Okay, so it’s not a crisis per se. Thanks to SEO and how people respond to clickbait, this is the title.
On Existential and Crises
An accurate title would be Existential Blog transition. This title is a play on words for its everyday use in the human extinction climate crisis. AKA, climate change.
It annoys me that Existential is used for the global, human corporate capitalism-caused climate change crisis. Our extinction is in progress, and I’m fed up with being nice about it. Or allowing it to be downplayed by Corporate Democrats (The “bitch or ho” to Corporate Pimps) and straight-up money sluts, Republicans. This isn’t about gender. If you sell out for money, these terms are apt. Both are equally at fault. This is how you use the word “both sides” in the United States. Aka, Both sides of the Corporate coin.
Existentialism definition: a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad
This section from Wikipedia describes the existential crisis American is in:
“Existential crises have various negative consequences, both on the personal level, such as anxiety and the formation of bad relationships, and the social level, such as a high divorce rate and decreased productivity. They may also have positive effects by pushing the affected to address the underlying issue and thereby develop as a person. Some questionnaires, such as the Purpose in Life Test, can be used to measure whether someone is currently undergoing an existential crisis. Because of the primarily negative consequences, it is important that existential crises are resolved. The most common approach is to help the affected find meaning in their life. This can happen through a leap of faith, in which the individual places their trust into a new system of meaning, or through a reasoned approach focusing on a careful and evidence-based evaluation of the sources of meaning. Some theorists recommend a nihilistic approach, in which the individual accepts that life is meaningless and tries to find the best way to cope with this fact. Other approaches include cognitive behavior therapy and the practice of social perspective-taking.
Outside psychology and psychotherapy, the term “existential crisis” is sometimes used to indicate that the existence of something is threatened.”
I digress. I got a bit off-topic there and felt I had to rant about that before getting into this post. So, in summary, I was wrong about existential crises in this context. Yeah, climate change is an existential crisis in humanity’s existence.
I realize that this post isn’t SEO-friendly. Or I’m doing that thing in psychology where I’m I’m the one in an existential crisis. That was why I missed work earlier this week because of anxiety… I’m better; I have been doing better since then.
This is because life is going well… And I’m so used to it, not that I’m afraid even though I’m doing the right things.
The Existential Blog Crisis
I think it’s time. Time to give the blog an overhaul. I don’t feel that the current name satisfies any longer. I chose the unknown Reilly because when I started in March 2020, I was at rock bottom, and it felt like a novel. Because of the chaotic beginning of the pandemic, Because that was the most painful period of my life to date (Well, except for the summer of 2009. That’s another potential post.), the near future felt like an unknown. I felt like I didn’t know myself. America felt like (and more so today, I sure didn’t expect that.) an unknown. Life was a novel where I lived hour to hour, day to day.
No longer.
I don’t feel like I am, nor is life an unknown anymore. Of course, nobody knows the future. However, I feel comfortable moving forward because I know myself better 26 months later.
I un-un know now. (😅 Okay, okay enough with using the word unknown.)
So, I’m thinking of changing the name, the site design and layout, and the way of writing that reflects this. I feel that I’ve neglected these, and while I am frustrated that traffic and subscribers have stalled, the bottom line is that I can do better. I want to do the best I can because I like blogging. I want to do better because this makes me feel alive. I want to keep discovering. I want to fulfill the potential for greatness.
Im not giving up, and I haven’t run out of motivation. It feels fair to be the best you can be at something for its intrinsic value. I am doing it because I love to.
The problem is, that going back and fixing the (Holy shit) 136 posts would be expensive and time-consuming to correct to be SEO-friendly. I want to feel and see from the word press blog stats that the blog is developing. That’s fair after two years of posting. It’s frustrating to take the time to write what I feel is an excellent post, and few see it. Or it doesn’t add new subscribers. I need to figure out why.
I’ll find out slowly in my free time between working a full-time job and life. I wish I could afford to hire someone, but with 136 posts… That would be expensive. And… I do this as a hobby and don’t make money blogging. I’m not sure I want to blog or make money as a living blogging. I don’t want to repeat the mistake in the life of working a career I enjoy –I used to be a personal chef and worked in restaurants for years– then ended up resenting it or losing my passion because it became an obligation. So, I’ll proceed slowly. It’s tough to make a living writing or blogging… Like lottery odds. Anyway. Maybe in the future.
In conclusion, my current essential crisis moment is in the popular definition of the word… To find a new meaning based on the information I understand today. I’m aware of this and know what I need now. Whether to dive into it as a career or to be a writer of some kind as a living.
For now it’s an unknown.
Postscript.
I watched Iron Man 3 on Sunday, which has been a few years, and this speech Tony Stark gave at the movie’s end resonated with me. You can find it on YouTube if you search “Ironman 3 ending speech” since WordPress and YouTube are nitpicky about sharing. Spoilers…