So… I’m 40! Fuck…
I don’t even want to admit to myself that I’m that old. Mentally, I don’t feel 40. Physically… yeah. I’m hearing bone creaks all the time and I just can’t work out as hard as I use to without feeling a lot of pain. I’m recovering from a foot injury and I couldn’t exercise for five days. I’m going to try my best tomorrow. Anyway, foot pains have nothing to do about this website and the title.
I’m working on my new shop all the time and right now I’m taking a small break to write this post. The new shop… right now I made close to 250 dollars, perhaps a little more within 4 months. I stopped posting in November to work on the website and YouTube channel. It’s a lot of work but I’m determined to follow through with my goal, unless my health or some event outside of my control happens.
I never shied away from hard work or any work. It’s just I never had the patience to see it manifest to something. I think that’s maybe the reason why I have some sales for my shop. It took me a few months to make over 100 art prints for the shop. I spent money on Etsy ads but I think that hurt more than helped me. I think having a Youtube Channel and my own website will help the shop.
So what does this have to do with the title and this website? Well, it’s taking most of my time and until I have at least 100 videos up, I won’t be working on this website or the Chicago album. I honestly have no clue how I’m going to approach this album at all. I took horrible photos like I always do. I try really hard to take good pictures but whenever I go back to look at them, turns out they weren’t too good. I also try to be inconspicuous when taking photos and I’m learning that’s to my detriment. I almost envy how confident people are who take selfies and videos of themselves out and about. I really don’t like the stares. It makes me uncomfortable. Extremely uncomfortable…. I like blending instead of standing out.
Speaking of Chicago, I look back and I don’t have as many fond memories as I do with my trip to Paris. The one feeling that I couldn’t escape was the loneliness. It felt like I was not only alone but lonely. The feeling sunk in big time while I was at 360 Observation deck. The whole experience was almost unpleasant. The staff were rude and I think it was extremely over priced. Another moment where I felt lonely was at the Chicago Theater. It was a great experience but I was mildly annoyed that the people were sitting next to me came late and it was a group of five and they moving around during the first part of the show and were stepping on me while leaving the isle. I think this trip would have been 10x better if I was with someone, just one other person would have heightened this experience to an infinite degree.
Geez… I just hate saying that because I love solo travel. It feels bold and courageous. I hate thinking about the negative when it comes to traveling. Some of the food was amazing. The art museum was nice, except for the Picasso exhibit, which I happen to pay extra to see. It was just a bit messy trying to see it. Not very organized at all and I wasn’t a fan of the work I saw, sad to say, some of it was a little disturbing, which I surprised by. Art is truly subjective… One person can love a painting so much and another person can hate it and it’s ok. That’s life! I think to make a living doing something you love is the ultimate goal. For me, it just seems like the ultimate unattainable goal. However, I’m not giving up. I still have some fight left in me.
This is going to sound completely off topic but it’s not I swear! Hear me out on this next part. I recently noticed that I played over 1000 hours in Cyberpunk 2077. It was about 500 hours on the PS5 and I know I did at least double that time on the PS4. Maybe triple! I never really took notice of the hours until shortly after I beat the DLC. I was like… holy shit! That’s a lot of time to put into this game. I mean… I have a two platinum trophies (for each system: PS5 & PS4) I wear the PS4 badge with pride because that was when there were an obscene number of glitches in that game. Anyway… I thought I put this much time into this game only to be almost disgusted with it at the end. And what’s it worth? I have some trophies but what are the trophies worth? What was my time worth at the end? And the biggest question… Have I dedicated this much of consistent time into anything in my life outside of gaming? There would be days I would spend all day playing this game. From the time I would get up until I was too tired to keep playing at night. Eyes were burning. I couldn’t hit anymore buttons. I mean… just worn out tired. I was obsessed with this game! Now… I can’t even touch it, especially after the end of the DLC. I played that DLC twice, starting a new game each time to get to the DLC while playing the story organically instead of waiting until the end. I played this game from start to finish eight times. At the end, I was so broken, because I truly hated the ending, even more so with the other “ending” if you want to call it that when sending a character to the moon. I thought to put this much time and feel this way, it made me angry. I wanted to love it. Truly… I regret buying the DLC. However, it’s still one of the best games I ever played. I can’t deny the time I put into it. I haven’t played any other game like this in my life.
So… recently I thought what if I put that much effort into this shop and Youtube. I mean consistent effort. I know I did over 1000 hours of time with this website over the past 11 years. But it was never consistent time. I would always take breaks. Wither it be a life event that forced me to take a break like in 2015 or me just not having any faith in my work and taking breaks. I want to see how successful I could be if I was consistent with this shop. See where my shop would be with over 1000 hours of time put into it. Any spare time I have, I’ve put into this shop. Except for writing this post. There have been a couple of days where I just too exhausted to put in a lot of time. Like today, had the same burning eye sensation when getting up this morning because I spent over 8 hours the previous night on my work in the shop.
I may update this page again before I hit my 100th day. Honestly, I feel like this is all going to be for nothing. My minimum goal is to reach 10K subs on Youtube. I would love to hit 100k but… that seems like a pipe dream. I’ve always overestimated goals in my life so I’m going to be realistic and already admit to failure. I probably won’t reach 10k subs, probably not even 1k. This is going to be complete disaster and waste of time. I can see that. However, what else do I have to do, right now? I can waste this time playing another game and have meaning trophies at the end of it or perhaps have a shot in building an empire? The 35 sales in my shop mean something. It says that someone out there likes my work. I can build on that. In the end, if it doesn’t go anywhere then I can at least say I tried.
Hey… I already managed the impossible in my life. To be dead broke at one point with barely any money for food to going to Paris, France is fucking amazing! All of this is just gravy at this point. If I can have the final checkmark, the success checkmark, then I can die and be happy with what I accomplished. I think this shop could get me there. I have to try… I just have too…
P.S: Featured pic was taken at the 360 observation deck on 12/10/23. A very cloudy day. Funny. It was sunny on every day I was in Chicago except for that day, lol.