2334: Another Blog on Depression, and How Unemployment Fits In

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My good friend Dan wrote this excellent post on depression the other day, initially as an email-based TinyLetter, and subsequently as a blog post to be more widely shared.

It struck a chord with me. My experiences over the years haven't been anything near as traumatic as what Dan has dealt with, but a lot of the things he describes in his piece are very familiar indeed.

Here is the major issue with depression… it’s a dirty fucking liar. When I’m laid out on my bed (not in it, that requires movement) the black dog learns to speak. It doesn’t even do so with a pleasant cartoon voice, it’s one laced with bile and venom; a deep booming voice that rattles my core. Living with that constant voice is miserable. The black dog tells me that I’m no good at anything; that I’m a terrible parent; that nobody loves or appreciates me. It’s no use arguing with him at these times because his droning is relentless.

What makes it worse is that in every positive message I see around me, I’m left with a residue of self hatred. A friend of mine lands a great freelance writing position, that’s great… the black dog chews my ankle and says “you could have done that, but you didn’t because you’re useless. To be honest, you probably wouldn’t have even got the chance. Waste of space.”

Hoo, do I ever know this feeling. Part of it is a sense of impostor syndrome: the feeling that you'll never be quite as good at a thing you actually should be quite confident in as other people. The rest of it is simply a crippling sense of self-doubt and a lack of general self-confidence.

Unemployment really doesn't help with this. The worst thing about unemployment isn't the lack of money, though that certainly doesn't help and leads to a lot of worries and stress that can be otherwise avoided. No, the worst thing about unemployment is how it gradually eats away at your confidence, convincing you more and more each day that you're a worthless human being, that no-one will ever want you, that your skills are useless.

This is about where I am at the moment. I've been spamming out job applications for the past week or so, forgoing my usual approach of taking hours over a single application and then getting upset and depressed when it comes back as a rejection. While I know it's pretty much a crapshoot and random chance plays as much of a role as your actual talent for a position, it's still extremely demoralising the longer it goes on for. As I browse through lists of available jobs, I find myself wondering if I'm able to do them, even entry-level menial jobs. Even with jobs I know that I could do, like anything involving IT, I find myself hesitating over them because I don't feel confident that I'd be able to get my skills and enthusiasm across. Not having any particularly relevant qualifications or experience for the fields I'm interested in is a problem, too: my qualifications all relate to teaching, which theoretically could transfer to some sort of training position, but for stuff like IT the only thing I have to offer is my innate knowledge. That knowledge is solid, secure and fairly comprehensive, but not having a piece of paper to prove I have any of that knowledge leads to a constant sense of anxiety and inadequacy.

I hate this feeling. And I know all I have to do is keep plugging away in the hope that something good happens, and I'll almost certainly feel better once I have some regular money rolling in again. In the meantime, though, it's hard not to feel like a worthless, useless waste of space — even though I know that I'm not. That ol' Black Dog just keeps telling me that I am, and every day it gets harder and harder to reject his evaluation.

2308: An Open Letter to @wilw About Games as a Lifeline, "Male Tears" and Inexplicable Blocks

Hi Wil,

You don't know me, and I don't know you. Apparently I've done something to offend you in the past, though, because you have me blocked on Twitter. I don't know why and I don't know when this happened because as far as I know, we've had no direct interaction on any occasion ever, but I will apologise for whatever it was anyway. I will also express my sincere disappointment that someone I used to look up to as a bastion of what modern nerd culture should aspire to feels somehow threatened or upset with something I've done in the past — threatened or upset enough to simply cut me off from the prospect of ever interacting with him.

I was an avid viewer of many of the Geek and Sundry videos when it first launched — particularly Tabletop, which introduced my friends and I to a number of board games that are still in our regular rotation. Tabletop was an excellent show that gave a good flavour of how the various games played — even if there were occasional bits of fuzzing over the rules in the name of keeping things snappy! — as well as providing a great opportunity for some of the most entertaining, fun people in geek culture to come together and have a good time. A good time that was infectious — so enjoyable was the atmosphere on Tabletop that it felt like the audience was right there with you all, sitting around the game table, rooting for your favourite player to win and commiserating with you when you inevitably came lost. (As the resident person in our tabletop gaming group who perpetually comes last in pretty much everything, I could relate to your position quite a bit.)

On a more serious note, nerd culture in general is something that I've talked a lot in the past about giving me a lifeline when I needed it. In the case of video games, they've provided a constant and much-needed centre of stability in a life that has often been chaotic and beyond my control and understanding; in the case of tabletop gaming, they provide one of the few means of face-to-face social interaction in which I feel completely comfortable, whether it's with close friends or, as it was for me this Friday evening just gone, complete strangers. I think it's the fact that interactions over a tabletop game are, for the most part, clearly structured: it's why I gravitate towards games with clear rules, turn structures and player roles as well as those with strong themes that include flavour text I can read out dramatically to our group. Conversely, those games that require a certain degree of negotiation or freeform interaction are those I feel less comfortable with, since I'm sometimes not quite sure what I'm "supposed" to say.

