Friday, September 21, 2012

Say something, damn it!

As previously mentioned I'm feeling sad, and I don't know why.  I doubt that it's sad without a reason, but there are so many reasons for me to feel down right now that if I go looking for the reason I'll find so many as to drive me into sobbing sobbyness.  Part of the way I avoid getting crushed under the weight of everything that's wrong in my life is to not focus on the wrong.

So the sadness has remained, it's cause unknown and undealt with.

There have been good things, there have been happy spots, but they were momentary.  Ephemeral instances that once over left me back at the new normal of sad.

The rest of life isn't helping much.  Remember how I talked about wanting to write posts for the Slacktiverse?  Yeah, that looks like it'll never happen.  Perhaps, maybe, I can do something for whatever replaces it.  My family always seems to manage to bring me down.

There were other things I was going to say, but I've forgotten them*, and unlike some times that happens I haven't been called away or distracted, in the time that it took me to write "The rest of life isn't helping much," to the time it took me to get here, with nothing else in the way and typing at what I think is a pretty good pace, I've forgotten.  School I'm doing crap at, even if in class discussions are where I've been feeling most alive lately.

And I just realized I forgot a homework assignment that was due yesterday.  No makeup on that.

Anyway, all of the above is just introduction.

A string of words to get me to the point.

And the point is this:

Say something, damn it.

Recently, over at the Slacktiverse, someone wrote this:
@chris the cynic - I love and very much look forward to your witty comments and mini-stories, and I'd be excited to read posts written by you, if that means anything.  
Yes, it does mean something.  It means a lot.  Sometimes it means everything.

I responded that if there's one thing that I wish I could get across to the people reading here it's, "Say something, damn it!"  I've already tried saying that, though in different words, but I figured that, in light of my current case of sadness, I'd try again.

I know how many people look at a given page.  Sort of.  Actually I know how many times a given page is looked at.  One person looks at the same page ten times, or ten people look at it once, and it's all the same from my end, but regardless I know how many times something is viewed.

I don't know what any of the people viewing it are thinking.  I mean some of them get here by accident when searching for something else on Google and a can guess that they're thinking something along the lines of, "What the fuck is this?" but beyond that, I have no idea.

I don't know if people like what they see, I don't know if they hate it.  I don't know if the think it's brilliant, or horrible or the worst kind of mediocracy, or what.

The only way I know how you feel is if you tell me.

So please, for the love of god, tell me.  If you don't believe in god then for the love of psychology, or the love of sugar and spice and all things nice, or the love of me, or the love of something.

If ever I have written anything that you thought was worth reading, tell me.  Find that post and say whatever it is you liked about it.  If ever in the future I should write something that you like, tell me.

I don't want to disrespect those who have commented, I really appreciate it, especially the handful who do it regularly, and writing a post like this makes me worry that I'll alienate all of them and then I'll be stuck here completely alone just talking to myself until I realize that's a worthless endeavor and give up.

It's just... I'm needy alright.  I need validation because without it I'm left to my own devices and my own devices have been marinating in depression for over a decade and even knowing that doesn't change the way it feels when they tell me things that I don't want to hear.  So, yeah, it's the depression that makes me feel like everyone who doesn't comment on a post obviously thought it was a waste of their time reading it, but intellectually knowing it doesn't change the fact that it feels that way.

And even if I go, "Ok, clearly not everyone hated it," there's still a question of how many people didn't.  Ten percent?  One percent?

There were six comments on this post.  The first was a troll.  It's in the spamtrap now.  The second was me commenting on the oddness of that spesific troll, who generally goes after atheist sites, picking a Snarky Twilight post to troll.  The third was the troll repeating the exact same comment.  It's also in the spamtrap now.  The fourth was me saying that's really not hard for me to spamtrap spam on the off chance that saying that would make the troll realize that no matter how many times he copied and pasted the same rant, it would never stay up.

The fifth was actually about the post.

The sixth was me thanking the person for speaking up because now, finally, there was an on topic comment.

Six comments has to put it pretty far up there in terms of response, but two of them were trolling and three of them were me.  So, as far as I know, no one else, but that one person, saw anything of value in that post.  Maybe that's true, maybe it's not, but it's all I have to go on.

Other things have no comments whatsoever.  For all I know people clicked over, took one look at the thing, decided it wasn't even worth reading in it's entirety, and left.

So, please, if you have anything to say, even if you don't think it's important, say it.  On any post at all.  Old, new, whatever.  Just speak up.

Please.

-

* One of them, I remember now, was that the old blogger interface is gone.  The new one is better for writing and editing posts, which is important, unfortunately it's also ugly and very annoying if you're trying to find something you've already said (in the old one, on the page where posts are listed, I could expand a post to see what I said in it, on the new one I have to go to a separate page to do that), it's harder to navigate by tags because they're in a drop down menu instead of just listed along the side, the stats page is disgusting, and overall it's an incredible eyesore.

It seems to be designed to make anyone who looks at it for any length of time think, "Why the fuck did I choose to start my blog on blogger?"

20 comments:

  1. Heh. I was just doing a search on {incredibly disturbing string of search terms}, and here I am.

    Oh, wait. That's not it.

    Honestly, most of the time I don't comment because I don't really feel like I have much to add. That said, I'd agree with the Slacktiverse commenter: what you write is well worth reading. Even when it's incomplete, even when its fragmentary.

