I used to be a hater

 Melee commentary discourse I guess

I’ve been a hater before. For a few years, when I was just starting to get some semblance of relative skill (PR’d in upstate NY) I was burdened with a jealousy for people who were getting commentary slots. In 2014, when I started, it seemed that ALL the commentators were competitors. This led me to develop a plan to commentate: Get good as a player, gain a reputation, then leverage that into time on the microphone.

In practice, that’s not really how things worked. Commentary for post-documentary events was more competitive, with majors requesting a reel or body of work from prospective commentators. Gaining a body of work required time on the mic at regionals, or the less-common local with a stream set up. 

I was attending most regionals I could reasonably get to, but ended up being too good to get time on the microphone, yet not good enough to become known as one of the top dogs. I was competing with Jmook, Cody, and 2Saint - among others. I found myself in the liminal space between commentator and player (Sick use of liminal). To become known as a player, I would need to really step up my play - but since I was happy with my growth of a player and aspired mostly to gain a footing in commentary… well it was frustrating to say the least. This manifested in lashing out on twitter on a few occasions at commentators gaining traction on the national level(Sorry Jackzilla), as well as Ludwig who had been gaining momentum himself at the time.

In 2018, A year after graduating college, I tweeted something about dealing with this jealousy, which led to a long DM convo with my soon to be S tier friend and multi-year podcast co-host Wassabi. When I say it took years to get over these feelings I really mean it, it’s documented in real time. The act of making the podcast was the only thing keeping me sane inside the melee community, as I dealt with the feelings of powerlessness, self doubt, delusion and adulthood. I’m much happier now within melee, and even though I doubt it will ever become some sort of career, I’m confident in my ability to keep it a firm part of my life – until my hands fall off.

All this is a preamble to my hot take, or perhaps more accurately, my sympathy to the haters on twitter.

I’ve been there. I have felt the frustration of watching players I’d beat in bracket rise in the community. I double eliminated Jorge at a Smash con, for crying out loud. His reaction at the time has made me a life-long fan of his (extremely mortified at losing to a player named Poonslayer7)

My sympathy extends to the commentators, too, who will receive hate until an arbitrary amount of time passes and they cross a critical threshold of acceptance. Online hate sucks ass in a bad way. I hope they don’t let it deter them, though frankly I don’t think they need to defend themselves so vehemently either. Support each other and keep your chins up, don’t give any oxygen to the people who are giving you a hard time. Mute/block and keep doing your thing.

To keep things from getting too boring, though, I’ll try to unpack some of the problems within the space, why this conversation keeps popping up, and figure what we can do as a community to lessen the frustrations on our perpetual middle class citizens. 

Acknowledge how hard it is to be a player

I’ve been a mid level player for about eight years now. My placings at majors have never gotten better than 49th (65th at collision) and I placed at virtually the same spot on the NYC PR this season as I did 6 years ago. I’m like 0-14 against Jflex, and 0-2 against Jsex. Honestly, if I didn’t have UMF and/or Jake getting 2nd at genesis 2022 I might’ve lost my passion for the game.

We often talk about how hard it is to be a top 10-50 player, where sponsorships are scarce and the commitment level required is massive. It’s (likely) exciting to be a newly minted top 100 player, where your future looks bright and you have momentum. What goes unspoken is how it feels to be at my level - where we’ve had plenty of chances to truly break out but have come up short. Where we battle with insecurities associated with stagnation or decline, having players that we saw when they were new (often as literal children) get way better than you.

So, frankly, these feelings get taken out on the most visible folks, the commentators. This is not deserved, but these are a tribal sort of feelings.

If we don’t know you for your gameplay or background, it’s hard to see you as part of the tribe. We don’t think you are going through the same angst that we are. We see you as a climber, an outsider. 

I’ve come around to feeling like it’s more important that a commentator knows what it’s like to be in a player’s shoes than for them to know what’s happening in the game. This is a community, and we want to know that the people on the screen represent us. This is a difficult task, no doubt.

Acknowledge how hard it is to be a commentator.

Before I come across as too chummy with the haters, listen to this. Shut the fuck up for a second. Commentary is hard, we have never agreed on what makes good commentary, and you’re not helping by shitting on it.

There’s clearly a lot that can be improved across the board, but I can’t keep seeing the argument that our commentators need to be good players. It’s a zero sum game. The time it takes to do a block at a major or get time at a local is time and energy spent not improving at the game. 

