Still Alive
Hello, it’s been a while.
Some people have been emailing me asking if I am still alive. Yes, I am. Life has been uneventful and empty recently. The mundane tedium left me somewhat creatively challenged and unable to write. In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about life and my future, and I most certainly have not been wasting my time away farming Icecrown Citadel for loot in World of Warcraft. Derp.
In the brief time I have cut myself away from the real world blogosphere, many things have changed. Naoto Kan became the Prime Minister of Japan. Arizona passed SB 1070 and attempted to take immigration enforcement into its own hands at the risk of racial profiling. WikiLeaks‘ profile blew up overnight with the release the Apache shooting video and a database of Secret-classification US ground reports in Afghanistan. HP bought over Palm for WebOS. Singapore’s Orchard Road shopping area experienced its first flood in three decades. Avatar the Last Airbender scored an insanely low 8 out of 100 on Rotten Tomatoes.
It’s frustrating to see the world changing and feel like you are being left behind. That’s part of the drudgery of everyday life as a nobody, but National Service brings it to a new mind-numbing level close to par with imprisonment (or so I imagine). I can feel something inside me withering away with every passing moment as each tick of the second hand takes another eternity. I had long since emptied out, emotionally.
For the longest time (well, not that long…I’m just being dramatic), I had been finding it difficult to be entertained and, as a result, difficult to be inspired. A younger me could find the words to respond to even the most braindead episodes of Gundam 00 (which is saying a lot) and the motivation to patiently put those words together one at a time. But for the past few months my vocabulary has been limited to a few shades of grey. It was difficult to find anything worth writing about and even more difficult to find the right words. And of course, one of the universal laws of blogging is that a prolonged hiatus is as fatal (for the blog, not the blogger) as it is long, proportionally speaking.
That said, as I now stand much closer to the end than the start of this phase of my life, I am beginning to feel some vestige of passion and hunger stirring inside me.
Most recently, Inception almost made me care enough to write a review (but it was overrated) and Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu actually managed to single-handedly renew my hope in anime as a form of entertainment. The final push probably came from Volume 10 of Kimi no Iru Machi which, in my fanboy opinion, represents a new high in author Kouji Seo‘s relentless efforts to create a shounen romance that is indistinguishable from shoujo (other than the pink covers). Reading the latest ups and downs of Haruto and Yuzuki made me spend a sleepless night reviewing my own life in high school. I felt entertained and inspired. Sweet tears of joy made me feel human again.
Writing this blog had been one of the greatest pleasures in my simple life so far and I really want to find my Muse again. Of course, there’s no way for me to immediately, if ever, go back to my old rate of almost one article every two days, but I hope that this is a start. I’m not sure how many of you out there are still subscribed to this blog (or if the RSS feed is still working), but whoever you (yes, all three of you) are: I am still alive!
There was a time in this blog’s history when its popularity grew to the point where I felt pressured to pander to my audience, and I now think that it was a mistake. The future is uncertain, but for now I am going to try to get myself and this blog back to reasonable speed at my own pace. Hopefully, the end result, however long it takes to get there, will be something more consistent with my personal goals for writing and still provide some interesting read.
Anyway, I am working on an article right now. I don’t want to give a deadline, but it should be Done Soon™. In the meantime, please enjoy this video.
July 30th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
I still remember your ramblings about Code Geass and the obligatory flamewars in the comments, your translations of popular anime themes, your Japanese expository classes filled with pics of Tama-nee, the mind-bending fact that you love Uninstall but didn’t care about Bokurano.
And I, too, remember how I enjoyed reading those articles.
You’re not alone, man. You’re not alone. I know a bit about how hard is to keep a blog (mainly because somehow its formal definicion changed from “weblog” to “write-what-your-clients-want-to-read website”, and that sucks).
Here’s one RSS subscriber hoping for your next article.
