Connections Oddly Felt: Exhausted Youtubers Edition

Jester's Note:  I started this entry a couple of weeks ago, but this was the beginning of several weeks of me, my wife, and my kid to a degree; getting sick and feeling off.  All of this has culminated in my wife needing gallbladder surgery that she'll be getting fairly soon.  I tried coming back to this particular blog and getting a feel for where I was at, but the truth is so much has happened since then and I need to make sure I am keeping my schedule up for my freelancer jobs.  Not that I plan on abandoning this blog, just that I haven't spent as much time as I normally would editing this as I don't want to screw up my own narrative.  I haven't looked at this post in a couple of weeks.

Anywho, things are finally getting on track, but I am a little tired and glad to finally be catching up:

So here is that post from couple weeks ago:



Weird envy and contemplation have mixed into a brew of wistful regret and determination today.

Funny how you can suddenly feel connected to a person you've never met when their circumstances mirror your own.  I mean, we experience connections to time to time with our close friends and family when they have stuff happen that parellels our own life, right?  Everything from growing up  so it is not totally unfimiliar to feel a connection to a person when they experience something that you find familiar.  Saturday morning cartoons and cereal.  Going to Chuck E. Cheese.  Renting Nintendo games.  These are just a few of the experiences I think are semi-universal for people in the 20-30's bracket like me.

However, there are certain experiences that I have had in life which I know very, very few people can relate to.  Sometimes I think friends forget or don't realize how much these "experiences" have effected my life, the way I live, the way I can live, and the choices I have made and will make.  I have been sick most of my life and in and out of hospitals since when I was a little younger than 10.  I've had my insides removed, re-sectioned, and poked and prodded more times than I care to recount.  I had more surgeries by the time I turned 30 than most people have had when they are twice my age.  It is almost like a boast, if racking up hospital debt that still effects my family to this day were something a person actually wanted to boast about.  Now, I don't mention this for "pity party" purposes. Just an acknowledgment that because of my continued health issues I have not had the opportunity to be as productive or had the same energy level as my peers.  All the health stuff culminated in liver transplant surgery in 2010.  I've been healthier-ish since, and am trying to get in even better shape than ever.  So things have been looking a bit up in the health department.  Sadly though the new liver did not come with a full refund of the years that I spent too sick on and off to do much.  It didn't magically mean the credit card was paid off.  It did not result in a new car.  (Shame too, because although a new lease on life is great and all, a new car behind door number one would have been nice as well).

Anywho, I felt oddly connected to two Youtube personalities I follow.  

Earlier today the gamer guy known as "Markiplier" posted a picture of himself to twitter.  He was laid up in a hospital bed with an NG tube up his nose and he looked a bit pale.  I guessed immediately what was going on even as he eluded to the issues being nothing serious.  Later in the day, he posted an update detailing what had happened to him, and I basically had guessed it spot on.  So hooray to me.  I have all too intimate knowledge of what was going on with the guy.  Not that this was something I really wanted to ever connect with some one about, because who wants to see another person go through that kind of pain and illness?  It made me think though that here is this guy who is not much younger than me going through situation similar to me...and he's successful and will overcome this and be back to his occupation of Youtube gamer soon.  I know to some that this might sound silly or something to poo-poo, but the guy is hilarious, engaging, and interesting to watch.  And obviously he is learning skills in video production and sound editing that will be of use later in life should he decide to stop doing the youtube thing.  Because from what I can tell, you need to be pumping out a fair amount of at least half-way decent content in order to make it on youtube.  Speaking of people who are pumping out content and practicing skills that will be transferable....

Another one of my favorite personalities to follow/watch on Youtube is Pat the NES Punk. It might sound like a goofy name, but that is part of the fun.  If you haven't seen his stuff before, check out his series "Flea Market Madness" in addition to his humorous reviews.  Low budget-schmo-budget, I'll take his stuff over whatever over-produced content IGN or Kotaku pumps out--but I digress. The point is, he put up a video the other day updating fans/followers of his Youtube channel on how things were going and tell them about upcoming content.  He's pretty much a one man crew pumping out a variety of content from retro game reviews, the "DIY" type show about hunting for game bargains in flea markets, a twice monthly podcast, and a retro game history show--to name just a few things.  The guy looks beat in the update video.  From what I can tell he's a pretty in shape guy, but even being fit doesn't give you limitless energy.  Again, in a way I felt like I could relate to what he was going through.  It was a video with apologies as much as updates, basically saying sorry that the behind the scenes work was not showing as results (as of yet) on his Youtube channel.  That's just the way it is though if you are the one doing it all while trying to maintain/build a brand and content.  I felt especially bad for the guy because there were a host of comments made about the video on how he "looked high" or my 'favorite,' "dead inside."  Just sad that people don't seem to grasp how much work can go in to the behind the scenes work of a project.  Authors don't pop out fully formed books that are totally edited and ready to eat up shelf space at your local bookstore.  Famous filmmakers don't magically make movies out of thin air.  Why should it be expected that a Youtube personality can just churn out incredible content like a machine?  I don't get it.  

But I do get a bit of hope from these guys stories.  Why do I get hopeful?

Well, it's hard some times to think about all the opportunities that I may have missed while sick.  I wanted time to myself to write my children's book.  I thought off and on about doing game reviews on the side.  I thought about doing my own blog to talk about writing and things I had learned about writing.  I thought about doing a podcast and even did some research into what microphones would work best.  I even thought about getting my own website on the side.  None of this happened though.  I just went to school.  Went to work.  

And...went to the hospital.

I was sick, needed a transplant, and got one.  I plan on having a much longer post on this come the anniversary in July, but in the mean time....

Things have changed quite a bit in my life over the past 18 months.  For starters, my beautiful little girl was born. And that was pretty much the big boost I needed to get started on those things that I had always just thought about doing.  So I've been getting freelance writing jobs, doing some personal writing, writing a kids book, working on a podcast with my brother, and in general working on my dreams in a way that I had begun to worry were slipping forever away from me.

Exhaustion inevitably comes with the territory.  I get that, and always assumed that. In a way this form of exhaustion--feeling tired because I get to chase my dreams full force--is something I've also had a chance to only dream about as time passed.  Weird to think of looking forward to getting tired and worn down, but I say without irony or cliche' that I have never been happier.  True, it leaves almost nothing for social life, which kinda sucks, but I don't want to just sit around talking about my plans unless I've actually been following through on them.  I don't want to be hypothesizing about the things that might happen in time.  Right now those things ARE happening for me as I write this.  How do I know this?  Because I AM writing this.  sitting at my computer, plugging away and taking a break from the writing jobs to wax on about how busy my life is and how it has been going.  Not meant as a brag, just me saying that I am happy to be exhausted in this way.

I wonder if those guys I mentioned are contented like this too.  Yeah, I'm exhausted, but I don't mind.
I'm getting to work on my dreams.

Speaking of which...
Time to get back to work.