Legacy players like Toph, Vish, Scar etc. have spent more time as commentators than competitors at this point. HMW is the only person really trying to make both happen, and if you follow his twitter for a second you’ll see how little financial reward is given. It’s not sustainable to do both, straight up. 

We need more voices on the microphone, we need more competition. I’ll be the first to say it, I think some legacy commentators could step their game up. Giving more people the opportunity to commentate leads to better commentary all around. 

That being said, it’s already a difficult gig. Every SINGLE commentator at these big events are concerned about how they sound, considering how they could be better, and somewhat insecure about if they sucked. They don’t need haters yelling at them, because guess what? It blocks out any real feedback.

Why do you think the commentary feedback threads on reddit stopped? I actually don’t know why, but I’d put money on them becoming toxic and unproductive. Talk shit in private discords, it’s way more fun and everyone does it. If you really feel the need to give feedback, make it polite and don’t be reductive. It will certainly be more effective than flaming.

How to be happy as a melee player

Yea, this is what it all boils down to. We’re all dedicated to something that’s less of an eSport and more of a martial art - without the health benefits or lessons in discipline. Our top player states repeatedly that his main motivator to improve is rage. Rage! Our #1 is vegeta, folks. Past number 1’s are retired, working tirelessly to regain their title, or wear a pillow during sets. This shit is clearly challenging.

I doubt the top 100 echelon will glean much from my perspective, but my fellow 65th thru 257th-ers might. Here’s what I’ve learned:

The happiest Melee players don’t optimize their lives for results, clout, or even skill

The happiest Melee players have made friends with similar goals, and keep friends without them

The happiest Melee players feel anguish at losing tough sets, and frustration at placing seed

* * * *  feel the highs of making an upset, and contentment at placing seed

* * * *  touch grass and eat vegetables and take breaks from twitter

* * * * recognize that literally 10-15 people make a living from this game, and a traditional career can let you travel to more majors

There’s obviously no good universal advice on how to live your life. We’re all just young people trying to figure shit out. Commentators, TO’s, non-top-player community figures are ALL looking to involve melee in their lives because they love the game and the people they meet within it.

I’ve been writing this for an hour and really need to do my job. Thanks for reading. Hmu if you’d like to talk more. 

I probably won't make top 100 / My Melee Vows

Despite all my best efforts, or rather the exact efforts I've put in for the 10 years I've competed in SSBM tournaments, I'll likely fall short of my long-term goal of being a top-100 player in the world for another year.

This might be a strange time for reflection, since I've not done so poorly as to be completely out of contention, along with Shine 2023 coming up this weekend. There's still a chance that an upset or two at Shine, combined with local wins against top 50 players throughout the year, I squeeze out the coveted 100 spot or even somewhere in the 80-90's. Perhaps the field of players being eligible for the rankings is smaller due to attendance or semi-retirement, or the players I've lost to at majors so far (Ben, Paladin, RC and Maher) all make impressive runs at their next few majors and soften the blow of my lukewarm performances. No disrespect to my other opponents, especially those who had pushed me and taken games during our sets.

I'm not giving up hope for this year, not by any means. I'm simply trying to understand and document what this feels like. I've been fully aware of how my lackadaisical prep habits have a downside, where a majority of my gameplay these days boils down to Nightclub entry, teams with my discord homies, and the occasional sessions with Jmook's outrageous cast of top tier secondaries. Where there's little shame in my performances (If you don't know the players I'd lost to, they're all very impressive) there certainly is room for improvement in the way I - well.. improve. 

There's been something different in the way I approach the game ever since Covid dropped. In January of 2020 I was at the peak of my melee involvement, which included creating a Podcast with my good friend Wassabi, which entailed interviews with different Melee players as well as a weekly conversation between Will and myself about how we felt as competitors. I had even started a short-lived series called "Road to Top 100" where I documented my weekly performance at HNC and a different element of performance. I was giving it my all, and had been performing quite well leading into March 2020. 

I was also burning myself out - big time.

I had a brief period later that year in July where I tried my hand as a content creator and streamer, again short lived. The Wannabes would continue in 2021 and took on a big role in HMW's "The Big One" as interviewers for a content series. High intensity and burnout poked their ugly face once again, I just couldn't find a consistent groove in any capacity.

My fire for the game would fade for a while, only emerging once again in April 2022 when I watched my friend Jake get 2nd place in front of the whole community, while the UMF discord watched together in voice chat. I remember that moment so vividly, how it took me out of a 6 month break from the game and completely revitalized my goal to make my mark in some way. 

