New style

Felt like it was time to freshen up the blog again, even though I haven't been writing as actively anymore. Just new colors, the layout/functionality has remained basically the same—though I did fix a small bug that occurred when a post didn't have any tags. Also went back to specifying the font used instead of user preference, since this font just felt right.

It feels like I at some point need to rethink the branding on here, "Rambling Priest" just doesn't really feel right anymore, not representative of who I am or the content. Probably should go with something that isn't such a reference to World of Warcraft anymore since the content isn't necessarily focused around the game anymore and more just about me and who I am. Not sure where to go with that as of yet though, so I suppose I'll let it lie for now.

Break

It would seem I needed something of a break from blogging—or at the very least I ended up taking one. It wasn't really a planned thing, it more just ended up happening because I just didn't know what I wanted to write about and ended up not doing it—which was later on exacerbated by me doing some reconfiguration of my server and consequently needing to reinstall my blogging software before being able to actually continue writing. All of this caused a somewhat extended break.

I'm also not sure if this post actually signifies an actual end to that break or what my plan is going forwards, though I do still really enjoy writing and actually having the blog so I do have that going for me which is nice.

I guess the last few months—or perhaps even this year in general—have been somewhat rougher on me again. Not only did blogging take a back seat, but the habit of a daily walk that I had built up has also been more of a struggle lately with more frequent breaks/missed days than at any other point of me doing it. It's still definitely more days with walks than without, and I don't think I've actually missed two days in a row at any point, but there has definitely been a general decline. Perhaps I should start tracking this in some way? Though whether such data would be motivating or demotivating I'm not sure...

In more positive news, I think I'm slowly starting to build up confidence in there actually existing a future for me that I want to live in, and while I'm not yet at the point of taking any concrete steps towards it I am starting to feel like it will be possible to do so in a reasonable time frame which helps a lot to making it feel actually doable.

It seems I find myself in a new place: pessimistic about the present but more optimistic about the future. Perhaps this insight will help me in taking those concrete steps to actually get there?

Misc

The blog

I'm struggling a bit with the blog at the moment. I'm not sure what exactly is the problem, but I just don't seem to have any real idea what I want to write on the schedule I had set for myself—weekly—which means I have for the past two weeks just ended up not writing, which feels bad.

It feels a bit strange, since it's not really a case of motivation—I keep thinking about wanting to write and potential things I could write—I just don't know what I actually do want to write. I have some ideas floating in my drafts folder, but they all feel either too big or too small or simply too unripe.

This has had me thinking if I just end up formally giving up on the idea of regular posts on the blog and going back to posting and writing more sporadically. At the same time, as noted, I do still keep thinking about writing and it is still something I want to do, and there is a certain level of fear of this change then relegating writing to something I barely end up doing because I keep simply forgetting to do so if it isn't regular enough.

At the moment, I am then faced with a dilemma: keep pushing through and trying to write, or just decide enough is enough and wind down my efforts a bit. I'm not quite sure what I'll end up doing, but maybe what I have been doing unintentionally is the proper approach to the situation: keep thinking about ideas and writing on the regular schedule as before, but be kind to myself and accepting of not perhaps being able to actually do the writing on a weekly basis. This would both keep it as something I'm actively working on in my memory as well as like right now, afford me opportunities to almost spontaneously decide to write something, while still reducing the pressure and guilt of not doing so.


Writing the above, once again reminded me of why it is that I want to keep writing so much: it's just such a great way to process things, because writing something down forces me to actually think about what I am writing.

This is something that has been gnawing on me for the past couple of weeks due to having missed those deadlines, and in writing this I'm forced to actually confront those feelings and to put them into perspective. It's not a new revelation for me, but sometimes I do need the reminder.

It also feels interesting to note that even prior to having written this, I feel like I was handling the situation better from an emotional perspective than I would have before, in being more forgiving to myself of the mistakes I have made, which means that while it might at times feel like I keep on going in circles with the things I write and think about, there is also learning and improving happening at the same time.

I probably really should reconsider the whole diary thing, shouldn't I?

