Live Writing - Journal Sept 11 2020

Alright, I'm not sure how to start this...

I'm live streaming this writing again. Not sure if I should say hi to the audience or not. Gonna go with no. I'm just going to add notes at the top saying that the journal entry was writing in front of a live studio audience

This entry was done live on twitch

That way, if I ever go back and look at this stuff, or, if anyone else does, they'll know that. The reason that might... just be something to know is that it's the reason I won't talk about certain things (like work) in it.

There will be other entries that I write privately that don't have that.

The thing that I remember the other day is that there used to be a site called live journal. It wasn't actually showing people writing live though, it was just for publishing journals.

Just checked and it still exists. It's tagline is:

< LiveJournal is a unique place where people share their life stories, give advice and exchange ideas

It's funny because I remember when it first came out thinking it was crazy. Like, why the tell would people publish their journals online. The thing I'm realizing now is that what I'm doing isn't that far off. The only difference is I'm showing it live. But, it's the same thing. (Of course, that also means I'm not really editing it like I would a more regular piece.)

Okay, just to go meta here for a second, I had forgotten I was casting for a while there but then just remembered it at the end of that graph. Just an interesting thing about the way the brain works.

Being interested in that is not something new. In my therapy sessions I spend a lot of time trying to figure out why I'm thinking and going the things I'm doing. Which, I suppose is kinda a key point to therapy.

The other one that's a little more of an example is my mania episode. I was doing a bunch of audio and video recording during it. I could tell something was off even before I was Maureen and I keep dropping notes into the recordings about what I was thinking and feeling. Some of it was just because I thought it was interesting, but then at some point I started addressing psychology students. (That might have been after Maureen told me I was having a manic episode, but it may have been before. Can't remember. I'll have to figure that out when I go back and watch that stuff.)

I haven't gone back through all the footage and audio recordings yet. Right after the episode I was thinking about it because I was still riding the mania down, but Maureen told me I shouldn't. Said it might trigger me. (Not the word she used, but I can't remember the exact one and it was basically the same thing)

qucik aside. I just deleted my first twitch chat spam message. it was something about growing a follower base. That's an interesting thing for me. I'm still trying to figure out how to describe that I'm after by doing this. Like there's a part of me that wants people to watch/view/read/listen/whatever. And, there's a part of me that's just doing this for me.

I guess the thing is, I'd like to not worry about "followers". Like, I'm just doing this. If folks want to follow along at home, that's cool, but I'm not going to "try to grow my follower base" by, I don't know, doing slimy shit that's just designed to try to get followers.

Like, I want to "keep this pure". But, like, if this takes off, what would that even look like.

But, I think the way I can do that as much as possible, or, better said, the way that I'm planning on doing this is to not... I was going to say to try not to make money, but that's not right, or necessarily wise. Or, really, I don't want money to be the driving factor and, up to a point, I'm not going to accept it. Like anything in this world, the chances of it taking off are vanishingly small. But, it's possible that I get enough followers that I could "monitize the stream" or the videos or the podcast. But, like, if all I'm going to get outta that is $100/month or something (which is the most I'm every likely to get), then I'm not going to take the money. That would add that external thing the fucks around in the back of my head thinking "if I do this, would it drop followers", or make new followers, or I would try to do stuff not because I want to try it myself but because of the external idea that I'm trying to get followers.

So, yeah, that's the thinking on that.

Oh, yeah, also worth acknowledging that I'm super lucky in that I'm in a position to not have to worry about trying to pull in every dollar I can.

This is funny because I'm doing all the boring stuff that folks do at the start of a project like that. But, whatever, it's what I'm thinking about. And, I suppose it works as a fine introduction. Or, at least, you'll get an idea of where my heads at.

Let's see, other than that, I did a live coding session last night. Was working an a little script written in the python programming language that will allow me to use Multi Factor Authentication with one of the tools we use at work. It was a lot of fun. And, funny. It took me a couple hours to do something that probably would have taken 15 minutes if I wasn't casting. But, that's just fine. When I do that stuff, I spend a lot of time explaining what I'm doing and I really enjoy that. And, sometimes, I end up realizing something myself. So, it's super cool.

I've decided that I'm going to do that most nights. The other reason for that is it gets me doing stuff. Like, if I don't do a cast, there's a 50/50 chance that I won't do any coding stuff at night. That's fine, but there's a bunch of stuff I'd like to be doing and when I cast, it gives me the energy to do it. It also is a little like putting a meeting on the calendar. But not a tedious meeting where it's just a bunch of people sitting around talking about the work that needs to be done. It's like a meeting that's a working session. In fact, that's pretty much what it is.

Yeah, hadn't put two and two together with that, but it's awesome. So, anyway, I'm going to do more of that. Including later today when I get back into that same code, I'm going to cast it again.

In the mean time, it's time for me to sign off and prep for another meeting.

So, y'all have a good one and be kind.

Cheers,

-a