leave behind? No. I really don't think so.
If picking up my Sword of Peace is injuring me this much every time I do it, then it's time to put it away. Today it's time to try out new tools or weapons.
I can't tell any of you with sureness what happens from here, where I'll go. I try to imagine myself starting a new blog elsewhere — probably on my own website, instead of on Blogger — and making it better than this ever turned out to be. I try to envision myself posting things to YouTube a lot more than I have thus far. I try to believe in a future where I keep on writing, and actually succeed at publishing my work; and in my favourite version of my imagined future, my self-teaching eventually pays off, and I get good enough at coding to create my own video games based on my own stories. I could tell a larger story with books I've written, and games I've created, supporting each other in a larger and more immersive tale. I like envisioning that future.
But I have a really hard time believing that I'll ever succeed at doing any of it. The local pessimists, doubters, philistines, and reality itself are all shouting at me these days. They're demanding that I strap on my steel-toed boots, safety glasses, and work gloves again. They're back to gleefully reminding me that by being a citizen of my birthplace, I was born to be nothing but a prisoner in a gigantic industrial work camp. And they're taunting that I'll never get out of here, and that I should let my dreams, imagination, compassion, and all that is human in me slowly die.
...
I don't know what to tell you, ye few souls scattered across this world, who found me somehow. I don't know what comes next, neither for you, nor for me. If you do hear from me again someday on this blog, it will likely be only to say, "Hey, I have a new blog now!" or, "Guess what? I'm on YouTube!" or even, "Yep, I did it! I published a novel properly this time!" or something. I'm sure such a post would also say, "I hope you're doing well, whomever you are. If you've missed me for some reason, follow this link. It'll be good to have you back. And call me 'TAB III' whenever you contact me, so I'll know where you came from. Have a good one, eh!"
(Boy, my hypothetical future self sounds so cheerful. I kind of envy him.)
Heh... I don't know how likely such futures are, but it's nice to think about those scenarios. As a telecommunications company from my province is fond of saying:
More than a Swordsman
Well. At last, here we are.
You likely wouldn't know it, since I've hidden it, but the first post I wrote on this blog, back in 2010, was titled "The Pommel." I thought I was being all clever; if we thought of each new blog post as an extension of the Sword of Peace's figurative blade, then it made sense for the first post to be the other end of the sword. Essentially, from the oldest post going upward, you would start at the pommel, go up the hilt, and follow the blade for as long as it extended.
I suppose my younger self would find it equally clever, then, that the final post on this blog is called "The Scabbard." It's the one that prevents the blade's tip from going any further, and covers up the blade so that the sword can be stored away.
So. Ready? Is this a good time to say good-bye to the Sword of Peace? In the space of just over 10 years, it has fulfilled one of its functions for me, and utterly failed at the other. I feel like there's a good pun about this being a "double-edged sword" here.
Right. Time to lay this to rest, then, until further notice.
...This makes me feel... peaceful. I suppose that makes sense. When the Sword of Peace is finished, because you have put away the Sword, you know what you're left with?
Peace.
^_^
Peace be with you, and may you take whatever amount of love and courage I'm able to bestow.
Hasta que nos veamos, have a good one, eh.
- TAB III
I have to do some formatting editing on this; it didn't look like this while it was a draft. That comes later. I am exhausted, and I want to sleep. Buenas noches, mundo.
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