But all that's by the by; it's just a bit of context of who I am. Needless to say, games of both the video and tabletop variety are extremely important to me; as you said in your keynote speech at PAX East in 2010, "some of the happiest days of our lives would not exist without games and gaming. Games are important. Games matter." I agree entirely, and when I took a risk, flying from the UK to Boston, MA for that PAX East — my first time attending such an event, and only, I think, the second time I'd taken a solo trans-Atlantic flight — I found somewhere that I really felt like I belonged. My life was, at that point, a bit of a mess: my marriage was falling apart — my wife at the time would go on to leave me shortly after I returned from Boston — and I didn't have a reliable source of income. Games gave me a sense of being grounded; somewhere to retreat to when I couldn't face the terror that everyday life at the time confronted me with. Games gave me common ground with which I could interact with other people; games gave me something to talk about, something that I could call "mine".

That time in my life was turbulent. I've had ups and downs since then, and as I type this I'm very much in a "down". Over the years since 2010, I've come to recognise the importance of acknowledging one's emotions, the causes of these emotions and the ways to deal with them. I'm not afraid to cry as I once was back in high school; as someone who sometimes has difficulty expressing exactly what he wants to say verbally, there are times when bursting into tears says more than words ever can; there are others when the act of opening those floodgates allows the repressed emotions to be released in a more controlled manner once you've calmed down a bit, letting you communicate what's really bothering you after the storm has subsided. Crying is important. Crying matters.

Which is why this image you posted on Twitter bothers me so much:

For anyone reading this letter who doesn't already know, the expression "male tears" is usually used by the more toxic side of online activism as a means of demonising men — usually straight, white men — when they wish to express themselves. It's largely brought out during arguments between the more militant side of feminism and those — usually, but not exclusively, men — who are tired of all the sociopolitically charged fighting that takes place every day on the Internet, particularly those who fight back somewhat aggressively with foul language, threats and exhortations for people to kill themselves. The "joke", such as it is, is that all this unpleasantness just bounces off the noble "progressive" types — referred to disparagingly by their critics as "Social Justice Warriors" or "SJWs" for short, an epithet which these people flip-flop between absolutely hating and trying desperately to reclaim in the same way black culture has largely reappropriated "nigga" for itself — and is just interpreted as straight, white men crying about something not going their way for once; the fact that "male tears" is written on a mug allows the "progressive" activist the opportunity to drink from it, suggesting that they relish the opportunity to feed on the tears of their enemies.

Pretty unpleasant however you look at it, and while the original intention may not have been to reinforce traditional ideals of what these same people call "toxic masculinity" — stereotypes such as "big boys don't cry" and "be a man for once" — I can't help but look at it that way. Speaking as a (straight, white) man who does cry, isn't ashamed of the fact that he cries and, in fact, has cried quite a bit over the last few months due to his own life situation and the suffering of the person he loves most dearly in the world: to see the idea of "male tears" used so gleefully and indiscriminately as a means of oneupmanship, of proving one's "progressiveness" feels grossly distasteful and insensitive. To have it proudly promoted by someone I once looked up to as almost an idol; someone I thought I could aspire to follow in the footsteps of; someone who proved that a person with my interests could find success and a place for themselves in the world? That just feels like a stab in the back, with a few good twists for good measure.

I don't deserve to feel like that, and I'm pretty certain I'm not the only person who feels this way. Some may express their disappointment and upset with this more eloquently or more aggressively than others, but however they choose to register their discontent and however much or little I agree with their methods of expressing it, I understand it completely. As someone who, now 35 years of age, was often ostracised and ridiculed for his interests and hobbies in his youth, was subsequently delighted when geek culture started to become fashionable over the course of the last decade and most recently has noted with a growing sense of discomfort that the things he finds most relatable, most important to him are those that are getting relentlessly torn down in the name of being "progressive"? It hurts. A lot.

I haven't done anything wrong. I haven't hurt anyone. I just want to be left alone to enjoy the things I enjoy with friends who also enjoy those things, and likewise to leave those who are interested in different things to do what they enjoy. I don't care about this perpetually raging culture war that has all but destroyed meaningful online discourse around video games in particular over the last five or six years, and put a serious strain on a number of friendships. I don't believe in a "one size fits all" approach to inclusivity and diversity, which is what many "progressive" types seem to argue for; I instead subscribe to a "many sizes fit many" ethos, which makes for a more vibrant, interesting and cross-pollinating culture in the long-term. And yet somehow, at some point, I've been branded with a scarlet letter, thrown in the pit with all the other social rejects. I've also been called a paedophile, a pervert, a misogynist and plenty of other things besides. My crime? I like Japanese video games with pretty girls in, and frequently argue against the misrepresentation of these games as soft porn in the mainstream press by those who won't take the time to engage with them.

Frankly, the whole situation makes me want to cry, but now I feel I shouldn't, because it will just, apparently, give you some sort of satisfaction. And that, to be honest, seems like the very inverse of your own credo, your own Wheaton's Law, of "Don't be a dick!"

