As feels like is becoming a yearly tradition at this point, I changed the design of the blog again. I’m currently resisting rather well also changing the software running it as well, since even though that seems like it would be an interesting project it feels like the alternatives would all land me in a worse place than I am in at the moment—to be fair, that hasn’t stopped me before, but still.

Contrary to my considerations at the end of the year, I decided against also changing the name, since I’m really not sure what the new name would be, and silly and out of place it might be at the moment, I think it serves its purpose well—for now, at least. This might all change once more in the future as I learn to know myself better and what I want and expect from this here experiment in doing just that changes with time, but some stability in these turbulent times might be rather welcome.

As for the design itself, it’s gone back to being a bit more understated, clean and modern I guess one could call it, though with some light inspiration from synthwave I guess one could say, though that’s mostly just the background gradient talking. It feels a bit strange going back to something so understated after having the previous design which was something of a nostalgia trip, but I think the problem with that design was that it wasn’t actually all that good in many ways. The post pages themselves were a strange mix of a more modern style with old trappings, the contrast between the text and the background was somewhat poor making reading harder than necessary, and while the name remains inspired by World of Warcraft and my journies there to a great extent—that’s the only capacity in which I am anything resembling a priest—the heavy callout to that in the design didn’t really reflect the current reality of the content all that well. How much those two things need to be related is debatable I suppose, but I still felt there was a certain level of disconnect there.

Another thing the old design didn’t really leave room for implementing properly was “hero images” for the posts, something that I’ve considered doing on and off for a longer time but just didn’t really have a place in the design. The necessity of such images might be debatable, and it is completely validly arguable that the content should speak for itself and not be carried by the work of others in the form of images, but I think the addition of an image to a certain degree set the tone of the post might be a valuable tool. To many of the more recent posts I have already been selecting these images, they have merely had no place to be shown, but for most of the backlog they will be missing and even for future posts I might choose not to make use of them, but still they are now there for your enjoyment; well, assuming you go to the page for a single post at least, felt a bit too much like breaking the flow to display them on the index pages, and I also still have the habit of trying to optimize for connection speeds that are unlikely to be seen these days, so I didn’t want to include a bunch of not-strictly-necessary images on those pages.

The final thing to note then, and a change from earlier times of carefully curating a list of standard fonts applicable to the major operating systems or making use of web fonts, is that the new design intentionally merely states that a sans-serif font is preferred, and the users preference should be respected. Now, I’m sure most users aren’t even aware that they do in fact have the option of specifying such a preference in their browser, much as they might not be aware that they may specify a preference for language and the like, so it might end up meaning that most users will end up seeing some of the rather less pleasing default fonts rather than something nice looking when reading here, but I still felt like respecting that choice was more important for this design than trying to force something else on people even if they are unaware that they are making that choice. To be fair, the default font selection has probably also become quite a lot better since the olden times, so even the defaults might not be that bad, though I wouldn’t know since I’ve intentionally chosen Fira Sans for myself. I suppose that means if you want to see the pages as the author sees them, that would also be an appropriate choice for you, but if not then choose whatever you feel makes for the best reading experience.

The last time I wrote about reading, I was worried I might not be able to engross myself in a book the same way I have before. Dear reader, to my delight, that worry was unfounded—as I also speculated at the time. On Saturday I finished the Red Queen tetralogy (yes, I had to look up that word too, four books), a journey I had only began two weeks prior. Now that I think about it, I think all of the four books actually took pretty exactly two weeks, I think I began reading on a Saturday evening as well.

I ended up enjoying the books quite thoroughly, even if it felt that they were part of a rather familiar pattern at this point and I still have mixed feelings about the decision to include several perspectives in the later books. Yes, there is undoubtedly merit to it, and there were certainly characters it gave me a greater appreciation for, but it still felt like a diversion a lot of the time. As for the familiar pattern, the book felt very reminiscent of others like Hunger Games or Divergent (basing that somewhat on the movies, haven’t actually ended up reading those books, but still). This isn’t a bad thing, just something to be aware of if you end up considering reading these books. They also felt very young adult, which I think is exactly what I need at the moment, but also something to be aware of.

