NEARly Unbowed
The victor is not victorious if the vanquished does not consider himself so. — Quintus Ennius
I’m letting myself become weak. My body is one thing, I’d been pathetic the greater part of my life until my mid 20s. My mind… the stoicism I cling to when the storms tear black incisions in the sky, is not doing much for me. Not these days at least. I am a skip and a leap the size of the Kessel Run from a fascinating specimen; I’m not ashamed of being a simple gamer, an academically inclined martial arts fan. Having said this it’s become evident that I’ve left my most prized activities to fall by the wayside, all my own doing. The simple fact is making time for guitar, fighting or training, even gaming, don’t give that rush that drowns out the rest of life.
Suffice it to say, help isn’t helping anymore. I’m getting less of the things that do help, I yield almost no cathartic or developmental release from what I do make time for. I wish I could explain what the reason behind it is. I’d heard it’s a symptom of “burnout”, I wouldn’t know. I’ve never looked into the subject, I find all that as looking for excuses to a problem that likely won’t solve itself unless pushed through. The problem isn’t that I’m feeling whatever that thing is, the wedge in the design is the bubbling roiling negativity I live in. In my youth, I had very little tact or methodology in how I handled less than agreeable circumstances. This led to a vast degree of lashing out. As Gouken-Sensei said “It is only natural that those closest get the brunt of it”, whether they were deserving of my resentment or not. I dabbled in being toxic without reservation, from sheer inability to stomach it with some semblance of poise or subtlety. This would result in those in aura’s distance of me seeing my facade(however cheap) decompose before it had the chance to fool anyone, I would resent others for calling me out which would in turn cause further rifts.
I’ve improved at keeping the worst of me at bay from the most innocent amongst my vicinity, but clearly my imperfect recent streak is teaching me lessons in humility. All the while this is making me worse by the day, my patience thinner than commonplace. I am not the nicest person already, so you can imagine me on worse days than usual. With no relief on the horizon, I find my reactions to negative stimuli throw me deep into the end of the pool. I was never the strongest swimmer, so that analogy is rather appropriate here…
I have been making time for OFP, what time I can scrounge up to afford. The balancing act continues, let’s leave it at that. Though from the limited (but multifaceted) perspectives I’m gaining from the group meetings I can manage to attend, I can tell we are reaching the planning stages of something. I’m not privy yet to what that could mean, but I do know that the way we seem to work is by growing our roots. We make connections and alliances across the rhizosphere of web3, spread thoroughly while ideally doing good.
NxP is trucking along in their own way, simply letting me be more of the Air Nomad I am. This liberty is a hard turn from the stricter fetters I’m allotted, by a group I collaborate amongst… it’s unheard of. I wish I had made more time to be around and watch them do their thing, but they’ve been peripheral at best. To their tremendous credit, they are so kind I haven’t even been asked where I’ve been all the time I neglected to come in and say hello. It’s not that I wouldn’t have answered to one degree or another, it’s akin to pulling teeth when I’m unwilling to divulge from my own volition. Thanks for letting me be freer than the average group of hustlers.
Metaverse is another story; in trying to make sure I’m doing what I can, I’m devoting the lion share of my will to making my efforts there. Mostly writing, attendance and narration. I’m still in the process of further expanding that skillset I mentioned in the past, but that’s a topic for another time. I haven’t made much headway on that, though I expect this week to be where that drastically changes. It has to, I need things to trend to the positive soon for the sake of sanity.
I’m weak, if I was strong I wouldn’t be riddled with so much that weighs on me daily. I dedicated a not insubstantial amount of my mental (and physical) effort to being better than my flawed current form, frankly I’m unimpressed with what the mirror reveals daily. This isn’t a new occurrence, merely one I haven’t witnessed in recent memory. The longer this persists, so too does my pessimistic nature regarding my prospects and future. With augmenting displeasure on both sides, it’s starting to show once more…
I’m down, no denying that. But I’m not out… I haven’t screamed “uncle” yet. As long as I havent tapped out, the world hasnt got the best of me… not fucking yet…
Signed,
Woodward Forest-Lich
