Creativity is an unusual thing. At the most inopportune moments the brain will churn out words that flow like a calming stream in the forest. Your fingers, in the meantime, are preoccupied with the shampoo being lathered into your hair, pen and paper absent from the rather soggy chamber you find yourself in. By time breakfast has been consumed and morning work rituals have been completed, the words are gone, left behind on your bedside table with that book you wanted to bring into the office to read during lunch.

This is the habit I’ve found myself in since pumping out Conflict late one Sunday. I had hoped to latch onto that burning desire to express myself in the days and weekends to come, but the daily rut interfered every time. There was also that lingering sense of pointlessness, the nihilistic belief that every word I put forward would be meaningless.

So despite having come forward and declared a progressive step forward, I still crave that acknowledgment and communication with those I would call peers. I struggle to be satisfied speaking with silence.

It is not all gloom, though. I am not huddled into a corner, arms crushing my legs into my chest in the fetal position, pondering when the darkness will retreat. My outrage at Twitter has coincided with a series of positive decisions, many of them resulting from an agreement of accountability with my pastor. I am getting exercise daily, reading two chapters of my Bible a day Monday through Friday, making time for the gym, and making improvements in my diet. On weekends, I am scheduling visits with friends, spending time at the coffee shop attempting to be social, and hastening Sunday’s daylight with participation at my Church and bonding with my future roommate in the vicinity of our local mall.

What this means is that a good chunk of my time is dedicated away from the creative pursuits. Whereas I was once looking to stream to my Twitch channel in the morning hour before work, I now find myself spending that time taking a walk before the daylight sun becomes oppressively hot, or digging into the pages of the Bible and recording notes on what I’ve read. Three of my evenings are filled with at least an hour-and-a-half at the gym, with an additional evening occupied by my therapist, hanging out with Steve, or both.

These kinds of activities are wonderful for the spirit, as I’ve not felt the listless sense of wallowing in misery for nearly a month now. It also allows me time to step away from the computer and see the greater world out there. To just enjoy the rustling leaves of my neighborhood; to see the variety of body types working towards fitness at the gym; to spend time with a good friend, his children, and his not-at-all-a-gamer wife; to get the big-picture grounding of faith and its philosophy; to witness people interacting at the coffee shop, restaurant, or mall, the confrontations of social media a distant and meaningless concern. Yes, I often have to keep my eyes away from the televisions blaring CNN and Fox News at the gym, but that’s what NBC Sports Philadelphia and Food Network are for. Nothing screams weight loss like Drive-Ins, Diners, and Dives, am I right?

If those good vibes could immediately be transferred into creative output, I’d be set. The next video would already be halfway done, this blog would be regularly updated, and I wouldn’t be postponing the next Eh! Steve! for lack of things we’re both impassioned to discuss.

The primary reason I chose Godzilla as my next video subject was due to how little time it would require compared to my standard video subjects. Unfortunately, the script has been a real stumbling block.

I’m energized and eager, but when it comes time to speak my mind I find myself immobile. The same burning passion that was once excited to just indulgently preach my love of Godzilla films now feels like little more than smoke when I stare at my barely completed script. “What’s the point of this, again?” I ask myself. “Is this really the best video I can put together? Does anyone even care?” Questions that always haunt me, and yet this time the spectre of self-doubt does not chase me into tearfully devouring the whole of a meat lover’s pizza as a stereotypical woman in a sitcom sobs into her gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I instead muster a shrugging retort of “eh”, unable to piece together a convincing counter-argument to why I should intently pursue the creation of a new product.

This is where any hobby suddenly transforms into work. No matter how passionate you begin, it gradually shifts into obligation. Being a part-time, amateur, nobody creator, I have no strings to tie me down to any one project. If I’m not feeling one, I can instead pursue another.

Which is a perfect recipe for getting nothing done. At any one time I have multiple whims grabbing me like a horde of zombies hoping for a piece of my flesh. Wait, a video about Sucker Punch sounds good! Perhaps I should finally get on that Bioshock Infinite project, too. Oh! What about Wonderful 101? Log Horizon? Akiba’s Beat? I bet EarthBound would be fun to revisit. Whaddya mean, “you said you wouldn’t do JRPG’s for a while?” Well, then how about the Titanfall 2 and Infinite Warfare comparison?

It’s good to be driven by passion, but at some point that passion needs to be controlled. A single project must be definitively chosen and then pursued to the very end. To what purpose, though? I have around 465 subscribers, plus-or-minus two every few days or weeks, and it’s certainly thrilling to know that they enjoy my content. Do I feel as if I owe it to them?

Evidently not. Since I wrote and published Conflict, reaching the conclusion that I’m not interested in pursuing a relationship with most of my “peers”, I’ve been revisiting the question of “What’s the point?” I was always self-conscious about speaking with silence before, but now it feels as if I cannot be driven without a “tangible” audience talking right back.

Which means I am immediately dismissing those followers that do comment on my work. They only speak with me once, after all, dropping the occasional comment once I’ve put out a new video. Said communication lacks consistency, as very few followers seem to respond to every video I produce. It’s easy to be ungrateful and dismiss the contribution they make, even though it should feel as if the heavens open up and rain sunshine down upon my cold, frozen form.

Generically inspirational anime thumb-up.

I will do it, though. I will get work done. I will read more books, I will make time for video games, I will establish a time and schedule to get writing done, and I will make sure I have content to produce.

Because in the end, I simply wish to speak, and there can be no one to listen if there is nothing to listen to in the first place. If I cannot appreciate the few that do follow, comment, like, and share, then I do not deserve them. While I may not be obligated to produce content for them – no one is paying me for this, after all – it is beyond selfish to look at their support and think “Meh, not good enough”.

In order to change my perspective, however, I must first change my behavior. I must eliminate that which leads to self-destructive habits. To that end, I will follow the footsteps of Shamus Young and close my Twitter account – though he at least had an established following by the time he had given up the social media platform. Nevertheless, I will do my best to emphasize the different ways in which those who do follow me can reach out.

Comments on the blog,for instance. I’m setting up a private Discord server in the event there are enough people that wish to track me down and enjoy the chill, conversational attitude towards pop culture media I desire. As I get ready to close my Twitter, I’ll provide instructions there and on this site how to get a hold of me and request access.

Eventually I will return to streaming regularly. I enjoyed my morning streams, but right now I am far more interested in pursuing my health and faith during the early morning hours. I may even switch platforms to Mixer, though not to try and opportunistically capitalize on the exclusivity of Ninja. Based on what little I’ve seen of his content, he’ll be bringing an audience that would want nothing to do with me, anyway.

Most of all, I wish to get back to regularly writing and putting out more videos. “What’s the point?” I ask myself, even though I already know the answer. “Because I want to.” For some reason, this response has never been good enough. It’s been buried and hidden as other, critical questions peek over my shoulder and point out different sentences, paragraphs, and passages of every script and essay. “What makes you so sure of this?” “Do you think people really don’t know this already?” “Citation needed.” “Isn’t this just a bunch of pointless self-indulgence?”

Yes, it is self-indulgent. So is every creation. Yet there are people, friends and strangers alike, that enjoy that self-indulgence.

So why stop now?