I seldom check my blog stats. If I get 4 views in one day, it’s amazing, but others have massive numbers of likes on a single post. I don’t often get to read other blogger’s posts, but when I do, I enjoy it. It’s such a privilege to read the experiences and opinions of people I don’t know. I’m getting a peek into who they are and what they’re passionate about. I would rather read blogs any day than a bestselling book. What we share is still unique in all of history; once posted, our words can be seen by anyone around the world. The power is awesome, the responsibility to be respected.

I don’t want one of those 4 views to hurt someone. I know the power of words to trigger others, to injure them. It’s not why I’m here.

When I started this blog, I had others up as well, and had taken others down. They went for months without a single view, and I was disheartened. As a writer, there can be nothing worse, not even harsh criticism, than not having been read at all.

To be ignored, unnoticed; that truly hurts. We all fear it as writers. As humans, we all know pain and can feel isolated.

I seldom look at my stats because I fear being alone, ignored and unappreciated. My case is perhaps not unique but is made more painful than most because in my life even when talking in person, I lost the interest of my friends too quickly. I was left standing alone and feeling stupid, a total fool, too often.

But I developed my own style of storytelling and speech, and it helped. I believe I owe this to the many authors I read extensively while growing up. I absorbed the best of them, their flair for suspense or drama and humor, which, no matter how light or dark, always turned more people off than made them laugh.

But now, today, I write this single blog, and anything goes, because all things are affected by my past. A terrible past full of terrible things and terrible memories. The bad experiences of my life are assembly line parts that made me what I am, an American asshole whose intent is focused on reliving and venting my pain and hoping that, somewhere along the way, someone with more potential than I ever had can find something they can use.

I had to forget about views and likes, although I have sincere appreciation when I get them. I had to forget about hoping for lots of followers. I felt that I was writing to a more narrow audience about more narrow, specialized subjects. Therefore, numbers could not be any part of my goal as a blogger, and that was liberating. It was refreshing. I could write about anything. My past, my life, already an open book, could be offered up any time according to my mood and physical pain level.

Distractions And Reaching Out

When we go through painful things, the worst thing we can do is to give in, to fail ourselves in a battle for our lives, our sanity and our souls. We usually ignore advice because we understand, bitterly, that nobody else can know what we are going through every day we live. We find our own ways to survive. Some end up being, shall we say, unorthodox.

But we’re talking about survival here. It’s no joking matter.

When my son died suddenly on 14 February of 2018, his sister having preceded him in death, I was a mess. At some point I realized that God was not very interested in what I did next. Suicide crossed my mind. Slinking into the woods with a rope was my cowardly plan, finally to end almost 60 years of unremitting agony. To leave behind a brain full of memories so disgusting that if I were to write an autobiography, no publisher would dare touch it.

But I had one thing to do with God that held me back. The fear of eternal pain unlike anything I could imagine: Hell.

I needed a life ring thrown to me.

As unlikely as this may seem, I bought the PC game The Sims 3 and the Night Life, Seasons and Supernatural expansion packs. Not knowing how this alone could help, even if it is a time-consuming game, I did searches and found a website with tons of mods. And these weren’t just any code modifications. Oh, no. It was a whole suite of mods combined to change the game into something more realistic and challenging than publisher Electronic Arts could have imagined.

If was the NRaas and KW package. I read about it and I wanted it.

But I had never modded a game before. This went beyond cheat codes and Game Sharks. I followed the instructions to download and couldn’t do it. So I left a post on the message board. I said my son had died and I was desperate for a big distraction. A man in Sweden, Norway or Finland (I’m sorry, I’m not clear on which) offered to help because he felt sorry for me.

First was the ZIP package. It took two weeks for me to finally get the program working. He got a laugh out of me but was more patient with me than any teacher I’d ever had.

For almost a year I sunk myself into making celebrities that looked exactly like the real thing, but whose naked bodies I could shape and tone and color hair and eyes for. They could even have sex in almost any place or position and it was hilarious and time consuming and fun. I wish I had a new PC and I could do it all again.

Sometimes when you send out a distress signal, you’ll be surprised by who will answer it and how much time they will invest in seeing you through.

Although the prim nature of The Sims might seem inviolable and lest you think I should be ashamed, I stress the point, it kept me engaged and safe for a year of hell. A year of firsts. The first time I couldnt give either child a birthday or Christmas gift. The first holidays without a visit. The constant memories of what they meant to me and the emptiness I felt without them. Those things should have crushed me to death.

I also had neighbors and friends, on Facebook and off, who supported me and kept me talking. You can feel real love for anyone, even an online friend, and love can save your life.

I’ve long since lost contact with my Western European gaming coach, and I’m the poorer for it. I wish I could thank him for saving me.

Of course there are others to thank. I’ve lost contact with them all. Some were Facebook friends who subscribed to this blog but will never return. I’m sorry for the behavior I displayed which precipitated that; again, I’m the lesser for it.

Surviving The Internet

It’s a madhouse, isn’t it? The hurtful comments, the hatred, and the resulting backlash by the idiots who run sites like Facebook. Recently they’ve been talking about an algorithm as well as human oversight to monitor Facebook groups. It’s pure censorship with the threat of permanent banishment for comments that garner complaints. The problem is, it cant be done. The capricious nature of the mere concept dictates that innocent people will suffer. Judgement is rarely fair. It is not impartial nor has it ever been. What is acceptable to one person as the use of free speech is outrageous to another, no matter the nature of what has been said or written.

