So I’ve had a lot of stuff going on lately, and thought I’d just talk about whatever I feel like talking about.
I’ve been dealing with a lot of anxiety lately. I’m not really interested in going into the ins and outs of the war in Ukraine. quite frankly, it’s boring. Is it a terrible thing? Sure, all war is. But I’ve learned a long time ago that you really should only worry about the things that you can directly change, and quite frankly, this isn’t one of them. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect me, though, just not in the ways you might think.
When I was a child, the cult that I was raised in taught that the world was going to end any moment (like a “thief in the night”) and the entire world was going to be destroyed, with nuclear bombs. In point of fact, the magazine that they distributed (the Plain Truth) used to love putting pictures of nuclear tests on their front cover. This was in the late 60s and 70s, so you know how well their predictions turned out. That doesn’t matter, though. I was raised in, well, terror, but nothing I could ever directly control. So, when Putin decided last week to elevate his nuclear status, that kind of sent me into a tailspin, and one I still haven’t entirely recovered from. But life goes on, and you can’t exactly take the time to deal with these things. The last week has been particularly awful for me, though, and it doesn’t seem to be getting better. It has nothing to do with external events, just how external events are interacting with internal events.
That’s the nature of war, though. Putin doesn’t give two shits about the effect it has on people like me, and quite frankly, neither do the people who are trying to scare me for money.
I’m not even going to get on the pro-Ukraine bandwagon that everyone and their brother seems to be on right now. Quite honestly, I don’t have an opinion. Putin has some valid concerns. His behavior in addressing those concerns doesn’t seem ideal. So there’s really no point in going on and on about Ukraine this and Russia that. I have more pressing personal things to worry about.
I have been keeping busy. I’ve been working on two big projects lately – and that’s the Lily project, and trying to get another YouTube channel off the ground, and mostly failing at both. I say “mostly” because it’s probably too soon to tell, really, if they’re actually failing or not, but right now no one’s paying any attention. As far as the art part of it, Lily is really turning out well. I bought a new computer with some frankly insane horsepower, so I’ve been able to voice her in real time, and that’s really working out. I’m not 100% happy with the voice, but it’s good enough, and I find myself able to get into the role juuuust enough that people can suspend disbelief. It’s fun, but I can turn it off when I stop recording, so that’s the really important part. As far as the other YouTube channel goes, it’s a channel about electronics and other technical stuff I want to post about, but of course no one watches it yet. Probably I’m doing a terrible job at marketing it. I’m not at all good at that. I don’t know why.
As far as Japanese goes, well, that’s stalled. I keep telling myself I want to get back into it, and I may use Lily for that purpose, but I just haven’t found any motivation. My feelings on Japanese are still really conflicted. I like Japanese, I like Japanese media, and they do cute and fun sooo well. But on the flip side, there’s such a darkness there that I’m having a really hard time getting past – I just can’t seem to interact with their culture on the superficial level it almost demands. I mean, if you just take Japanese culture based upon what it exports and the bastardization of the culture that otaku have created, well, it’s really cool! But don’t ever dig deeper, because there’s some not fun stuff just below the surface. The very things that make their culture so wonderful have a dark side.
But I guess I’ll keep trucking on until I can’t. What else is there? It’s not like life stops for you.
I guess that’s it for my monthly post. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!
Oh. Meet Lily. She’s got a few other videos if you like her, and more are coming.