Paul’s Journal

[Yan]

On 1/30/2023 at 1:33 PM, Paul A. said:

Well, I fell off the wagon for a while.

After my last post, I began a period of gaming almost incessantly for about 2 weeks, during which I missed work and messed up my sleep schedule pretty bad. I was able to get away with it by brushing it off as my mental health acting up, but in reality it was just a lack of self-control. I know now that gaming in moderation isn’t possible for me. It isn’t all bad, though. After I got sick of gaming, I rediscovered my passion for making music, and I’ve been working on some new tracks for about a week now. I’m really trying to polish my mixing skills, and I’ve devoted a lot of time and even a bit of money to learning from mentors and fellow mix engineers. I’m having a blast doing it, way more fun than I had gaming.

I figured I would just post a quick update since I’ve been MIA for some time. I don’t intend to be as active as I used to be on the forum, but I’ll still drop in every now and then. Hopefully you all are doing well!

What made you decide to be less active on the forum?

[Paul A.]

On 2/7/2023 at 4:12 PM, Yan said:

What made you decide to be less active on the forum?

Well, I think it’s because I just have a lot more going on now. When I’m not working, I’m actively working on either music or content for my social media. I’m taking my music a lot more seriously now, and I was advised to start building my social media presence, so I dived headfirst into creating content. Gaming is the last thing on my mind nowadays. As such, I don’t have as much of a need (or time) to be so active here on the forums. I’ll definitely swing by every now and again with updates, but for the most part I’m locked in with my music!

[Ikar]

On 2/10/2023 at 3:45 PM, Paul A. said:

Well, I think it’s because I just have a lot more going on now. When I’m not working, I’m actively working on either music or content for my social media. I’m taking my music a lot more seriously now, and I was advised to start building my social media presence, so I dived headfirst into creating content. Gaming is the last thing on my mind nowadays. As such, I don’t have as much of a need (or time) to be so active here on the forums. I’ll definitely swing by every now and again with updates, but for the most part I’m locked in with my music!

Sounds good! Are you planning it as a hobby or do you want to go pro eventually? I remember you writing about finding yourself some good job.

[Paul A.]

On 2/11/2023 at 5:15 PM, Ikar said:

Sounds good! Are you planning it as a hobby or do you want to go pro eventually? I remember you writing about finding yourself some good job.

The plan is to do it professionally at some point: that’s why I’m posting so much on social media, to build and grow an audience that will enable me to make a full time living making music. It’s little more than a hobby right now because it’s not making me any money, but I think if I stick with it long enough, I can turn it into my livelihood.

[Ikar]

On 2/16/2023 at 4:52 AM, Paul A. said:

The plan is to do it professionally at some point: that’s why I’m posting so much on social media, to build and grow an audience that will enable me to make a full time living making music. It’s little more than a hobby right now because it’s not making me any money, but I think if I stick with it long enough, I can turn it into my livelihood.

Fair, I guess that's the normal way things develop. I have a student who works a job in automotive, but is also a DJ at nights and earns some money doing that too 🙂

[Paul A.]

Hey everyone! Wanted to update you all on how I've been doing.

I've started waking up at 5am to go to the gym. Today's my second day. So far so good! Yesterday I did end up going back to sleep after I came back from the gym, but today I don't feel nearly as tired. I even had a cup of coffee to ensure that I'll stay awake throughout the day. So that's going well. I'm also still working on my social media presence and my music, but I'm starting to second-guess myself again. It always happens like this, where I go full steam ahead on a new venture, keep at it for a few weeks or months, and then lose steam and quit. I see the same cycle repeating itself with my music. And it's not for lack of enjoyment, because I enjoy making music more than anything else. I'm just starting to doubt whether it's what I want to do as a career. There may be a bit of an impostor syndrome going on, where I lack faith in my talents, especially in comparison to other artists. Not to mention, I don't fit the description of a typical rapper/hip-hop artist. I didn't grow up under difficult circumstances, and I live in a quiet suburban neighborhood. I didn't have to witness violence, drug abuse, and the like growing up, and yet that's what a lot of mainstream hip-hop is about. I'm trying to stray away from that subject matter in my music because it's not true to who I am, but there's something that's causing me to lose the passion I had at first. I really can't put my finger on it. And I don't exactly think these feelings are gonna go away with time. I need to figure out how to address them, as well as next steps - whether to keep going with my music, find something else to do, and etc.

In other news, I'm applying for other jobs. I had a conversation with a good friend of mine who got into selling solar panels, and it made me realize that I'm not making any money selling furniture. At first, I thought I just didn't want to work in sales, but I figured out that I don't mind sales; it's really the environment of the furniture store that I'm not so fond of. A lot of the time, customers will tell me they're just "looking around", only to walk around the store for a while and leave. Other times, because I'm not in the immediate vicinity of the customer (because I let them wander around to look), they find another salesperson to work with, costing me the sale. Fact of the matter is, I haven't seen a commission paycheck in months. It's hard to stay motivated in an environment like that. But my current qualifications make it so that I'll have trouble breaking into any other industry apart from sales, retail, food, and maybe technology. And if I had to choose between those four, I'd lean towards sales. Anyway, I received a call from one of the jobs I applied to yesterday. I'll call them back today and see what the deal is.

Anyway, that's what's been going on with me. I haven't touched a video game since last I posted about it, which was maybe a month or two ago - I really don't remember. For the most part, all is well. Hope you all are doing well!