That’s bias, a thing everyone must fight within themselves or in others. Human nature cannot change, and bloggers eventually have that one reader who, no matter what they have written, will become that one reader’s favorite enemy. They leave no choice but to block them or assign a setting for all comments to be moderated before they are visible to others.

I’m not sure why this is, but no matter what blog, article, message board or YouTube video I comment on, I never get a single answer or like. As if nobody sees it. Perhaps I’m that insipid, or I’ve already been censured by moderators. I don’t know.

You need to grow a thick skin for wherever you go online. It’s also a problem for some people to know that a harsh plot or comments are not singling them out. That it may not be about them. And isn’t is a tall order to let things go even if you have a reason to believe you are being called out?

Simon Says

Case in point: this week on one of Simon Whistler’s many YouTube channels, there was one that I caught on. He made a video about unsolved mysteries, and that’s a popular subject. However, there’s never anything new. He even covered the infamous derelict ship Mary Celeste and I’m like, really? Are your writers that fucking lazy?

Because as maritime mysteries go, Mary Celeste is the most often used in TV shows, books, videos and magazines. Even pre-K children are tired of hearing about it.

Based in the Czech Republic, Whistler does educational videos and appears to be a square guy, trustworthy and affable.

Why then does he often take pot shots at his subscribers? “Because you like the dark stuff,” he says after launching his true crime podcast. That’s shade.

Inferring that your subscribers are sick in the head is something only a man like him can get away with. He’s done the impossible,  hitting the trifecta of You Tubers: he’s gained a mammoth following, he’s got sponsors and he’s added channels that allow him to study any subject he wants. His audience keeps growing. He’s big-league.

I guess if he wants to throw shade on or eat his own, it’s cool. He can lose a subscriber now and then, right?

Well, he’s too busy or too rich to pay attention to who he offends.

I’ll tell you right now, gamers are a varied and therefore often a sensitive lot. Their hobby gets criticized more than model ship builders, gardeners, photographers, painters, film buffs, DIYers, travellers, car collectors and even philatelists, who are often derided for no good reason.

Gamers go through criticism for the violent content of games, terrible behavior in multiplayer online games, even having to put up with shitheads in congress who want to blame mass shootings on video games instead of assault weapons being available to just about anyone who wants one.

As a casual gamer, even I’m not immune to the things other gamers must endure, like having a stock PC that cannot handle most PC games, thereby forcing upgrades; expensive consoles, expensive games and peripherals, updates, expansion packs and extra DLC you have to buy, or else get left behind. And that’s a mere sampling.

The gamers following a franchise get hit the hardest when one or two truly great games are followed by total crap. The Fallout series had me looking forward to getting in on the action with this trailer, shown on TV:

https://youtu.be/Y2h2hbF4MtM

Alas. That’s the best part of the game, and thousands of complaints appeared after it was released. You look forward to something your hobby will be enhanced with and it’s crap.

Fortunately there’s so much out there that’s good that we can, for a price, compensate.

And that’s where my son comes back into the picture.

He loved Greek mythology and Ancient Egypt and all things old. Percy Jackson and Harry Potter were equally fun in his eyes. He had a PS3 and described a game he was playing and asked if he could bring his console over to get my help with it.

Years later–this year–I bought Assassin’s Creed Origins and not too far in realized that this was the game he had been playing. My son and I did not reach on many things, but video games were always something we could do together, and never have a disagreement or anything else but to just enjoy each other’s company.

I knew I had to finish the game. For him. A small gesture from a grieving father to a son who left too soon, leaving me with guilt, unsaid words that were important, and a hole that went through me from front to back.

In the game, the protagonist, Bayek, has seen his son murdered. One of his tasks is to locate stone circles he had visited with his son. Every time he finds one, he sits down and remembers a conversation they had. It’s Bayek’s way to honor his son’s memory. These scenes made me cry. It wrenches my heart every time I turn on a game that he isn’t here with me to share the fun. Every day I awake and I’m empty and cold and I hurt. I really want my children back.

Simon Whistler in his recent unsolved mysteries video cracked the remark that something was about as “relatable as an Assassin’s Creed game.”

What’s more relatable than a father grief stricken over his dead son? I surely related to Bayek.

Having written a post on both Origins and Odyssey it was easy for a moment to feel sensitive and directly called out.

Then I realized he couldn’t have read the posts I wrote; he’s not got the time, he wouldn’t find me anyway, and during the video it looked as if he’d had a wee nip or two.

If You Want To Write, Then Write

What’s your passion? What turns you on, makes you want to write? Don’t let the moment pass, just write. It can be anything you want, although I don’t recommend using hate speech. If we police ourselves,  no one else can claim that they need to. Be what and who you are. Seek, and tell, the truth. Be open, but remember that opening your mind first demands that you open your heart.

Don’t be easily hurt. Writers get slammed. It’s just how it is. Don’t assume you’re being targeted by someone who likely never heard of you.

And have fun. There’s a time for the serious things and a time to be light. Go with your mood, not with what you think others want. Writing for someone else is to bow to mostly imagined pressure. People will read you because you’re you. Change that dynamic and you’ll give up. When writing becomes a chore, it isn’t worth it.

Remember that words are extremely powerful. Use them with careful consideration and don’t hurt others. Put yourself on a mission to make the world a better place. You may just succeed.