The only problem I have now, which I ended up feeling after finishing Pillars of Eternity II as well, is that odd void that appears after having spent such a long time in another world I can no longer enter. It of course opens the way for new and interesting experiences in the future, especially since I know again that this is something I can still do if I find the right book for it, but there is still a certain sadness to every end that makes it somewhat difficult to begin something new in order to avoid that feeling.

Thinking back, that might have been the reason I have had such difficulty reading before this, simply the fear I suppose of loss that comes when leaving these worlds that end up feeling almost more like home than the real one for a short while. It probably also doesn’t help that I still have several books that I started reading but never finished, partially because they are a part of unfinished series that I decided to wait for to be finished so that I could devour them more efficiently at my own pace instead of waiting for the author, but also partially because for whatever reason those books didn’t end up resonating with me on a sufficient level for me to just read through them, simultaneously making every new book I began a betrayal to the unfinished ones, making it ever more difficult to enjoy new books. I will probably have to take another look at my backlog of started books and reconsider if I truly do want to read them, and if not actually mentally check them of my todo list so that they don’t end up haunting me in the future, learning to let go as it were.

It feels like, I might have made one of those classic blunders of spring: underestimating how cold it still is. The last probably week or more, I have felt more or less a bit down as far as energy goes, and a bit of a stuffy or runny nose. Now I know what one might suspect, that it might be the great spectre of our times, COVID-19, but I think the likelyhood for that is extremely low, considering the measures I take to be safe. Even if it were the case, it would seem I am one of the lucky ones, considering how long I have been in this state and no worse symptoms appearing so far.

It does have the unfortunate side-effect of making it a bit more difficult for me to actually enjoy spring, since I’m less likely than before to go out and enjoy the rather good weather we have been having here for the most part, but to be fair that is something I’m generally not all that likely to do—even if I do still want to get into the habit of doing some more exploring.

There is another somewhat strange thing accompanying all of this, namely I have been noticing lately a certain difficulty in falling asleep lately, and wasn’t initially quite sure what to attribute it to: mental health state, stress, or what? But it is slowly dawning on me, that the most obvious change has been a increase in evening mental activity on my part, in this case in the form of reading more again, a couple of hours before going to sleep. Now it has been very nice to be reading this much again and I have certainly missed it just like I had missed playing a good RPG, but I think I need to come to terms with the fact that it is actually a highly stimulating activity for me when it is as interesting as it is at the moment, which means I need to take some time to recover afterwards before going to sleep. It’s funny in a sense, having reading which seems so passive be something I need to recover from, but I guess adventures in other worlds are anything but relaxing.

There is another rather fortuitous link between these two things, namely taking a day and just hanging out in bed reading seems like a rather splendid idea in order to try to recover from whatever ailment I might be suffering from at the moment, maybe even several days. I shall try this, then, and hopefully by this time next week I am feeling somewhat better, hopefully once more in more of a mood to do other things than just reading. It is the most excellent of distractions though, whisking me away from life as it is to the troubles of someone else, the worries of my own fading away for a moment, replaced by the adventures of others, comforting in their distance.

I’m recently noticing, that I seem to have something of a problem. Namely, I’m often not quite sure what I enjoy anymore. I don’t think I’m completely incapable of having fun, even if I do have difficulty putting my finger on exactly when it is happening—though I suppose that is often so, not something one thinks of in the moment—but it does feel like there are a lot of things I do either out of habit or because I like the idea of being a person who does that thing or liking something, instead of doing it because I actually enjoy it.

At the same time, it feels like my fear of failure might at times go deeper than I had even realized before, to a point of actually contributing to the problem. I noticed this most distinctly recently, when loaning a book. Firstly, finding a book that seemed intersting enough to try wasn’t actually all that difficult, loaning it however took some thinking because I just kind of kept wondering: “what if I can’t finish this book either?”, probably because I actually do have a number of unfinished books I could be reading but am not.

