And there goes another long-time online acquaintanceship up in flames. Man, I’m really shitty at this whole “playing well with others” thing.

I’ve got around 600 people still subscribed to House of Vines, maybe 20 of which engage with any kind of regularity. And the active ones, well, that number shrinks down to about 5 or 6.

I get it.

I’m arrogant, myopic, opaque, uncompromising and bellicose. And those are my positive traits. 

Worse, everything I write is basically this:

Unless you happen to share my obsessions or enjoy a good rabbit hole, there’s no point following along. Even then, you’re probably only going to understand 1/3 of my posts. Especially since I rely so heavily on breadcrumbs, parallelism, repetition, etc. To understand one post you need to keep in mind shit I wrote 10-20 posts back. A lot of the time I don’t even necessarily know what the point is myself until it all coalesces.

Then I struggle to find a way to communicate it to others, if that’s even possible. When I try to write relatable things it comes off flat and insincere. Projects, contests and other interactive shit just gets crickets. I’m basically writing for myself at this point, and some theoretical community of kindred spirits I despair of ever meeting. People I considered closer than family won’t speak to me, and the rest I pushed away either actively or through neglect. 

Hell, I used to receive a dozen or more e-mails a day; now maybe 3 or 4 trickle in a week, and half of those I lose or can’t get to until they’re irrelevant because my life is a constant whirlwind of chaos and craziness. I’m an Orpheotelest without any clients, which is an oxymoron. 

Am I gonna change? Probably not. Because I feel bone deep that I’m on the right track and a huge breakthrough is just around the corner.

And I recognize how utterly insane that sounds, and not the good or fun kind either.

But what choice have I got? I know the answer to that question: there is nothing but choice. Every second of every day we are choosing, and the shape of our life is determined by that.

And right now I choose to post this with the comments off (since I don’t need any ego-stroking) and go take a nap, hoping my outlook will be a little less bleak when I wake. (And knowing that it won’t.)

.