I'm not looking to be a top player. But I want to prove that I can beat the top players.

I'd done it before. In 2014, upstate New York, when the shockwave of the original documentary brought waves of new players, I was considered an up and coming threat. My 6 months of high-school tournament experience playing on LCD's and Smartboards would give me an edge on the other Doc kids in my "class". 

The first time I played a sprouting iBDW resulted in a win for Poonslayer, albeit extremely close. Shortly after Jmook would become the top player in the region in '17, I would edge out a few wins in bracket. 2saint and myself would go back and forth in sets throughout our whole career - with me breaking a 4 year dry streak at a recent Nighclub.

One of my most proud accomplishments was a winning h2h against vortex for some season in 2018, around the same time of his top 100 ranking. Love you Ben.

Listing wins is gauche, I know, but I'm not looking to brag so much as provide context. There's having an ego, then there's battling with one. Whenever I try to justify higher rankings or seeds, or take credit from my opponents I "should have" beat, I'm the least happy. I'm also at my peak performance as a player.

So that's my eternal struggle, I suppose. Finding the balance between what I want out of the game, what I want out of life, and what it means to sacrifice short-term happiness for long term fulfillment.

Every Melee player knows how shitty it feels to give your all to a tournament, to prepare with hours of gameplay and labbing, coaching and VOD review, travel and expenses, all to fall short of making any sort of headway. Even worse than placing your seed is getting upset, and if you did everything right then, well, what do you blame?

Worse still, perhaps, are the good performances where we have nothing to lose, nothing at stake. That recent win against 2saint? I also took sets off K8a and IloveBrooklyn99. I was also high as fuck and celebrating my birthday. Did I truly deserve those wins, on paper? Is there competitive merit to being separate from the results of a match? 

Or is that simply how it goes sometimes, and by entering bracket we're basically just playing slot machines?

Perhaps by looking for consistency we find peace, but expecting control is the devil's blueprint. I struggle to align my goals with my actions, it's the cornerstone of my therapy sessions, and by never reaffirming or locking down a goal in Melee I probably only hurt myself. Maybe it's okay to learn these lessons in this environment, though that sentiment implies a "better" place to commit myself and, by logical deduction, means I'm never fully committing myself at all.

Here's what I'd like to commit to. My vows, so to speak.

I vow to try my best in every tournament game I play in, so as to never disrespect my opponent or remove the value of their potential win.

I vow to never fully quit the game, short of hand pain, major life circumstance, or movement within the community that makes playing the game untenable.

I vow to focus on my game and improvement when I'm engaging in it, or in other words, avoid attributing these lessons to other aspects of my life while im learning them.

I vow to keep failing, to follow my gut with new endeavors, to face my fear of success, and once again approach the line of burnout.

I vow to talk to Wassabi again, at length, on or off mic. It's been a minute, though we're both fully aware that our friendship always picks up right where it left off.

I vow to enter 3 majors in 2024, to throw my hat in the ring of top 100 while I'm still able.

How's that for dramatic? I've done vows in real life, to my real wife, though these feel nearly 60% as important right now. 

I guess that's what it means when they say "Melee is a cruel mistress"

If you're reading this, say hi to me at Shine. Let's money match or freestyle rap.         

Stop everything, do anything.

Long break again, ey? Implying that I'm going to come back to blogging in any way.

Alternate introduction: I've been thinking about this all morning. No topics, none at all, besides what I've covered already. That being the topic of topics, and how this blog is a blog. 

Captivating.

I'm mostly interested in making this about me, working for me, being intrinsically valuable. From time to time I'll journal privately, certainly more frequently than once every 1.5 years, and this feels very different. I know that this is going to be "read", even by a just a handful of people, and that inherently changes what I'll write about.

Don't care, still want to do it. This time it'll be public, who knows about what's next.

Anyway.

The catalyst of me writing a blog is a bit of a bummer, and still in flux, and not really worth naming out since anyone reading this is family and it's a family matter. If you're itching to know and read this just DM me, I guess, but I'll refrain from describing the actual event. What's worth mentioning now is how I'm affected, which is a unique combination of stress, focus, and pride. 

Overall I feel, hmm, how do you say? Ah yes - bad. I still have moments of brevity and escapism and my patented tension-breaking-gut-busting-fast-witted sense of rock star humor, which is usually last to go and a reliable warning sign that I'm not doing just bad anymore. For now I'm trying to rise to the occasion, so to speak.