You almost certainly won't read this, Wil, because having blocked me on Twitter I'm not sure there's any way you'll see it outside of someone you haven't blocked directly sharing it with you, and I don't see that happening. But I wanted to post it anyway; even if you don't read it, hopefully it will bring some sense of comfort to those who feel the same way I do about all this; put some feelings into words; provide a sense of solidarity.

As you argued in your speech, this feeling of solidarity, of belonging, is extremely important. We should all strive to help each other feel like we belong doing the things we love with the people we love in the places we love. With photos like the one posted above, you deliberately block off people from feeling like they can engage with this part of culture they adore, and people they might well otherwise get on with. And whether or not you believe that "male tears" only applies to men who don't know how to behave themselves politely and appropriately, know that it can — and will, and has — been interpreted in a way that just comes across as exclusive, combative and gatekeeping: the exact opposite of what you yourself argue we should aim for.

This whole situation needs to stop, as soon as possible. I hate it. Everyone else I know hates it. Can't we all just get around a gaming table and settle this the old-fashioned way: with dice, cards and chits — maybe even some fancy miniatures?

Thank you for your time, and thanks for reading, whether you're Wil Wheaton (unlikely) or some random passer-by who just wanted to see what I had to say.

Love & Peace
Pete

2269: Video Games (Might Have) Saved My Life

I thought about writing about this yesterday, but didn't; I was feeling rather emotional about it and thus figured it probably wasn't the best idea to spew out an ill-considered rant on such a sensitive subject. It's still a delicate subject, of course, but I feel a bit more mentally prepared to tackle it and attempt to do it justice today.

This will doubtless be difficult to write, so bear with me while I inevitably ramble around the point. It will probably also be quite difficult to read, particularly if you know me quite well… but, again, bear with me — hopefully you'll come away with a better understanding of some of the things I feel.

All right, preamble over: let's begin.

Yesterday, when I first thought about writing this piece, I was angry. I got suddenly very angry about something I've been angry about before, and have been doing my best to not be as bothered by: the ongoing "culture war" that has all but destroyed rational, reasonable discussion of popular media — particularly gaming — through public social channels such as Twitter, as well as all but destroying any credibility, inclusiveness and, in many cases, entertainment value the mainstream video games press had.

It wasn't really a specific event that made me feel angry; it was more a buildup of tension that just needed to be released. Recent controversies over the new Baldur's Gate expansion, the press and "social justice" types outright lying about why people didn't like it, needless outrage over Tracer's butt in Blizzard's Overwatch, the ever-present undercurrent of the morally superior looking down on people who are into video games and branding them misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, cis white heterosexual male scum… all of it was getting on top of me, even though a lot of it didn't even directly concern me and the games I'm into. But the controversies still resonated with me, since I've also seen very similar nonsense aimed at the games I am into.

When I get angry about something, after the fact I often like to take a moment to reflect on exactly why I got so angry — why is that thing in particular so important to me that it had such a powerful emotional effect on me? Video games are dumb timewasters, aren't they? Why should I care so much what some people I'd never want to hang out with at parties (not that I want to hang out with anyone at parties save for people who want to join me in another room and play computer games all night) think of the things I enjoy? Why do I feel compelled to continually defend my hobby and this medium from people who desire nothing more than to tear it down and remake it in the way they think it should be — because make no mistake, the loudest critics like this aren't after true "diversity" or "inclusion" since they, in many cases, simply cannot accept the existence of material they deem "problematic", nor can they understand that some people enjoy said "problematic" material and don't want to be called sex pests/paedophiles/misogynists/assholes simply for the things they happen to be into. Why?

Well, "video games are important to me" is the simple answer. And I could leave it at that. But I'm not going to: I'm going to explain exactly why video games are important to me.

Growing up, I was a bit of an outcast. I was shy, I lacked confidence, I didn't know how to talk to people. I remember on my first day at secondary school I turned to Matthew, one of my few friends from primary school and, with genuine fear in my eyes, whispered to him that I "couldn't remember how to make friends", which was putting me at something of a conversational impasse with Murray, the boy I had been sat next to in our tutor room. (Murray turned out to be a massive bullying twat, whom I finally punched in the face just as the headmaster was walking around the corner one memorable lunchtime; I escaped truly serious punishment on the grounds that he most certainly had had it coming for a very long time indeed.)

Growing up, I wasn't into sports. I was into stuff that other people weren't into. I played the piano. I played computer games. I wrote stories. (All of these are things I still do.) These were things that I learned I enjoyed at a very young age, so I have clung onto them with all my might for my whole life — and I've always known when someone would turn out to be a true friend, because they'd be into at least one of those things, and preferably more than one of them. Indeed, when I did eventually successfully remember how to make friends at secondary school, the group of friends I surrounded myself with were all a little like me to varying degrees — I was by far the most awkward and nerdy of them, but we all had our shared interest in video games which we felt like other people didn't really get the appeal of.