    Case in point: A World Without God has turned out to be a major influence on my thinking about one of my own projects (Afterworld, to be specific). That's along with a piece at Making Light, and an old Slacktivist discussion of the difficulties inherent in writing believable fantasy of the "technology stops working" variety.

    Hope things shape up, and I hope you get to feeling better.

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    1. Hope things shape up, and I hope you get to feeling better.

      Thanks.

      Delete
  2. But but but... the only way I maintain my reputation for erudite witticism is by only posting when I have one available!

    I like the Twilight stuff but I haven't read the books so I reckon I'm missing most of it. (This is why I'm not reading Ana M.)

    I like the LB stuff, and I've read enough of them that I think I have some idea what's going on. The "skewed" series is particularly good in a disturbing sort of way - a better writer than L&J could actually have made these books effective propaganda.

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    1. I think I said this last time (I could look it up, but I'm not going to at the moment), if everyone commented as much as you I wouldn't have this problem.

      Delete
    2. I haven't read either Twilight or LB, so I'm probably missing a reasonable amount of them. Still, context has given me enough that I think I can follow reasonably - at least, I know enough to know that Chris's beaten both the originals hands-down!

      Delete
  3. I've been really enjoying your analysis of .hack, since I really enjoyed the series itself. I skip most of the others because I haven't read the books they're based on, and they seem to be highly contextualized. (When did Bella get the keys to the Magic Schoolbus? Is that part of the actual series? WAIT I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW.)

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    1. I've been really enjoying your analysis of .hack

      It's good to hear that. For me it's one of the most emotionally important things, and I feel like it's largely ignored.

      When did Bella get the keys to the Magic Schoolbus?

      Assuming you're talking about what I think you're talking about, when she decided to walk right off the page and had adventures throughout time and space the only one of which was elaborated on was remeeting an old friend.

      WAIT I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW.

      Too late. Hope I haven't scared you off.

      Delete
  4. Something, damn it!
    Okay, got that out of the way.

    Chris: I don't know what any of the people viewing it are thinking.

    Well, fourteen people saw the original comment-version of the badminton post and thought "I'm going to press the like button on this comment."

    Firedrake: I like the Twilight stuff but I haven't read the books so I reckon I'm missing most of it. (This is why I'm not reading Ana M.)

    I've followed her Twilight posts both without reading along and with reading along. It's not actually that big a difference. You may as well read the book itself if you've got a copy handy (which I do, because for some reason Mom wanted one), but without is fine as well.

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    1. Something, damn it!

      Thank you.

      -

      I've followed her Twilight posts both without reading along and with reading along. It's not actually that big a difference. You may as well read the book itself if you've got a copy handy (which I do, because for some reason Mom wanted one), but without is fine as well.

      I second this. I actually got my copy from Ana after I'd been following them for a while.

      Delete
  5. You wrote a lot of things that I found worth reading. Thank you for writing them.

    Most of the times I don't comment because I don't know what to say. I don't comment on Twilight posts because more often than not I already "liked" them where I saw them first. Explaining why I clicked "like" is an impossible task for me. I've never been good at either talking about things I like or explaining why I like them. Sorry.

    ---Redcrow

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    1. Probably makes me a hypocrite, but I'm the same way most of the time.

      Delete
  6. I like reading your posts, I just generally don't have much to say. It feels foolish to just say "oh, I like that" even though I do sometimes leave comments like that. I guess I should do so more often.

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  7. When I've been reading comments on Slacktivist or the Slacktiverse, I make a note of where I stopped reading in a .txt file kept for that specific purpose. Sometimes when I've just read a spectacularly good comment, I'll make a note of which comments page it was on and who wrote it, maybe a keyword to help me find it again in Disqus horrible interface. Anyway, I've been wanting to tell you this for a while: the most common notation I make in my little .txt file is "chris the cynic is awesome." Because you are.

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    1. THIS. I second this comment. I love hearing your thoughts about stuff. Writing and worldbuilding particularly, and languages and history and stuff. You add so much to so many discussions.

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  8. I'll try to do it more often. I have less commenting time these days because I'm doing more piece-meal reading - a couple minutes here and there - but less time to actually sit down. My sit-down time usually comes at the end of the day, when I basically have no thoughts left and no ability to cohese them into something.

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  9. This is a test of the emergency posting system. This is only a test. Had this been an actual post, this message would be replaced by actual content.

    But yeah. I've wanted to post, but had a lot of trouble, because I don't have any of the required accounts... except Facebook, which I don't want to use because it uses your real name. And I can't make an account because I already have Facebook!

    Hopefully this will work, though.

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    1. It's supposed to let you comment without being logged into anything. How well it does that is an entirely different matter with which I have no experience.

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    2. Works for me.

      Some places need a login of some sort but accept OpenID - for which there are at least two free providers. This isn't one of them - select "Name/URL" and just enter the name you're using.

      Delete
    3. I might have logged in once... I hardly ever do it, though.

      Delete
  10. Hi.

    Yeah, I'm lazy, okay? But I know how it feels to just need somebody to say -something- and I know that kind of needy (It's really okay to be needy, by the way. Random internet person gives you the permission now.) on a rather personal basis.

    I haven't read much of your stuff yet but I do think I'll add it to my to-do mountain. Remember though, I'm lazy, but I will be along. Particularly if you keep reminding me by going to places like Ana Mardoll's blog and posting about stuff like you regularly do.

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