This morning I woke up early and ran, something I've been doing a little bit more as of this month. Perhaps the timing worked in my favor, having made the attempt to start reducing stress before the real stress test. Lucky, I suppose. Either way, I'm glad I didn't go for my first run in years, but rather my fifth, as well as grateful for the morning I currently have. 

Writing this blog is stress reducing, although in practice I'm trying much harder than expected. It's kinda like a run, but for my brain. A brain run.  

Additionally, I did everything in my power to avoid looking at my phone this morning. I read recently how our minds get burnt out from dopamine at the end of the day, and that the best way to combat this is to delay the first time we go to our phones each day for as long as possible. I see the appeal, and in the "boredom" of my pre-work routine I began to get my typical Adderall-fueled Life Direction Epiphanies (tm). I should restart my podcast, my mind echoed in my silent Mazda. Twice a week, just like Marc Maron. It's easy, just do it. Half hour recordings, interview literally whoever you want, no pressure, just do it in perpetuity, for an audience of exactly your parents, and with no funds or team or justifiable financial incentive. 

I will say, I've gotten better at recognizing when my grand plans are destined to fail. But I kiiinda miss failing, too. Because sometimes I wouldn't fail, at least not entirely. I've always come short, though.

If I'm being honest with myself, I mean, I never really succeeded in what I set out to do. Not once. Besides getting a 100 in science and social studies in 6th grade, which was less of a goal fulfillment as much as it was me being the fucking man at eleven. Hmm, am I a failure? This feels a little strange to write, it's solemn but liberating, like the Encanto soundtrack (Listen without crying I dare you). 

True, though. I can't think of a time that I set a medium to long-term goal and achieved 100% of what I set out to do. I regret very little of each of those efforts, especially when I can see the growth of before and after each attempt. It's never truly a failure, and maybe failure isn't really the right word, either.

What am I even trying to say?

This blog did something damn well when I started it, which is the name. I'm attempting something when I sit down to write. Productive creativity captures some of it, maybe "intrinsically motivating public journaling" is more of what I'm attempting. 

"Fighting creative inertia" - that's not bad.

"Accepting my own inability to create self-contained, captivating essays - documenting a floundering writer's struggle to express himself with both accuracy and appeal, having absolutely zero stakes or expectations, and perpetually forgetful of mental strains stemmed from past attempts to write: while coping with them them in real time."

That's got a nice ring to it, no?     

 

   

 

   

             

I used to hate the word productive

 I used to hate the word "productive"

It always felt overly capitalistic. Maybe it was poisoned by the millennial blogs and self help tutorials that I shovel into my eyeballs every time I feel lost - but it never occurred to me that productivity was a path towards happiness. It always felt like an impediment.

Ironically enough, it was the name I chose for my blog. I complained about that fact every chance I got, making sure to distance myself from the dirty word most associate with money. Funny thing that happens when you disassociate from a word, you begin to drift towards its opposite. Especially when being unproductive is already a path of least resistance.

 The last time I wrote in here was February of 2020. If I had to guess, it's the longest stretch I've gone since starting. Not a huge deal, since this is hardly a money printer, but it's still a good indicator of how I've been. I've been, for lack of a better word, lazy. And it hasn't been great.

Maybe distracted is a better word. Or procrastinating. Or on an endless loop of inspiration and apathy, picking up new ventures or projects and allowing them to crumble just as quickly as they started. With an outsiders eye, there's no doubt a justification to this . "You're in your 20's! You're supposed to try things! This is the time to figure yourself out!" Often enough I've been able to accept that, to forgive my long streaks of undisciplined creative work or, sadly, my day job. But after a certain point excuses don't feel good. I lack a steady stream of inspiration, a way to foster and regenerate my internal passion. All of this staying at home, consuming videos upon videos, one tv show after the next, more ice cream and veggie straws (a sneaky way to make potato chips) than I ever had before - It's just not a life. It feels more like an endless cope than a journey to discover myself.

 My latest kick has been venturing into personal finance. Budgeting, investing, saving goals, early retirement plans. I feel a minor identity crisis from this sudden joy, since I've never been one to think about my future in such a fiscally minded way. There's a trickiness to what I'm about to write. One, because I don't even know how I feel about this. And two, I'm starting to realize a part of myself that might be different than what I tell myself. How do I explain this...