When the time came for me to go to university, I was terrified at the prospect of having to deal with new people and even live with them. Fortunately, I found myself living with a flat full of thoroughly decent people who tended to be remarkably understanding of my quirks. There were still occasions when what I now recognise as social anxiety would get the better of me, and I'd want nothing more than to lock myself away and escape into the wonderful worlds and stories gaming let me explore and be a part of.

I continued my love of video games throughout my adult life. They always served as something comforting to me: after a challenging day at university, games were there to help me relax. After a difficult day working in teaching, games were there to help me vent my stress. After a day of chaotic retail, games were there to help me chill out and forget about the previous eight hours. And after a day where everything felt like it had gone wrong, games were there to save me.

Those who have been reading this blog for a while will know that I've been through a few difficult periods over the last six years in particular. The most notable of these was in 2010, when my first wife and I parted ways and I was left unemployed, with no money and facing the prospect of having to move back home — something which I found mortifyingly embarrassing for a man of my age who had qualifications (and a failed/abandoned career based on those qualifications).

As time passed, I sank deeper and deeper into a very dark depression indeed. There were days when I was completely unable to function normally. I had a long period where I didn't — couldn't — get up until about 5 in the afternoon, which would always make me feel terrible when I'd stagger, unkempt, to the shop across the road from my flat and the guy with the smelly armpits behind the counter would ask "how my day had been".

Everything felt like it had gone wrong; I felt like I had completely failed at life. I felt like I had made all the wrong choices, and that there was no way out of the situation in which I found myself. And so my thoughts turned, as do those of many people in a similar situation, I'm sure, to whether or not this world really needed me in it any more.

Once that initial floodgate bursts and you start wondering such things, all manner of unwelcome thoughts start coming to the fore. Would it hurt? What's it like to die? If I did die, who would find me? Would anyone find me? Should I tell someone I'm feeling this way? Should I tell someone I'm going to kill myself? If I do, do I actually want them to stop me?

More often than not, these strings of thoughts would cause my brain to get into a bit of a feedback loop and I'd end up eventually just passing out from exhaustion, often after having had a spectacularly undignified cry and/or rage about the whole thing. But so long as the situation remained, the thoughts wouldn't go away entirely. I'd picture different ways of how I might do it, and what would happen once the deed had been done and someone found me — or what would happen if no-one found me.

To cut a long story short, I pushed through all that — more on how in a moment — and, for a while, things started to look up, and I started to think that I might have finally gotten myself into a situation where I could be happy and content, looking forward to the future rather than dreading it.

That didn't happen. The unceremonious loss of my job at USgamer for vague (and, frankly, probably spurious) reasons, followed by the horrendous way in which subsequent employer energy company SSE (or, more specifically, my immediate managers) treated me while I worked for them — yes, I am naming and shaming here, because it fucked me right up, and I am still bitter about it to such a degree that I often have flashbacks to my particularly horrible last day — caused me to once more sink into an awful pit of depression, and it wasn't any easier this time around, either.

Those thoughts of not being sure if I wanted to be part of this world any more started to come back. Familiar images of me holding a gun to my head came around; questions over what would happen if I followed through on these thoughts started to rise up once more.

And yet, even though I wouldn't describe myself as being out of the worst of it even now, I never once harmed myself, let alone made an attempt on my own life. Even in my darkest moments, I was always pulled back from the edge of that particular precipice.

Why? Two reasons, the first of which is the one I imagine most people in a similar situation quote: awareness of the few people in the world who do care about you, and what it would do to them if you were to do something as drastic as killing yourself.

The second is video games.

I'm not joking. A big part of why I am still on this planet is because of video games. And it's hard to explain exactly why, because there are a myriad of reasons I feel this way, but it is absolutely true, as ridiculous as it might sound.

Games have always been important to me. But over the last few years in particular — since about 2010 or so — I feel like I've really found the niche of games that interest and excite me, along with a group of publishers and developers who consistently and regularly put out things that keep me enthralled for hours on end. These games engage my emotions and draw me in with their stories and characterisation; these games make me feel like I can be someone that I'm not; these games put me in a situation where, while there might be problems and strife, there's always a way to deal with it, however challenging.

As I became more and more conscious of how I felt about these games, I started "stockpiling" — picking up games that I had no real intention of playing immediately, but which I wanted to add to my collection while they were still reasonably readily available. I also started re-acquiring games that I had previously owned that had made me feel the same way. And, one by one, I'd work my way through them, constantly finding new and enjoyable experiences to discover — even where, in many cases, said experiences weren't received particularly well by critics.

And here's how games saved me: the knowledge that in every DVD case on my bookshelf there is a new experience to be had; a new world to explore; new characters to fall in love with — that's the one thing that, every time, pulls me back from the brink of doing something drastic, however dark the situation in which I find myself might be, and however persistent those horrible thoughts in my head might be. I have literally had the thought "I can't die until I've played all the Neptunia games". I have literally had the thought "I'm not going anywhere until I've played all the Ateliers". And so on and so on; so much do I value these experiences — and the ability to talk and enthuse about them with those people I know who do respect my interests, even if they don't share them — that I can't bring myself to even hurt myself, let alone make an attempt on my own life.

