Greetings friends, it has been about a year since my last post; in the meantime my youtube has expanded fourfold; my stocks have done quite well, I have more friends than any point in my life except the last two years of high school, and my mental health has deteriorated to strange lows. Of course virtually everyone in First World Countries is unhappy and its possible my pseudo-depression is simply a physical hormonal imbalance of some sort that I can't fix without pharmaceutical assistance; however succumbing to that is not something I'm willing to do at least in the near future. The reliance on medication to solve your ailments is an absolutely crippling one in most cases.
However I've found some solace in simply reading outside, its too cold to do so right now but I began with James Michener's Centennial (followed by Caribbean and the Source) in the summer and enjoyed my experience immensely. In fact being outside in the sunlight is a sort of opiate since I hadn't spent that much time relaxing in this fashion for many a moon. Michener is pseudo Non Fiction in how well researched and detailed the work is; a more grounded Michael Crichton if you will. In the process of procuring more Michener I started using a university library with a close friend and suggested he read Cormac McCarthy; commonly considered the best living author. So it was that he came to Blood Meridian and I return to it after having misplaced my copy (which I still own, somewhere) ages ago.
In Chapter XI Judge Holden (a sort of Ares of the Mexican-American war era) is drawing in his sketchbook and a man requests to not be drawn; the Judge responds with "What is to be deviates no jot from the book wherein it's writ. How could it? It would be a false book and a false book is no book at all." This line gave me some pause, as it is a philosophical argument presented by McCarthy; and oh how I love dissecting those. It's explained a bit more shortly thereafter but the truly perceptive reader will see something awry just from this one line.
The Judge is saying that a man cannot avoid his own permanence; Webster, the man who doesn't want to be sketched, simply wishes to be forgotten; or to go about his existence without external bother until he expires, another speck of dust lost to the ages. But the Judge continues "Whether in my book or not, every man is tabernacled in every other and he in exchange and so on in an endless complexity of being and witness to the uttermost edge of the world."
It is very common to believe that each man's own existence is pointless; though reasonable to acknowledge that the grand tapestry of history is created from the interwoven relationships of countless billions of people. The Judge says otherwise here, that you cannot choose to be forgotten, no matter how much you would wish it; barring a proverbial solitary island existence from start to finish. This is a remarkably optimistic train of thought coming from McCarthy in his most brutal, Macbethian narrative. I don't know that I'm willing to accept it quite yet, but it gives me some solace to spare a thought for it.
Statistically society is become more and more like Max Weber's doomed future where each individual is so disassociated from one another's work lives because each job is more and more specific to the point of absurdity; thus there is no relating to one another through one's work. My "job" as a youtuber has no bearing on my relationship with anyone in my life, it is an esoteric, vague service provided to millions of people from all over the world, but the exact meanderings of its viability still elude most people. The concept of profiting from advertising is simple enough, but what of the prospective value of providing somewhat repetitive entertainment to vast hordes of anonymous viewers, no matter how much positivity I receive from my viewership (dozens or hundreds of comments a day) it still feels like they're abstract unknowable things extracted from the raw core of the NSA internet databases; an endless filtering of chain of consciousness to be rebounded by everyone and no one.
Perhaps historically I've made more of an impact than any other member of my family as far as how many people I've reached, even with just a mid-sized channel; but I can't escape the awareness that I myself am largely immaterial despite having a mind that grasps. If I am immaterial how much more so the millions or indeed billions of dunces roaming the planet. McCarthy, my old friend, says no; each man has meaning because he has contributed to the tapestry of existence. Hopefully one day I'll believe this as well.
Aside: The pointless accumulation of wealth and the evasion of any and all particular difficulties with existence as is given to me by virtue of birth in a first world nation (and essentially all others so gifted) doesn't really hold much attention for me. Instead this act of writing, no matter how little it will be seen or understood or perceived is something that I would like to continue with. Eventually I'll have enough to just sit back and write with no need for success beyond affirming that I was able to write what I wanted with no need for greater affirmation nor financial gain.