Even once I got past that first hurdle, actually reading the book was also difficult because even though I think I was enjoying it and making decent pace, I kept second-guessing both my enjoyment and my capability to actually finish the book, along with a certain level of guilt of not having finished the other books I have started and why am I reading something new instead of those.

I worry, that this mentality of unfinished things, even things I might not want to finish, are bothering me to a degree of actually then being unable to enjoy the things I usually enjoy, and the guilt making it hard to actually do those things I want to do.

I also worry, that I not only need but also want to actually make rather drastic changes to how I am living life, since as noted above it feels like I am letting habit and familiarity determine the things I do regardless of enjoyment instead of actually changing things and doing things I enjoy. Why is this worrying? Because big change isn’t easy, and that means it will take a good while to actually get done, which means the status quo which I seem to not be overly enjoying at the moment is likely to continue for some time going forward.

On the other hand, having identified the possibility of this being the case, does allow me to make smaller changes that I think are where I want to be, and thus test the waters as it were and see if those changes are ones I would actually enjoy making.

Thinking through what I have written, once more having been one of those journies we take together dear reader, it seems to me the problem is that unfinished tasks or desires have a cost associated with them, and unfortunately that cost also makes it more difficult to actually finish them. I suppose, along with testing out different things I actually do want to do, I should look into ways of enabling myself to actually do the things I want to do instead of just thinking about doing them. That’s the hard part though, I suppose, taking that risk of actually doing, potentially failing or just simply not enjoying it. That’s another thing, then, allowing myself to say: this wasn’t for me, I’ll do something else instead; without it becoming some sort of mark of shame.

This was already unusually rambly, so I think best end it there, though I think I discovered more new questions than answered old ones.

On Saturday, I ended up going on a second walk due to the good weather during which while looking for something to do and see I went on something of a very local exploration. Basically right outside our house there are old ruins of fortifications that I remember playing in as a kid, that I haven’t really looked at since. Which is something of a shame since it’s a part of local history and not necessarily something everyone has the opportunity to do.

Of course, in practice they are pieces and paths made out of concrete and not necessarily overly interesting in and of themselves, at least not for someone like me that doesn’t know much about the history associated with them, though there was a cave or tunnel that I also re-discovered that I’m still somewhat curious about, mostly because I like caves for some reason and also because I haven’t been in there yet. I decided however, to try to find out a bit more about the area before I did that, since I wasn’t sure how safe it exactly is which can be a concern when going into an old tunnel.

This luckily proved rather easy, since the museum authority (I guess? not quite sure how to properly translate that part) is kind enough to provide rather detailed information about historical sites and a map to look them up on online. So it seems it was a World War I era fortification which fell into disuse since, and the tunnel seems to be somewhat large considering how small the opening is at 110m², though there was no mention of how safe it all is to enter and the inspection seems to have been done in the late 1990’s with no real updates since so if I do end up going in myself I should still remain careful, and I’m not as of yet quite sure if I will end up doing that though I do still kind of want to.

In general, this feels like something I should do more often, go for walks in a random direction and just look around me and try to see the things in front of me, simply soaking in my surroundings. I did touch on this already in my last post about relaxation, though I guess exploring is the opposite of that in a sense, but with time I’m becoming more and more aware of how poorly I actually known the area I live in since even the times I do end up going out I tend to either stick to the same routes or am lost in my own mind not really heeding what is going on around me. Consequently, it feels like intentionally going out and looking at new things or things I might not have noticed before would satisfy both itches: being stimulated by new things yet at the same time actually learning about my surroundings. Looking at the map as well, though it doesn’t have to be old ruins that I go looking at, if I do choose to do so there seems to be an abundance of choice near me of things to look at so I shouldn’t run out of content in a while.

Maybe that’s the plan for this spring and summer then, exploring, when weather allows.