I've always been a very safe kid. When I was between the ages of 5 and 9, all of my friends were climbing trees and skateboarding, I was looking for quiet hobbies like video games or comedy albums that I would recite as accurately as possible. I liked pitching in baseball, I liked catching grapes in my mouth from long distances. I learned to juggle as a teen, something I try again every few months just to make sure I "still got it". 

Certain skills I learned far too late. Riding my bike when I was nine. My nephews can do it now, and they're 2 and 3. I tied my own shoes starting at age 9 as well. I guess around that time my parents realized how weird of a child they had on their hands. 

I was good at school, I asked a girl out in 4th(?) grade, I wrote my own jokes, I did standup for the first time at age 17, smoked weed at age 15 (sorry parents), graduated high school and went on to college, lost a lot of friends in 7th grade because they were smoking pot too early, had a girlfriend in 8th grade, quit sports to join theater, became a top smash bros player in town. I don't know when my childhood ended and my adult life began to take shape. I'm not sure where to look to guidance on my current life, to take a guess on my true identity, to start dedicating time and resources towards projects that I can actually stick to in the long run. 

Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to build a cannon. Something that, when finished, I can use to launch myself into the life I dreamed of. The problem is that I keep changing my mind on the direction, so I keep making different calculations on the wind and direction and angle. Eventually I stop building the cannon altogether, and I just end up in the grass with a bunch of useless numbers and papers, before giving up and watching a minecraft tutorial on Youtube. 

It's hard to stay focused on these things. It's hard to build discipline when I'm still figuring out my direction. It's impossible to predict headwinds when I'm not even in the air yet. And it's even harder when I have extroverted needs that have been completely suffocated by this pandemic. 

So maybe I should stop hating the word "productive" I like being productive. Writing this felt productive, and it feels good. I should start hating the word "directionless." It's not that I don't have directions, I just haven't chosen one quite yet. I'm not lost, I'm looking for a place to launch.

Screw you, Saturday.

 I haven't posted in my blog in about 4 months. I have been writing, though, and I figured this time I could just share what I've been journaling.


This blog was always to keep me writing, to keep me "Productive", and I've realized how much I hate what that phrase does to me. This is about that. 



Day 30 (2/8/20)


Saturday mornings are liars. They have no agenda, no ideology, just tricks up their sleeves. They’ll kick your legs out and spit in your hair, all before you wake up, then when 9 o’clock hits they drag the sun up into your unwilling eyes. Those unprepared for the sadistic Saturday will struggle to understand what to do with themselves, and will resort to habits of media consumption or hangover survival. Anyone looking to make the most of this treacherous time-off will undoubtedly be tempted with taking it easy, why work when your week is full of wok anyway? Can’t I just have one day where I don’t need to try? And thus, Saturday wins.


It would be fine if it just took responsibility. For some reason Saturday is viewed as this unbeatable triumph, the inevitable light at the end of ever tunnel. You get the day off and you can stay up late. The only day with a proper intro and outro, it’s impact is eclipsed only by holidays and snow storms. This is the day for teenagers, giving them room to live according to their completely fucked up circadian rhythms to wake up at 2pm and go to sleep at 3 in the morning. Turns out we’re teenagers for quite a while, even into college when we learn to love the day even more, as it gives us the opportunity to both cure a hangover and prepare the next one. At 24, I feel beholden to the habits I formed just a few years back, and now I’m living with the consequences. I need to study Saturday’s moves, learn to defend and deftly counterattack, avoid the traps and make it do my bidding. For me, journaling is the first step.


Most days I don’t get to write. I mean, I could, but I don’t get to sit by myself and write the way I like. It’s being a little picky, and I really should learn how to get over my insecurities and write on the bus or during lunch, even though I think it’s still fair to want my own time to express my thoughts properly. Most of my mornings now are dedicated to smash, either editing one of my three projects a week (Regular podcast, new road to top 100 series, 1v1 podcast) or practicing the game, usually in tandem since podcast editing is just listening to my voice and cutting out the weird breathing. Usually I find some time in there to write with the occasional journal, but lately I’ve been using that time to write the top 100 scripts. It sounds like I’m complaining, I’m not, at least not really. Maybe I am, in a way. I want to figure out how I feel at this juncture, and now that I’ve gotten my water, coffee, and blue light lamp going on a Saturday I get to really dive into it. ALSO a new kitchen table, so I don’t need to hole myself away in my room or sit on a weird chair with my laptop on my lap. Even though it’s in the name, it doesn’t feel right. It’s just too big, and I like my balls to remain active, thank you.