You may think this is a dumb reason to keep living. You may think that this is unhealthy. You may think that there are more deep-seated problems here (and you'd be right). But trust me when I say: when even a tiny part of your brain starts considering whether or not you're really needed in this plane of existence any more, the part of you that is still concerned with self-preservation will cling on to any thing — however dumb it might be — that will help you survive.

For me, that thing is video games, and to my reckoning they've saved me from three particularly bad periods in my life: the nervous breakdown that convinced me once and for all that no, classroom teaching was not the career for me; my first wife and I parting ways; and my recent employment woes.

Hopefully it is now clear to you, dear reader, how important video games are to me. And, bearing in mind how important they are to me, can you perhaps understand how frustrating and upsetting it is to me when a needless, pointless cultural war comes stomping all over them — with the games that resonate with me the most inevitably being the ones that come under the heaviest fire from some of the most obnoxious people on the Internet?

Video games — as they are today, regardless of how "problematic" or whatever other bullshit adjectives you want to apply to them — saved my life. So you damn well better believe I will fight back with all my might against anyone who wants to change them and the culture surrounding them for the worse.

Video games saved my life. Thank you, video games — and everyone who makes them.

(Here's the source for the awesome image the header pic is based on, if you were curious.)

2227: Filling the Days

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Anyone who has been out of work will know how frustrating it is to be in that "waiting" period while you have some applications out and no idea whether or not you're going to hear back from any of them. It seems that most companies these days use the catch-all get-out clause of there being a "very high volume of applications", thus absolving themselves of any responsibility for actually delivering an answer to unsuccessful applicants — or even acknowledging them at all, in some cases. (I know that rationally speaking there probably is a very high volume of applications and it would be very difficult to respond to all of them, but it's still fucking rude.)

As I noted a while ago, I've been trying my best to fill my days while this waiting is going on. I've been looking for jobs in various fields — preferably those I can perform a bit more flexibly and/or from home — and applying to a few as well as continuing with the trickle of regular-ish freelance work I've been undertaking, but doing that all day every day is a sure-fire recipe for wanting to fall asleep and not wake up again.

So there have been a number of ways I've been keeping occupied. There's video games, of course, but those aren't especially "productive", though they do provide useful fodder for writing about various topics, which is handy, as well as something I can talk about with people. That's something that's actually quite important, particularly when you're stuck at home: it's a tremendously awkward position to find yourself in when you're at a social occasion and you realise you have literally nothing of note to contribute to any conversation. (As a socially anxious person, I feel like this most of the time, so it's best not to give myself any actual ammunition to back this up.)

I've been continuing to work on my book. I figured out that my writing software Scrivener has a "target" option with exciting progress bars that fill up for both your complete project and your session target, so you can have that RPG-like experience of filling bars and feeling all happy and satisfied when they're full. I'm not yet sure what a reasonable target for each session is — I can knock out 1,500 words in one sitting without too much difficulty, but that doesn't feel like very much and I kind of want to try and keep my momentum going without burning myself out. I'm sure I'll pin down a suitable target; perhaps I'll increase it little by little from 1,500 with each session and see what feels comfortable. As for the book itself, recommendations online seem to suggest a length of 80-100k words is a suitable length, so I'm aiming at the lower end of that spectrum as a minimum target; since I'm a verbose sort of chap, that leaves me some leeway to go over, whereas if I aimed specifically for 100k as a minimum, I'd have to excise big chunks to get the word count down, which is something I don't like doing; every word is sacred, or something.

Currently, the project is at 21,000 words or so, which is quite good going — or about a quarter of the way through, if you want to look at it another way. I'm enjoying getting back into the swing of things; while I write on this blog every day and have even indulged in some creative writing on here on several occasions, simply sitting down and writing a story for the sake of writing a story rather than "because oh shit I need a blog post for today" is an enjoyable experience that stimulates my already rather overactive imagination; I'll probably write more about how I feel while I'm writing on another occasion, as I think it's an interesting discussion.

Aside from this, I have some other things to be getting on with, too: there's a second edition of the Digitally Downloaded magazine in the works, and I have Japanese studies to be getting on with. Or indeed restarting to refresh my memory, since it's been a little while since I last engaged with them. I am pleasantly surprised how much hiragana have stayed with me since my last dedicated effort to learn, though; my next hurdle — and the one that tends to stall me each time — is katakana, but I'm sure with a bit of effort I'll be able to conquer it. Then I can get depressed at knowing I'll never, ever know all the kanji.

