Consistency…

As I grow older and have less disposable time, I am frequently challenged not to prioritize hobbies and leisure and am finding that there does not seem to be enough time in the day for everything that I used to consider ‘staple’ distractions. Video games, routine social excursions, cinema, and (yes) writing content, all have been increasingly backburnered as my wife and I have had more children. As far as reasons go, I feel that children and homelife are a pleasant excuse to shift focus away from those other things, but I still miss them (mostly). I used to host a weekly radio show, constantly researched new technologies, built things, dabbled on the guitar, bass, and keyboard, as well as in video/audio/image production, AI-art, and (among other things) tried to keep two blogs going. On that note…

Writing is difficult. Rather, the exercise is difficult. I received an email from Google Domains (for however long that lingers) that the domains for both [TheRealGill] and [Experience Points] are up for renewal. The last published post on TRG was a year ago, almost to the day. The last published post on ExpPoints was nearly two years ago. I was confronted with the question, “Is it even worth it to renew them?” Why bother? The hosting and domain costs are very low, and well within my disposable budget. There are email redirects that I use that could easily be managed elsewhere. I have alternative means to host and share files with friends and family. I clearly do not update the sites frequently enough…

Reflecting back on the past posts I rediscovered something; I’ve been here before. I reset this blog in 2013, and since then have only published 27 entries. That is less than 2.5 entries per year… I fixed and imported [ExpPoints] in 2022, and have only published 5 posts since. There is a stark difference between the “we’re back” posts from [TRG] and [ExpPoints] though. I suppose quite a lot changes in nearly 10 years, but I still had a pretty good laugh at “Starting Over.” Reflecting on the 2013 post, I had grand ambition. I enjoyed creating! I had time! I had fewer responsibilities… By 2022 I feel like I had adjusted to so many things. I adjusted to being a father and a husband. I had begun adjusting to the death of my father. I have always struggled with taking on too much. At work, and even at home, I have consistently strived to achieve above what was expected. But what I began learning was that while that works and certainly can propel you professionally, when you slip you fall. The 2022 post has a lot of maturity here:

The show became a site, then a platform, then social media, then a series of sites, then game servers, then… I am too busy for that Experience Points. I always was. What I plan on doing is sprucing up Experience Points, and then creating content at my speed.

ExpPoints and TRG were always intended to be fun and creative outlets, but somewhere along the way I tried to do too much and got bogged down and eventually burnt out. I remember feeling somewhat depressed at the lack of content, which made it that much more difficult to try and sit down and post something, anything… There are so many barely-started, or never-finished drafts. But again, the 2022 post has some good direction: “creating content at my speed.” No schedules, no expectations, hopefully no stress.

This is my goal; start writing again. Convey. Anyone that has ever exercised consistently knows the pain (physically and metaphorically) of returning to the gym after a break. You see how far behind you’ve fallen, and you feel the muscles burning. I feel that writing is similar. Creating this post was ‘painful.’ It took way more time than it should have because I haven’t written anything in a long time. But getting back on the horse is rarely easy. Let’s see how long I can ride it this time.

Note: After posting this I realized that much of the tone that I intended was lost in the final product. I still play videogames, I still dabble with music… I am afforded much time outside of my family obligations to pursue whatever hobby I want. I am tremendously happy. I have not prioritized writing for this blog or ExpPoints, and I seek to change that. I enjoyed it when I was generating content relatively regularly. I feel that it made me a better communicator. I would like to improve those skills further, and I hope to do that by writing more.