The trickiest part of Saturdays for me is just how open ended they feel. I like going up to Rockland on the weekends, even though there’s a car ride involved and my 2009 Toyota is on death’s door. It feels good to lower all expectations, to allow the most productive activity to be doing laundry, and to forget about how much cleaning I should do in my apartment with my time off. It also takes me from the temptation of the computer, where (in not so recent history) I’ve spend dozens of hours in mere weeks getting back into games like World of Warcraft or League of Legends. I’m truly a gaming addict, and oftentimes it just takes one taste to put me swirling back into those worlds. Saturdays create a vacuum that can easily be filled with these travesties.


Even writing, the one activity I’ve sworn to protect, the ancient and sacred act of creating language, my most practiced art form, a pragmatic wrangling with my own identity and attempt to reach to my soul, feels like a waste of time when inside of Saturday’s hug of despair. It feels like I should be cleaning or exercising, but really that’s more my fault than Saturday’s. I’ve already tamed the beast by waking up before noon, I can stop blaming it now for every inconvenience in my life.


Plus, what kind of asshole gets mad at a day off? Seriously, I should be so lucky to even get this opportunity, this type of luxurious schedule, working only 40 hours a week and allowing two days in a row to do practically anything I want. Would a farmer look at a full acre of land and say “Shit, now I have to plant and grow crops, and I even have to choose which ones?” Fuck out of here, man.


I think my problem with Saturdays is just me breaking free of the old mold, the one I created when I was 14, using it as my day to really goof off, play the games I always wanted, sleep until whenever, then sleep some more. Eat like shit and don’t go outside and fuck the government (At this stage, the government was my parents and the school system.) I remember these days vividly, but not with any sort of fondness. I’ve always hated Saturdays, I think, and really I spent them playing video games because I didn’t really know what else to do. Even when I had a game, soccer or baseball depending on the season, I dreaded waking up to play them, so it wasn’t just that I was unbooked that I was miserable. I just didn’t like what I was doing, and I liked video games. 8 hours straight of video games.


Then in college came my fraternity years. Saturdays were, as the old saying goes, for the boys. Drinking, chilling, pissing the time away as young men often do. My favorite days were spend traveling to some sort of Smash tournament, leaving behind one set of paid friends for a set of earned ones. Those are still my favorite Saturdays, unbeatable in any measure, checking all the boxes of what makes a perfect weekend. Anticipation, aspiration, friendship, excitement, opportunity, drinking, making memories, the list goes on. There’s a reason I’ve stayed with this game for so long, and part of it was finally getting a counter to the shittiness of weekends. I could feel like I spent the weekend well, improving as a player while having a great time doing it, still partying and forming lasting memories.


Now it’s not so simple. I still have those weekends available, and I slot them out into my schedule, but I can’t do it every week, even if the events were available. Also, attending tournaments isn’t my way out anymore, at least not where I’m standing. Smash still is, but not in the same ways as college. It’s a lot more practical now, I guess. I don’t know. I told you it’s not simple.


A book I read from Aubry Marcus, the CEO of onnit, filled me in on the idea of “acute stress”, something I think about from time to time and is relevant here. In the book he talks about turning the shower completely cold right before getting out, shocking your system and giving it a small dose of this stress. It flushed out endorphins or adrenaline or something else that gives us a reset, honestly I don’t know, I tried it out a lot and actually like doing it, but it’s hardly the point.


What’s valuable to me was the separation of generalized and acute stress, and how that feeds into my Saturday problem. A full day off is not an acute warning, it’s a wide-eyed, deer in headlights, overwhelming-responsibility type of anxiety. When I introduced my “Road to Top 100” series, it started to give these days a little bit of a shape, with some real specific anxiety attached to it, something actionable and firm, which shows me exactly what I can do to get out of it. This is one of those rare times where I can actually remember setting a goal for myself like this, centered around a project, aiming for self-improvement. I wanted to make my Saturdays better, and I did.


This might have taken me an hour to write, with a small poop break in the middle, but it’s not about speed here. I’ve wrangled the beast, but I can’t let go now, not unless I want it to run away. This leads me into my real problem, something that clearly took a bit of journaling to actually get to, and that I’ve clearly written about before. Becoming complacent.


