2022-02-18

I’ve been away from writing here. Some of you know the reasons, but it boils down to me not feeling comfortable around certain people. And this sucks because I like it here, I like the people here—with one big exception of course—and I like what you write and I like shooting the shit in the catbox.

I wrote «Where have all the Catherines gone?» in a small attempt to dilute bad writeups coming in almost daily. Alas, it’s not the best I’ve written and it’s still only one writeup. Ever since my semi-retirement from e2 I haven’t written anything at all.

Well, that’s not entirely true, I’ve written loads of things, but most of them are highly personal and thus are unfit for e2 where they might be misunderstood and mocked. Not by everyone, of course, but by enough people to matter. If the past is any indication of the future, there’s no sign of improvement and so it falls to me to accept that the damage done has no redeeming qualities, for me or anyone else.

Moreover, the awful events in August have led me to question once again what is it that I want to say. It’s easy to write a thousand words on anything as long as there’s nothing substantial to say. I could complain on the daily about this or that, the «real life» people and circumstances that none of you know about, and you’d have no way of verifying if they’re true. I could present you my own whining as the Truth of Things and Proof of my Innocence in 1,500 word increments. It’s easy to claim a high moral ground on subjects as long as I only present my own point of view.

It’s easy to do that, write it and present it as valuable in and of itself, both for myself and «the audience» at large. But I don’t think I’d be gaining anything beyond shallow praise (mostly from myself).

So the question bears repeating, once and once again: What do I want to say? What is it that I’m trying to get at? Why choose this or that topic and devote time of the only and sadly finite life I have? What substantive thing do I—or anyone else—gets out of it? I think that bringing «value» to others is a good in itself, but what kind of value? Wisdom, laughter, distraction, reflection… all of these can be said to improve one’s life if only by a sliver and only temporarily. Is that what I wish to bring into the world: temporary bliss?

There should be something more. I believe there must, for the good of my mental well-being.

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. This place needs more actual content, beyond platitudes. This place and this people deserve more voices, more substance, more community. And it pains me to know that I have the ability to help in that regard, but I’m afraid I have nothing to share. At least not now.

Below, the list of things I’ve thought about in detail since August last year, would like to write and discuss about, and would like to see more of in e2. It’s a long, shallow list so feel free to skip over it. The substance of my ramblings end here.

1. Video game reviews and thoughts
   1. Cozy Grove, the genre of farm-life simulators, the Sisyphean cycle of optimizing gameplay
   2. Pathologic 2, being a «right» audience, reading in video games
   3. Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster(s), differences in versions, thoughts on remastering
   4. The Metronomicon
   5. Soul Nomad & The World Eaters
   6. Elite Dangerous
   7. BPM: BULLETS PER MINUTE
   8. Townscaper
   9. Dungeon Encounters; The tangled problem of pricing, development, IPs and AAA studios.
   10. Tribal Pass, Where have all the runners gone?
   11. Touhou Luna Nights
   12. Pathway
   13. Record of Lodoss War-Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth-
   14. Dungeon Rushers, Revisiting TB’s «failure of an indie» video
   15. Full Metal Furies, The flexibility of «success»
   16. Gunfire Reborn
   17. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight
   18. Mercenaries Blaze, How to do homages right
   19. Bastard Bonds and underselling your game
   20. Cookie Clicker on Steam
   21. Vampire Survivors
   22. Final Fantasy Type-0
   23. Final Fantasy XV and holy hell I want more of this game
   24. Final Fantasy XIII, replaying years later
2. Mathematics
   1. Richard’s Paradox
   2. Even more stupid mathematics questions on Quora
3. Life events
   1. Moving, relocating and their differences
   2. Living with a dog that is not mine
   3. Roommates and living with your family
   4. A recent death in the family
   5. Walking as therapy agains isolation
   6. Guessing what «honoring wishes» means in the context of dementia
   7. Logistics of dying for a nonbeliever, logistics of dying for a non-Christian in a Christian country
   8. The futility of sweeping when living near a volcano
   9. Weeding (personal) libraries
4. Music and media
   1. «West Side Story» (2021)
   2. «Encanto», «We don’t talk about Bruno» and what is going on with Lin Manuel Miranda
   3. Juan Diego Flórez
   4. Hello Internet and how to make sense of its abrupt end
   5. Analyzing my 2021 top songs
   6. Analyzing my Top 100 songs for the past few years
   7. Analyzing my Discover Weekly and why I’m justified in not really listening to it anymore
5. Books and reading
   1. Inheriting books
   2. Why I’m taking so long to read «Foucault’s Pendulum»
   3. Why I’m taking so long to read «Final Fantasy XV Dawn of the Future»
   4. 2021 reading roundup
   5. Rereading «The Name of the Rose»
   6. «The 52 Weeks Project» and the good way of managing a 1-year self-improvement journey
6. Misc
   1. It’s hard to do a pourover coffee but not as hard as some people tell you
   2. Updating a birthday wishlist
   3. Job expectations and frustrations
   4. Learning to paint watercolors in my 30s
   5. The death of my 3DS and the death of the 3DS online store
   6. Oral correspondence with my ex

2022-03-31: Added a few links of things that I've actually written since the publication of this log