#joffyjoff

I've always wondered why that is? Maybe it's because when you create something drawn/written/spoken it's usually got quite a lot of yourself put into it? Carving a wooden statuette or playing an instrument isn't always so personally intertwined with your mood or emotions, maybe that's why? A very large generalisation I know, but I'm not qualified to talk about this in a more specific way. I'd hardly describe myself as a writer given I don't write often, nor publish a lot, but then again I guess that feeds into the whole "self doubt" thing.

Social media makes it infinitely worse too, everyone's obsessed with numbers and status and that constant rush then crash of "Number go up, me happy! Number go down, life over" that social media's designed everyone to do. It's so consumerist, you want the numbers so bad because they're literally force-fed to you in a way that "This means you did good! If this ain't here, you suck and should quit!" It's such a toxic environment it continues to baffle me, it pains me to see genuinely beautiful and creative people wither and die under the unforgiving sun of literally sharing their own stuff for other people to see and enjoy because they've been conditioned to think "If people don't see this, it was a waste of time."

I really hope someday I wake up in a world where people have collectively un-learned that reliance on numbers. It fucking blows ass and crushes literally everyone involved when the Mighty Algorithm™ doesn't push someone's post enough. It crushes me even seeing the effects, in friends and strangers both.

And yes, I do in fact know how fucking HARD it is to unlearn that mentality. It's designed to be a struggle, because if you unlearn it then the big CEOs lose money because you're not filling up their little piggy troughs every day. But fuck them, and fuck being a slave in the 21st century to same faceless wanker you can't even fistfight when he beats you. Fight to unlearn those algorithms and inferences that have driven you to madness. Please. I beg of you, remember what you do is what YOU do for YOU, not for them. If it's your job I understand it's different, and the world we live in SUCKS BUTTS for artists, but a dead man paints no pictures, and a dead man speaks no poetry.

Please, for the love of whichever God you believe in or force of good you follow, be it man or myth, do NOT create for the fucking internet. You're going to be miserable. You're being DESIGNED to be miserable. You're not a content farm, you're a human, try to remember that and make shit for YOU. The numbers don't matter, they're meaningless and 90% of them are bots anyway.

I know a lot of people struggle this time of year, I won't lie, it's been a rough, evil, diabolical year full of all the worst things possible for me, and that's left me feeling a bit bitter and conflicted myself too. It's okay to not enjoy big events, grand holidays or even just to not acknowledge them! Everyone has different experiences, everyone wants different things for different reasons.

That being said, despite the fact I'm not feeling the holiday cheer and I know a lot of you probably aren't either, I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah (late, but still) and a Happy Holidays in general. This year has been absolutely horrendous for a LOT of people, and this particular moment marks for a lot of us the end of that pain, that grief, and the closing of another nasty year. While I hope it treats you all well, for some of you it won't. It can't be helped every time, sometimes shit just blows dookie, but you still deserve rest.

So! With that in mind, I wish you all a Merry Christmas. This marks my second one ever with an online presence, and while it's not anywhere near as fruitful as the last one, it's still a time to rest, to our grudges aside and find peace, in ourselves if not the world around us. Take this time to find whatever small crumbs of peace you can, and when you can't? Remember it isn't forever. We've 6 days till the year ends, and the problems of today become the problems of last year. I'm hopeful for next year, more than I was for this year, and while this year was pure torture maybe the next won't be? Who's to say!

Good luck, stay warm, may your lords, gods or lack thereof bless your journeys and may you all find peace, in today, in tomorrow, within yourselves and without.

We did it, we actually survived it again. How? Because we had to.

We'll do it again.

It has been announced today by the incumbent Dalai Lama, his holiness Tenzin Gyatso, that upon death United States Senator for Kentucky Mitch McConnell shall be reincarnated as a furry femboy in his next life, in an act of extreme karmic punishment for his frequent acts of adharma, and his spurning of the righteous ways of the Nangchos Dharma.