The next, apparently your job is the worst ever (and you’re shit at it) and even the thought of doing it makes you tired, anxious, and angry. You feel worthless. You have trouble concentrating. You don’t care to do much of anything or see anyone (why would they even want to see you anyways?) if you can help it. Heck, you can barely push yourself to face the day as the alarm clock sounds, forcing you awake with the most evil sounds you’ve ever heard regardless of how much sleep you got. Every day is worse than the one before it. You’re unmotivated and even things you know you enjoy doing provide little in the way of joy or satisfaction.

The latter is how I’ve been feeling lately, and it sucks balls. I didn’t even realize this is what it was at first. The depression for whatever reason manifested itself as feeling like I was coming down with a cold, just on the verge of getting sick but never actually getting sick, I was tired, had trouble concentrating, didn’t want to do much of anything, etc… Then about two weeks later (while I was on vacation; fuck you brain) it landed on me like a ton of bricks. A massive, crushing weight sitting square on my shoulders sapping all my energy to keep it from crushing me. This meant the latter half of my vacation was spent doing little to nothing at all, and I had plans damn it!  To top it all off I still have the physical ailments that came along with how I was feeling before I really identified what this was.

Why am I posting this here? Well for two reasons.

The first and most direct is that I want to write more, simple as that. I recently wrote a letter to someone and felt so much better for having taken the time to write some of my thoughts down and share them. Call it self-therapy if you will, but I feel better when I’m creating something, and I love to write. If I go too long without having made something, well, see paragraph 2 above for an idea of what happens. The second and more fundamental reason is that I really want to start living a more authentic, open, and honest life, and apparently for me that means sharing some of my deepest and darkest thoughts on the internet to anyone who will listen. Whether it works has yet to be seen.

Long story short, life happened, and about two days after I published that first post I had a bit of a bombshell dropped on me, which sent me for a spin. Since that day I’ve had to divert my attention elsewhere, neglecting my shiny new blog.

That’s not to say that I haven’t been writing. I have two posts in rough form waiting for completion which I’ve been slowly working on. The concentration required to finish the pieces has been lacking, but they are coming along and I hope to be able to share them soon. One is a post on friendship, the other, well I’m not really sure what to call it yet other than it’s a piece of writing that isn’t a ‘post’, and if it turns out half as good as I hope I’ll be quite pleased.

Stay tuned, there is more to come!

So here I am with a new blog, freshly installed on the site which I’ve had for a number of years. Please excuse the mess.

I’ve blogged on an off over the years. I’ve had a personal blog where I wrote on some travel adventures (actually I think there was multiple, but can only find one) but that only lasted while I was away. I’ve also started various web sites with big plans, but the drive to continue with them died well before I could ever get them off the ground, some even before a single post was made. In every case I obsessed about the name of the site, as if having the perfect name would instantly make the site a success or a failure. I also had narrowly focused my sites on a single topic or genre, and as anyone who knows me well enough will attest, I just don’t stay focused on a single thing for any significant length of time.

So when I felt the urge to write again, I decided on no uncertain terms that it would be here, under my own name. No internet pseudonyms or clever names this time because as it turns out, I, Craig McConnell, do have something to say. I have thoughts, views and opinions which I’ve always openly and freely shared with my closest friends, but shied away from sharing beyond that core group for one reason or another. I could theorize on why, but would that really get us anywhere? I don’t think so.

What good is knowledge that goes unshared?

The fact is, I think a lot about a lot, and I love to learn. I constantly read and educate myself on technology, politics, games, music, movies, cars, the arts, etc… etc… you name it, and I have thoughts and opinions on all those things. Yet, I keep most of that information locked up; that is until an unsuspecting friend happens to ask about my newest obsession. It’s then I realize my desire to talk about all these things has been left mostly unfulfilled. Ahh the curse of the social introvert.

So that’s what I’m going to be using this site for, at least until I decide to use it for something else. I’ll be writing on anything and everything which happens to be my focus at the time. I’m sure some themes will develop over time and I will of course do my best to keep things organized, but expect an eclectic mix of subjects from game design to the U.S. Presidential election and everything in between. Some will be deeply personal, many not-so-much, but I give you my word I’ll try to always keep it interesting.

I have no idea where this is going to go, but I hope you’ll join me on the journey.