End of an Era

I don’t want to do this any more. Blog consistently, I mean.

There are a lot of reasons why I’m stopping, but I guess the simplest and truest reason is because I just don’t feel that it matters to anyone else but me. I like writing, but I would like some support and appreciation, at least for the posts that I do for other people, like the birthday stories or Ingress mission lists. Somehow, I don’t feel the urge to write any more. It’s simmered down. Like, I could still write posts if I really forced myself to, but I’d have to really force myself to. I realized that out of the four motivation types, I’m not an Upholder like I thought I was.

I’m an Obliger.

Like, holy freaking shit. I respond “better” to external stimuli, than internal goals. I say “better” because I’m not necessarily happy, but I get the job done because I have a deadline. On the flip side, I’m happy doing things for myself, but I tend to push them off or leave them hanging because I have the authority to do so. Productive stuff I do for myself shifts priorities very easily and that’s a bad habit I need to change.

It’s not like I’m quitting forever. I just don’t want to stick to the three posts a week thing any more. This post has been sitting in draft form for almost two months now and I only just decided to finish it today. I settled on a solution that I’ve been implementing over my two month break: have two blogs.

Part of the reason why I didn’t want to write was because there were some stories I didn’t want to share with the world. I mean, I regret nothing I’ve said online and I’m prepared to see everything I’ve written and posted on the Internet to come out in print, but why make it easy, y’know?

So now my two blogs are split into thejacetan and this one, punslingerofthemildjest. I spent my time filtering all my past posts and re-uploading photos to the correct blogs.

Thejacetan is a private blog, purely for myself to reminisce and relearn lessons I’ve forgotten. Also, it will contain some private, embarrassing stories about my life, but ultimately inconsequential to the world. As of now, there’s only one person whom I’ve granted reading rights.

I’ve decided that the punslinger blog will be my public face. Stuff I want the world to see. Like my works of fiction, epiphanies I have, guides and strategies (especially for Ingress missions), and overall how-tos, tips and tricks and life hacks. Remember GEMS? I decided to tweak it a bit. Now it’s Games, Epiphanies, Methods and Stories, although I haven’t figured out how to make WordPress display those tabs in that order yet.

Quick story on how I got the name. I love puns. As all my friends will attest to, I’m wonderfully witty at wordplay or horrendously hopeless at humour, depending on which friends you ask. Anyhow, one of my closest friends Mark called me a “Punslinger of the Wild West” and I was like, don’t you mean Punslinger of the Mild Jest? And he was like, that’s so bad it’s actually good. And that was how the title was born.

Thank you, Mark.

-Jace