Anyway. That's how I'm filling my days at the moment. While none of this is making me any money, sadly, a few of these things do at least have the potential to lead somewhere in the future. Perhaps my book will sell. Perhaps I'll learn enough Japanese to be able to do something with it. Perhaps the magazine will take off and we'll be able to start charging for it. Who knows? While I have this time, it's worth exploring these things rather than getting depressed about the fact that jobs in the traditional sense seem to be extremely, frustratingly, infuriatingly difficult to come by these days, particularly when you yourself aren't really sure what you're qualified and/or skilled enough to do…

2217: When You Have No Occupation, You Should Stay Occupied

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One of the things that is most difficult about being out of work is keeping yourself occupied without falling into unproductive routines. It would be extremely easy to not bother doing anything useful at all each and every day, treating the time "off" as a kind of holiday, watching television, playing games, listening to the radio or falling into a deep, existential depression while staring at the ceiling of one's bedroom. I say it is extremely easy to do these things because I have done all these things while out of work at various points. Sometimes you need that time to yourself, but unfortunately, said time to yourself doesn't pay the bills.

Doing nothing but hunting for jobs isn't necessarily the most productive course of action either, though. Job-hunting is an enormously demoralising experience, since by its very definition you're going to be faced with more inexplicable rejection than acceptance in most cases. At other times, you'll find yourself faced with an opportunity that just doesn't seem quite right, but which you feel guilty turning down because you need work. (I say this having turned down two opportunities recently that didn't feel right at all. Like, a big ol' "bad feeling in the guy" not right at all.) That can be exhausting, and the toll it takes on your mental faculties can have an adverse effect on your subsequent attempts to find work as you lose patience with it and get tempted to apply to any old thing on the off-chance someone will find you in any way employable.

Therefore, it's important to find other ways to occupy yourself, and to divide your days up into various things that, if they're not necessarily directly productive, they at least provide you with the opportunity to feel like you've accomplished something. Indulging in a creative project, learning something new, practising your skills in something — all of these things are good ways to spend your time and if you're out of work, it's an ideal opportunity to spend some of those empty hours doing them.

You'll notice that I'm writing this and using the word "you" a lot, as if I'm giving advice to someone else. Really, I'm giving advice to myself, to be perfectly honest, since as previously noted, I find it much too easy to sink into depression and just want to comfort myself with things that don't require too much in the way of effort. But that way leads further into bad situations, so from tomorrow, I'm going to make a particular effort to spend a bit of time each day doing something that makes me feel like I've accomplished something. I don't think I'm going to go so far as to schedule what I should do when — not for the moment, anyway, though that has worked for me in the past — but I am going to ensure that I do at least one thing every day for a minimum of an hour that leaves me feeling satisfied that I'm not completely wasting my time.

Activities that spring immediately to mind to accomplish this include music practice, music composition, creative writing (both fiction and non-fiction — I have a number of ideas for both), Japanese language studies, developing my computer skills (particularly with regard to things like programming and/or web design), working on the next edition of the magazine I shared with you a while back and making more gaming videos. That should keep me busy on a fairly regular basis; some of those things may even lead to further actual paying opportunities of various descriptions in the future, if not immediately.

Mostly they're attempts to keep myself occupied and feeling positive. I feel I'm at a particularly low ebb right now, if that wasn't already abundantly clear from my recent entries, and I want to feel like I'm making the best of a bad situation rather than wallowing in sadness. It won't be easy, but I feel it's probably the best way to approach what I'm dealing with at the moment.

Wish me luck.

2205: No End in Sight

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Regular readers will know that I'm going through a bit of a Rough Patch at the minute, to say the least. Tonight it's hitting me particularly hard, for various reasons that I shan't go into in detail. I wanted to talk a little more generally, as I find this often helps me sort things out in my mind a bit.

The thing that's making me feel particularly bleak right now is that it feels like there's no end in sight for this Rough Patch. I don't know how to resolve it; I don't know how to "fix" it. I feel like I've messed up — not once, not twice, but repeatedly, and I'm now reaping the anti-rewards that are the consequence of all the things I've done wrong in my life, all the poor choices I've made.

For sure, I know that I have made plenty of poor choices along the way, but many of them didn't seem like it at the time — and rationally speaking, I also know that I'm not the only one to blame for my current situation. The blame for that can be laid at the feet of a wide variety of people, including me, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with — particularly as many of the non-me people that I blame for this situation are essentially "untouchable" despite me wanting nothing more than to at the very least yell at them and, were I feeling particularly feisty that day, slug them one right in the face.

Mostly I'm just frustrated because I'm not sure I deserve this. I feel like I have plenty to offer the world, and no way of making it clear to everyone that I matter, that I have value. I have friends and family, sure — both local and far-away — and that knowledge, to an extent, takes care of part of my emotional well-being, but it doesn't pay the bills, and it doesn't give me a sense of satisfaction that I am, in any way, making the most of my existence. Were I to drop dead tomorrow, 1) would anyone notice? and 2) would I be remembered for anything particularly worthwhile? Again, rationally speaking, I know the answer to both of those questions is probably "yes" — and I'm not planning on dropping dead tomorrow — but it's difficult to remember that sometimes when you find yourself struggling to stay afloat.

I really don't know what to do any more. For every bit of progress I feel like I make, I suffer some sort of setback. I end up not going anywhere — and, in the worst case, going backwards. When I left university, I was a teacher earning over £25k a year. Later, I had my dream job of writing about games for slightly less than that. Now I'm looking at retail jobs with wages of a relative pittance in comparison, on the grounds that 1) I feel like I can do them and 2) that's all I feel like I can convince prospective employers I'm good for. (Not that there's anything wrong with retail, obviously; it just feels like all that education was a bit of a waste, is all.)