Complacency and productivity seem like brother and sister to me. Complacency is the brother, lazy and fun but never leaves the couch if he doesn’t have to. Productivity is the Type-A older sister, doing her full morning routine before most sane people have their first coffee. The struggle for me is figuring out who I want to hang out with. They both seem shitty, but also kind of great. Lately, I’ve wanted to get to know the ladder. She seems like she can help me get to where I need to go.


This feels hard to write about. I’m not sure why. I’ve always had a difficult relationship with productivity, and it turns out that personifying it and capitalizing the ‘P’ didn’t make it that much easier to understand. My attempts to keep myself productive usually end up somewhat successful but ultimately confusing, and when the time comes where I inevitably fall off the horse, I turn highly introspective and try to figure out what the hell happened.


Good sign though, I don’t feel anxious. I just want to learn about this. Why do I hate that word so much?


There’s a lot of baggage to productivity. Part of it is personal, my parents both wanted me to be more “productive”, albeit in their own ways. I never knew how to process it, and the mixed messaging meant none of it really went through, but I’m starting to think that it’s a blessing that I wasn’t too influenced by it. The word became more of a ringing in my ear than a soul-binding treatise, so dealing with it feels more like getting a bird out of my kitchen than ripping my heart out of my chest.


What I’ve discovered so far is that productivity is the secondary goal, not the motivating force. It doesn’t work for me to get up and say “Time to be productive!” then get up and start clanking dishes around and mopping the walls. The sentence itself is nonsense, what does that word even mean? There is no positivity to it at all, even though it pretends to be nice and inspiring. Now it’s used more as a tool of self flagellation, “I need to be productive today” just sets us up for failure, it’s generalized stress, it bugs us out, gives us zero clarity, helps us achieve nothing. I hate the word so much.


I also try to not get too caught up on it for too long. At the end of the day, I can say “wow, productive day” as a way to reward myself, to look into the eyes of the beast and laugh, “Hah! I’ve conquered you. Today, I’ve won.” But even then, what am I really saying? That today was a win? All other days, those were bad. Tonight I can celebrate, because I finally put one up on the board. If I hadn’t, well, I would be miserable. That kinda sucks too, no? Putting that sort of pressure on yourself for the next day off? I don’t like it, either.


Productivity is just a word of judgement, either way you slice it. It’s either looking forward or looking back, it’s not a word of being present, it just can’t be. Even if you’re saying “Wow, I’m currently being very productive!” then you’re just patting yourself on the back, rather than doing that for which you are reveling. There’s no winning with this word! Do you see why it sucks? I think it sucks.


Yet, it’s everywhere, and doesn’t seem to be leaving our zeitgeist. That’s fine, what’s it to me to change it, I just don’t want to weaponize it. I hope I never say to my kid “Don’t you want to be productive?” It’s pretty much the same as saying “Don’t you know you’re going to die?” Fuck that shit.


Acute stress. Actionable goals. Those are helping me, right now. I feel it already, looking at my messy kitchen and wanting to clean it. That’s stress. Not anxiety. I found a small difference. I can get up now, I’m allowed to let this journal sit. It’s done its job. Screw you, Saturday.

Lotta energy for 6:30 PM

I have vanquished the day off

I used to be scared and overwhelmed of these days, and there's plenty of proof of that in this very blog. I still have bouts of anxiety whenever I have a day where I'm all alone, with nothing but my own ego to hold me accountable. I'm actually quite good at forgiving myself for the days where I do nothing, where I wake up late, potentially hung over, and do the bare minimum so that I don't completely hate myself.

I'll be honest, I just came off a week of that. Ashley and I took the week to go on two mini vacations, on which I did anything but crush it. The only thing I did crush was the wine or beers we kept having. Maybe it was the vacation that gave me the urgency that I felt today.

If I'm being even more honest, I didn't even have that incredible of a day. I woke up at 9am, showered and went to the gym, did laundry, went food shopping, and cooked dinner. The laundry I had is lying in my living room, unfolded, yet the feeling of accomplishment is still washing over me. I still have more to do, for sure. Then again, I'll always have more to do. I guess the game becomes having the energy to do those things, as well as actually enjoying the chores in real time. I'm starting to get glimpses of all of this, with moments like this of self reflection and honestly saying "It feels good to live this way."

But this is a day off, and I'm inspired to admit to myself that I want every day to be like this. An obvious goal, a dream shared by plenty of people I'm sure.

Maybe not every day though, shit, I don't know.

The more I think about it, the more I realize how inconsistent I feel about any of this. Currently I feel pretty great, let's just set that in stone. I think any day with exercise and healthy eating, plus making my own meal, is a day ought to be replicated.