Diary, pt. 3

Fairly shortly I think after I wrote the second time about keeping a diary, I ended up somehow stopping writing in it. At first, merely only rarely, when something "significant" happened or I felt like I actually had something new to write, but at some point I just stopped completely—probably because I simply forgot to do so after dropping the habit.

The problem for me became—which I also at times have with the blog here—that I just felt like I was repeating basically the same entries most days, which let's be honest aren't usually that exciting. Now, of course, the purpose of a diary isn't to be exciting but to provide an opportunity to both reflect on the happenings of the day and allow you to look back on your past state in order to have a better idea of what you were actually thinking at the time—something which otherwise gets all too easily lost in false memories of one were to try to rely on ones memory alone.

The problem of course, is that when the activity becomes repetitive it kind of loses its shine to me and becomes boring, which means I'm both less likely to do it and more likely to question its purpose—neither of which is very conducive to actually keeping on going with it. This of course prevents me from taking the opportunity to actually reflect on why I keep writing the same things day after day, and if those things are not to my liking how I might go about changing them.

Because of this, I feel like I should give it another try, or at least something like it. I think I could really benefit from some sort of deeper reflection on the state of my life as I feel rather lost in where I'm going and what the meaning of everything is, but at the same time it feels somewhat silly to try the thing that already failed once again instead of something else. Maybe what I need is merely a different approach to the same thing, to be more deliberate of what I want to include and perhaps even just keep it shorter, maybe even just a few sentences, so that it get distilled to the core of the message.

The question, then, becomes what is it that I would want to include? What is important enough for me to want to try to keep track of it on a daily basis? And finally, how do I want to do it—merely pen and paper as before, or do I want to enter the digital realm both with the opportunities that provides but also with the reality of it being something of a less tactile experience? Is being able to leaf through a book of my own writing something that has value to me in some way, or is the easier organization of digital files worth the switch?

I'll keep pondering these things, but it definitely feels like something worth pondering, as I know I must do something to change the current state of affairs and perhaps a greater awareness of exactly what they are is what I need to influence change in a better direction.

Mind

Sepulcher of the First Ones

The new raid released this week—though "only" the first eight bosses—and so far we've gotten rather decent progress in. To be fair, being the first week, it's heroic and not mythic, but with the apparent state of the bosses I'm fairly content with how far we have gotten, that being progressing on Anduin.

As for the raid itself, it really is a welcome change from Sanctum of Domination and so far a lot more fun as well. Though part of that is surely the novelty, it still just somehow feels better to me in a nebulous hard to specify way—aside from the rather ridiculous amount of trash, which luckily has been rather possible to skip so far.

What has been personally more interesting to try to pinpoint however, is how I feel at the moment in regards to World of Warcraft in general, since I have been in something of a low point concerning the game for a somewhat long time at this point. What I'm noticing is perhaps not a direct return to form or overabundance of excitement towards the game—which I do also think would be very difficult to build at this point in time—but I am distinctly more interested in playing now than I was, say, at the beginning of the last tier. It just feels like the reduction of more-or-less mandatory content to do along with a raid I am actually somewhat curious to see is creating something of a spurt of motivation towards the game. I do still think I will end up taking it slow, as the situation feels somewhat precarious at the moment, but it does feel encouraging to see at least a slight uptick in interest once more.

Now what remains to be seen is just how the week ends up working out for our progress in general—as I'm writing this we're only halfway through on our progress days, Sunday and Tuesday still to go—as well as how and if my feelings change next week with the last bosses in the raid that we know very little about so far as they weren't available for testing.

Another confounding factor is the potential to actually be playing both priest healing specs in the raid again, as I've been running holy so far for our progress which usually hasn't been the case. I've, surprisingly, actually kind of enjoyed the opportunity to do so again especially since it has given me the chance to try out a new covenant along with getting to experience their campaign for the first time which was nice. The "new" system of being to change covenants more freely is certainly a welcome change for all of this at it allows me to actually prepare both specs to a decent level for the raid, though it is still somewhat clunkily implemented and it always feels a bit weird to get berated when changing back to Venthyr—though I guess the whole humility and remorse thing fits with their theme.

That was a long and winding path of thoughts, but I hope they made some sense. I think I better stop before it gets even worse.