Pissing into the Wind

My phone has become a magic 8-ball of sorts; more 8-ball than magic. It can do phenonominal, unimaginable things but it can’t give me existential answers. No matter how many times I race to it when it vibrates; wake it, hoping to find an at-reply from someone of notoriety; imagine Wordpress telling me my blog “is on fire”; there is never an answer. Nonetheless, my phone is a little black oracle. Today, it showed me some great things: Song Exploder with John Roderick, Marc Maron on The Moment with Brian Koppleman, Andrew Sullivan’s departing post:

How do I say goodbye? How do I walk away from the best daily, hourly, readership a writer could ever have? It’s tough. In fact, it’s brutal. But I know you will understand. Because after all these years, I feel I have come to know you, even as you have come to see me, flaws and all. Some things are worth cherishing precisely because they are finite. Things cannot go on for ever. I learned this in my younger days: it isn’t how long you live that matters. What matters is what you do when you’re alive. And, man, is this place alive.

I started Zero Counts to express my thoughts on the video game industry. Back then, I called it “The State of Gaming”. Shortly after it’s inception, I was quoted on Daring Fireball. Now, not a day goes by that there isn’t an urge to appeal to John Gruber. Every word I write, every passage I compose is critiqued by the “Gruber in my head”. I can’t shake it. Every entry comes with hopeful anticipation that my phone might vibrate with a Twitter notification— Gruber favorited or, better yet, retweeted the associated tweet. Or best case scenario, he linked to my post on Daring Fireball, hopefully leaving an inkling of praise or simply stayed neutral. It would be enough to validate me, at least for a little while longer; until I had built a sustained audience.

This wasn’t the first time this itch came alone. In 2008, my one and only vlog was posted to the front page of CNN.com for my favorite music of the year. (I still agree with my picks.) Maybe I was supposed to be a Youtube music reviewer. If so, I probably missed my opportunity. I never posted another. In 2010, I was cast into IGN’s Community Spotlight for blogging about non-gaming topics on a gaming website. Maybe I was supposed to be a non-gaming gaming blogger. If so, I probably missed my opportunity. Which brings us to the Daring Fireball quote for a piece on Mario Kart 8. Maybe I was supposed to be a games journalist or analyst. I am currently trying to ride that wave.

I’m pissing into the wind; throwing mud at the wall; hoping and praying that I will find exactly what it is that sticks for me. That thing that I can’t go another second without writing. There is an itch for conversation; I can’t help myself from blogging and tweeting throughout the day. And I will continue to piss into the wind and throw mud at the wall. I will look to my phone, listen to an inordinate amount of podcasts, and scrape my Twitter feed for answers. Surely, someone out there knows who I am, but it sure as hell isn’t me.

I’ve never read anything from Andrew Sullivan. For a Political Science major, that appears to be a crime. No doubt an influencial man and writer. The recent news surrounding his departure from blogging has me thinking a lot. If he can give this platform his all for fifteen years, I know I can too. I just hope I find a little something along the way.