There's good and bad to that inconsistency, though, like it's good how I'm slowly starting to increase the 'floor' of what makes a productive day, or how I change up my morning habits for the better because a random book told me to. Then the bad inconsistencies, the scary ones, where I seemingly change my career goals every month or so. Or that, for some reason out of my control, tomorrow might end up being a total crap shoot because hey, I had a good day on Monday!

Maybe I'm putting too much pressure on myself, but that doesn't sound quite right. It took a little bit of pressure (or willpower) to turn today into what it was, and now I'm happily typing along without a shred of stress nagging at me. Maybe I just don't fully understand all of the factors that motivate me at one given time, and so when the pieces come together and form a "productive" afternoon I can only look to a decision or two that lead to that outcome, and that means I give those decisions too much credit.

Or maybe it's much simpler than I make it all out to be, and that healthy diet and exercise really do give you more energy, and when I make the small yet significant decision to go to the gym and have salad for lunch that the rest of the day is much easier to pull off. That sounds right. It's a thesis, I guess.

The scary part is when that isn't enough, when the momentum wears off or some cosmic alignment doesn't work in my favor, and I realize that there's a limit to our willpower and sometimes we gotta eat shit from time to time. Realistically, when I'm reading the words as they're coming out, that's not that scary. But it certainly is confusing.

I think the really shitty part, when I try my absolute best to be as self-critical as possible, is realizing that there's still not much that's really produced. Like yes, I wrote this blog, and I'm about to record an episode of "The Wannabes", but there's still something that I need to work on without knowing exactly what it is. That might be the next step for me. I need to write something real, something that can be made, something that will actually fulfill me creatively. That is the work that will advance my life, not just burn off vacation calories, clean my clothes, or prepare food for the week.

So, fuck, I scared myself. I didn't know there was anything to be scared of going into this. I genuinely thought I would sit here and marvel at my massively successful Monday... but, no, I guess that's not where I'm at. I need to find a project, something that will convert the energy from the gym and salad and turn it into real, creative fulfillment.

That's when I can have a 'perfect day.' Anything less might as well be a waste of time.

This really matters

Just had a big tourmament. Feels nice. Ive done this before, written down my thoughts after a big win. This is fresher, though. Im still in the phase where i get to enjoy it, where the tweet i sent out picks up buzz and friends reach out with their "good shit dudes" and various positive emojis. Its all.. great. It warms me up all over, despite my rain-soaked socks and general dampness. 

Its not profoundly emotional, at least not anymore. Immediately after each set, yea. Beating leighton felt great, since he's been on a tear these last few months. Slox was a surprise, and what really stood out was how i grasped the win. 2 stock each game, executed with discipline and a clarity that i havnt felt in a while, maybe ever. Im not sure if ive ever felt so confident, and somehow i was able to access it again 10-15 minutes later against smuckers. 3-1 Against him, one 3 stock. I played strong. I deserved it.

Ive matured as a competitor enough to know how much this actually matters. Rankings wise, not at all. HNC is in the early stages, still, and not counting towards any PR. Maybe this helped me remain comfortable. In any case, im not too broken up about it. The wins still matter.

Its important to be validated in melee. Its not a cool thing to say, but we all seek it as players. I want the glory. Its taken a long time to accept that, to allow myself to seek the glorious victory and bask in the after glow. A healthy dose of that juice isnt just good for you, it's critical. Without it, where is the drive? What makes up the eternal fountain from which all competitors drink if not for the thrill of the win?

The tough part is, these goal posts are always moving. Playing the same people and getting the same "good wins" has diminishing returns, and context is everything. Im lucky to have had moments like this come with a sort of seasonal frequency, enough to where i never forget the taste but not so much as to have it be expected of me. Ive had bad tournaments too, of course. Brackets that knock the wind out of me, leaving me dazed and sending me out of the venue to walk and recover. Without these failures, of course, this current moment is almost nothing. 

Even without ever bustering out, playing to your seed starts to wear a person down. These wins prove to me that im capable, my gameplay proves that im better, this feeling proves that this is all worth it. 

Kind like "Oh yea. That's what this feels like. This is the best feeling in the world."

I wont project where this takes my ambition, how i continue on my training, my lifestyle or habits, who knows how it will play out. Now is not the time to set those plans. 

Im home now. Time to change these socks and knock the FUCK out.

Thanks for reading <3