July 30th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Whatever happens, fare well. (Following you on RSS)
July 30th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
No worries, some of your stalkers are still here, visiting from time to time. Looking forward to some new stuff :)
July 30th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
hahaha, emptiness and frustration eh? they are definitely needed if you want the ‘library of emotions’ of human filled.
and mistakes, pfft, don’t forget we are human, can’t live a life without mistakes. true readers of the blog read it for the blogger saying what the blogger feels, not how the blogger try to pander the audience. i don’t agree with you in many occasions, but i still find your blog enjoyable to read (or well, it can be that perhaps it’s just me being weird =P)
just do things your way, your pace here on your blog. haha, i guess perhaps some people will argue that might be a cardinal sin in press media. also that might be argued to be perhaps unrealistic. but well, it’s your blog, just do it your way, your pace.
meh, i’m no good in writing, anyway, haven’t seen updates here for quite a while but it never surprises me that i see no updates or i do see updates. nonetheless, i’ll still say this :P
nice to hear that you’re still alive lol (although not surprising)
p.s. and lol, no comment when i started typing this, but after posting, 3 posts already. watch out at night, very likely you have someone stalking you lol
July 30th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
another RSS subscriber here (w00t).
July 30th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Don’t worry, rss subscriber here too! supporting u all the way.
July 30th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
But there’s no sense crying over every mistake.
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.
And the Science gets done.
July 30th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
It doesn’t matter if you go silent for a month, 2 months or even a year. Many of us will still be checking daily to see if you have a new article up. We are just that devoted.
July 30th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
good to see you’ve still got blogging left in you!
tahan a bit more and ORD soon lo!
July 31st, 2010 at 1:54 am
To complete Makoto:
But there’s no sense crying over every flame,
you just keep on writing till you run out of space.
And the Blogging gets done
And you make a neat post
for the readers who are STILL ALIVE!
July 31st, 2010 at 4:06 am
Damn glad to hear of you.
July 31st, 2010 at 9:08 am
It’s always nice to hear from you. Fear not, you can weather the storm.
July 31st, 2010 at 3:02 pm
RSS feed is Still Alive :)
July 31st, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Thought you were at Cosfest IX.
Congrats on resurrection.
July 31st, 2010 at 6:41 pm
The RSS still lives! You aren’t forgotten that easily DM! Always a pleasure to read your words, no matter how few and far between.
July 31st, 2010 at 7:24 pm
I feel ya too on the “hard to be entertained” part. Things that get me genuinely fired up are few and far nowadays.
Also LOL at your comment on Kimi ga Iru Machi. Yeah that certainly matches what the whole damn thing is going on right now with Haruto and Eba derp.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Not happy with NS ah? Nenermind you carry on 20.
August 1st, 2010 at 12:59 pm
I’m glad you’ve gotten your inspiration back. I check your blog nearly daily, but you should post at your own pace.
August 1st, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Good to hear (read) you again! And yes, I am watching the feed like many others through RSS so it is working! :D
August 1st, 2010 at 11:26 pm
Hey DM, good to know you’re still alive and sane. It would be great if you entertain us once in a while, just like the good old days.
August 2nd, 2010 at 12:27 am
God knows I get that way as well. But I’m glad you got your grove back so to speak! With the RSS feed, those who have gotten used to hearing your rants and raves, still linger around from time to time. Saw this post and I really did say to myself “OMG, he’s alive!” ^_^;
August 2nd, 2010 at 4:31 am
Good to see you’re back!
“Most recently, Inception almost made me care enough to write a review (but it was overrated) and Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu actually managed to single-handedly renew my hope in anime as a form of entertainment.”
Dude stop reading my mind! I was just thinking recently about how underrated and Amazing LOLH is. Manages to have the fun comedy of shounen with the more interesting political intrigue and social commentary. I also felt Inception was highly overrated, I mean, why didn’t Cob’s family just leave America to where he was?
August 3rd, 2010 at 12:37 pm
I’m glad your back DM!
October 1st, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Just curious but which unit are you from?