I'll figure something out. Bad things have happened to me before and I made it through. And on those past occasions, it felt like I was drowning in black tar, with no means of escape visible in any direction — and yet I still did. I have no reason to believe this time will be any different; it's just a matter of when I can see the shoreline at the edge of this inky sea. At the moment it's somewhere beyond the horizon.

2192: Things That Stopped Me From Sleeping Last Night

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I didn't get to sleep until nearly 5am this morning due to a fairly bad anxiety attack. Here, in roughly chronological order, is a probably non-exhaustive list of things that this anxiety attack caused me to worry about.

Whether I'll get a new job in time to make the next mortgage payment
Whether I'll get a new job at all
Whether it's possible to support myself financially through non-conventional means such as Patreon or its ilk
Whether I'm a good person
Whether our pet rat Clover is all right
Whether or not I should be upset over the fact I was blocked without warning or discussion on Twitter by someone I had previously got on very well with on the grounds that I had said "ignorant nonsense"
Whether or not I had really said "ignorant nonsense", or whether this person was an idiot
Whether or not I had genuinely upset this person, regardless of whether or not they were an idiot
Whether it mattered if I had genuinely upset this person if they were going to just cut all ties with me without even attempting to talk about whatever the issue was
Whether I should have gone to sleep earlier
Whether it's worth getting up in the morning
Whether I should apply for jobs in the same field I've just been looking into, or whether I should be looking elsewhere
Whether I should train in a new field
How I could possibly afford to train in a new field
What it would be like to work in a new field
Whether I'd gained weight this week after having a Chinese takeaway and fish and chips rather than sticking to Slimming World (got weighed this evening — I hadn't, in fact I had lost a pound)
Whether I'll get a new job at all (again)
Wouldn't it be nice to win the lottery?
What am I going to do when I come to the end of the period I'm leasing my car? Is it in good enough condition for me to just give it back? Can I just give it back?
Whether I've made a lifetime's worth of irreversible mistakes
Whether I can get my life back on track
What it would be like to put a gun to your head
Whether I would have the courage to pull the trigger
Whether I want to pull the trigger
Whether I was ever going to get to sleep
Whether I was ever going to get to sleep ever again
Why I can fall asleep in seconds in the morning, but not at night
Whether I should feel bad for liking Jeremy Clarkson
How much Lily Rank grinding I had left to do in Hyperdimension Neptunia U
Whether the meandering course that my friendships and relationships have taken over the years is the "right" path
Whether there is a right path for interpersonal relationships
Why my friend who had once been attacked by a dogpile of politically-correct nutcases on Twitter now appeared to be one of those politically-correct nutcases
Whether or not I should go back to Final Fantasy XIV
Whether I'd know if someone broke into the house
Whether someone who broke into the house would steal my massive TV, or just something small
Whether someone who broke into the house would come into our room and kill us

Anxiety sucks, because everything seems like a massive deal. Some of the things I was worrying about are important, but some of them are not. Last night, everything felt terrifying and disturbing. Last night, everything stopped me from sleeping. I would rather that did not happen again tonight.

2189: Reflections on the Last Five Years, Or: Life After Games Journalism

I've had a whole lot of thoughts swirling around in my head for some time now about various matters, and I feel as a therapeutic exercise — not to mention an opportunity for some of you to get to know me a bit better — it's important that I express them somehow. I know all too well how frustrating, stressful and ultimately unhealthy it can be to have unresolved emotions and thoughts surrounding things that have happened to you — particularly bad things — and so this is my attempt to reboot my mind and try to move on a little.

Consequently, certain aspects of this post are more than likely to rub a few people up the wrong way. To those people whose jimmies are rustled I say simply: fuck you, I don't give a shit, and if you really cared you wouldn't have done the things you did in the first place.

In the interests of at least a facade of professionalism, I will not be naming individuals who have had a negative impact on my life in this post, though it will doubtless be extremely obvious to anyone who has been following me for a while who the people in question are. I will, however, be naming the companies involved, since that is less personal; everyone knows how unpleasant it is if you Google your own name and find something not terribly complimentary, whereas, unless you own a monolithic corporation, you probably care a little less about someone talking smack about your monolithic corporation. That's how I'm going to attempt to justify myself about this, anyway.

Also, this post is crazy long, so for the benefit of those who only read on my front page, here's a Read More tag.

Continue reading "2189: Reflections on the Last Five Years, Or: Life After Games Journalism" →

2171: Pain

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There are many types of pain in the world. There's physical pain, which can range from mildly annoying to excruciating and debilitating. There's mental pain, which, likewise, can range from occasionally distracting to life-consuming. There's emotional pain, which ranges from feeling a bit blue to wanting to end your own existence.

