Other Worlds
On Being Anti-Social When a Project is Cooking
Stop me if you heard the one about the anti-social artist: A curious thing happens when I’m engulfed in a big personal project, or even a really engrossing game; I tend to block out the great wide world around me. I’m not talking about how my attention is focused in that moment of work. I’m talking in the span of weeks, possibly months, I probably won’t reach out or do social calls or even engage much online. I just wanna sit and work until it’s finished. All that other stuff is just other stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, I like my friends, and I know I feel a whole lot better after a good hang with some besties. But times like this I have no interest in reaching out. Now, if somebody reaches out to me, I’ll probably do it. I’m not sure why I become reluctant to reach out. Maybe I’m just so engulfed in my thinking about the project, I presume I probably won’t be very interesting to talk to at the moment? Granted, when a project is really cooking I just go to work and go home everyday, hang with my wife and pup, work, then sleep, then repeat. I don’t do anything particularly interesting. I don’t even watch a lot of trending movies or TV, so maybe I feel a conversation with me would be boring and I don’t wanna put you through that. And sure I can talk about the project with others, but if you have nothing to share or show until it’s finished, then it’s just all talk, and by then I’m so excited I just wanna show ya.
As far as posting online (or even here), I guess I don’t do it quite as often because posts require some forethought, in either the caption, or in the case of this site, a whole thing to write. In either case, sometimes the moment’s fleeting, gone before any kind of post can come to fruition, and the interest is lost. Not to mention on social media posts people like to chime in and comment, sometimes with stupid questions, all of which can be distracting (but I still waste time day after day scrolling Instagram any way, so go figure). For the longer pieces, it’s fun to churn out an essay on a particular subject, only to sit on it, digest it, and find that my stance is not as hard-lined as I made it out to be. That’s happened a few times as I have a few essays about technology that I wrote for here but haven’t published yet (and possibly never will).
And then thinking about all of that is enough to make you shrug and say “fvck it”, not post anything, and go about the work you really wanna do. I’ll just catch up with you when I do.
Speaking of catching up…
I visited my little brother and his wife in Colorado last month. It was five days of good food, good sleep, great conversation, and some refreshing views.
Then we came home and I got Covid. I managed to stay healthy since 2020, but in the year 2024 Covid finally caught up to me. It was a bit dreadful at first, and I even lost my sense of smell for a week and half, not mention I got my wife sick. This Summer surge was no joke.
And that’s what’s been happening the last half of Summer.
That and I kinda keep up with the news and what’s happening in and around our great nation. How do I do that when I all our noted jounalist institutions have laid off they’re staff and TV news is inundated with drug commercials? The same way you’re reading this: Newsletters, of course! Yes yes, writers are still out there, and they wanna give us the facts, the news, and they’re also very entertaining.
Here’s some stuff I follow:
Here are few newsletters I subscribe to for news and other editorial info:
Garbage Day - a fun recounting of events IRL as well as online trends and goofs
Discourse Blog - as it states, politics and culture from the left
Embedded - cultural critiques thru the lens of the internet and beyond
The Honest Broker - more cultural criticism from the perspective of a music lover
The Morning Brew - a daily newsletter with news and such from a business slant
Go on, give them a read, possibly a follow!
That’s about it for me! As I wrap this latest comic be on the lookout for a time-lapse of the completed pages!