Few things compare to the pain you feel when helpless to do anything to help someone you love, though. This pain cuts deep, right through your very soul, and threatens to rip out the very core of your being. It's as excruciating, life-consuming and debilitating as all of the very worst the other kinds of pain have to offer, with the added joy that there's absolutely no way whatsoever to treat it. If there were, you wouldn't be feeling it in the first place.

Mostly this pain stems from a position of impotence: a position of complete powerlessness to do anything to help resolve that which is causing your special person anguish. It's the frustration at not knowing what to do, and at the things you do try not being enough or not working. It's the realisation that there really is nothing you can do but watch as someone else suffers, and just hope that people who are better qualified to sort things out are able to sort things out — or, in the worst possible circumstances, that things will just resolve themselves somehow.

I do not know how to deal with that pain, and I am suffering dreadfully from it. And I feel bad bringing it up, because the pain I feel is something intangible that is a consequence of someone who is physically suffering. But it's there, nonetheless, and it probably needs "treatment" of some sort just as much as the physical pain does.

I don't even know where to begin, though. Let's hope that the old saying about time healing all wounds is really true.

2162: That Not-So-Wonderful Time of the Year

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It seems to me that this holiday season has been, for many people, a period of inordinately, disproportionately Bad Times. I've had some shittiness to deal with myself, which I won't go into here, but just from browsing my Twitter feed each day it's clear that I'm not alone in having a tough time of it right now.

This post, then, is perhaps to reassure those who are feeling a similar way that they're not alone, that there are other people out there who understand the way they are feeling, and who would hang out with them, play video games with them, share lewd pictures of anime girls with them and/or hug them as appropriate. I say this as someone who would enjoy all of the above with the people I'm talking about.

This holiday season feels like a highly concentrated form of the tension that has permeated all of 2015. There's been a thoroughly unpleasant undercurrent of "walking on eggshells" with regard to political correctness, and it feels like it's been coming to a head recently.

Arguments over whether or not Hermione in the Harry Potter series is black erupted today, with both sides attempting to claim some sort of moral superiority in a frankly rather childish, stupid and utterly pointless conflict that didn't need to happen in the first place. But this is far from the only thing that's been highly charged; even the new Star Wars movie became politicised, with some commentators making more of the fact that its leads feature a black person and a woman than the fact that, by all accounts, The Force Awakens appears to be something of a return to form for the series.

Among it all, the ever-bubbling conflict between the so-called "Social Justice Warriors" — blowhards who want to look like they're saying the "right" things with regard to political correctness, but who are actually just seeking glory for themselves rather than having any real interest in changing society for the better — and people who just want to be left the fuck alone to enjoy whatever they want has continued, with the former group in particular continuing its trend of making wild accusations without any sort of proof, blaming all of society's ills on "GamerGate" and "the Men's Rights Activists" rather than taking the time to get to know any members of these groups and contemplate why they are at loggerheads.

This perpetual "culture war" makes me incredibly sad, because it has poisoned what used to be lively and interesting public discussion and debate over subjects such as video games. Anita Sarkeesian's appearance on the scene, with her oh-so-brave step of saying that sometimes common tropes in video games favour men over women — while conveniently ignoring the hundreds, even thousands, of excellent female characters in gaming — acted as a catalyst for all manner of nutjobs to come out of the woodwork, and this whole movement seems to have grown in prominence by a huge amount in the last year. Fans of Japanese games and anime on social media are particularly perturbed that there are no mainstream sites remaining that are willing to give niche Japanese titles the time of day, instead preferring to look at them on a superficial level, brand them "sexist" or "misogynist" and move on, when in fact, in many cases, these "otaku games" are far more progressive than any bullshit these loudmouths might come up with. Seeing these discussions makes me all the more sad that I was strongarmed out of my position at USgamer, where, as many of you know, I ran a weekly JPgamer column, celebrating the weird and wonderful entertainment that our friends in the East — and the intrepid localisation teams — brought us.

It's not so much the lack of media representation that saddens me in this instance, though; it's the sense of alienation I feel when I see people that I thought were friends starting to spout ill-informed nonsense in the name of being "progressive". Mockery, public shaming and similar behaviours are not progressive, and I cannot support them or anyone who condones them — speaking as someone who was bullied throughout school, and who suffered a horrendous targeted harassment campaign a couple of years back, I know what harm dogpiling can do to your wellbeing. It surprises and upsets me to see friends who once suffered the effects of being publicly humiliated by these assholes now joining their ranks and gleefully indulging in that sort of reprehensible behaviour. A case of "if you can't beat them, join them" perhaps — but whether or not that's the case, it still sucks to feel like you don't know someone any more.

This post has rambled and perhaps got a little off-topic somewhere along the way, but all these thoughts are swirling around my head right now, and this holiday season feels like something of a focal point for all the misery, tension and discomfort that 2015 has brought to numerous people I know, including myself. The world feels like it's getting worse, not better, and when you're someone who tries their best to be a good person and not hurt anyone, this is exceedingly frustrating and upsetting.

Hopefully 2016 will be a better time for everyone, but at this stage I'm not particularly confident. I hope I end up pleasantly surprised.