Catch and Release
📝 Journal 5: On juggling options, making changes & catching little moments.
I’ve been doing a lot of what’s in the title above lately, which is why this post is long overdue. Journal 5 was supposed to be published last month, but it was too long, filled with too many heavy emotions, so I decided to withdraw & rewrite everything.
That being said, I still can’t believe I’ve started writing more this year, seems like self-expressions won the risky battles.
I’ve been going back & forth about continuing this Journal series. I had to revisit its original purpose, especially knowing it now has public readers from around the world.
Realizing this, I made some changes to this space—splitting my writings into separate tabs: Posts, Journals, About (newly added), making it easier for readers to navigate & contact me. I also revised previous postings to improve readability while keeping the original content intact.
While I wanted most of my postings to be realistic, I still needed to find the right balance, the right intention. The balance in the Force, if you will.
Long-form posting is winning too. I’ve noticed more people leaning into it lately, whether through longer writing or videos. Readers or viewers also seem to enjoy deeper content again—books, essays, slower stories. We need more of these. It feels like a return to earlier days, before doomscrolling & brainrot took over.
These days, people can’t even sit through long shows or movies, or they skip narratives in games because their attention spans had been wrecked by endless cheap shorts & quick dopamine hits. They get bored easily, can’t enjoy stillness, or just being alone. I hope more people become aware & take control of their minds before addiction takes hold. It happened to me before. Fix that short attention span. I mean it.
This Journal 5 goes two ways: first, what I’ve been releasing lately & second, what I’ve been catching up again in the hobby department. Catch & Release.
1) On Releasing Big Things.
To keep it short (& not so simple), back in my previous journals, I could feel some big changes coming that would affect my life.
Unfortunately, they haven’t been the good kind. It’s been a mix of family health issues, my own health struggles, months without income & personal betrayals.
People I trusted let me down. Some I considered as close, or I thought I could rely on, turned out to be different. Others devalued & spread rumors. It wasn’t a miscommunication, it had intentions. Meanwhile, strangers from afar went out of their way to check on me, especially when I needed it the most, or when I least expected it. This got me thinking: who is more trustworthy now?
It’s been a lot to carry them all on my own lately. So for now, I’m giving myself permission to pause. This is me, releasing.
I don’t know what’s going to happen in the coming months, at least not at the time I’m writing this. The uncertainty is killing me. My head’s been full of thoughts like: no one cares about you, stop being delusional.
This negative energy was overwhelming & bundled into one, so I withdrew & isolated. I had to. At least now, I can recognize that these things happen unlike in the darkest times before, I can take back some control.
Give me something to believe.
Little by little.
2) On Catching Little Moments.
It might sound cliché by now, but how you respond to what happens to you really does matter. I chose to let go of the familiar & start noticing the small moments. There’s nothing grand happening in my life right now, so to speak. I’ve been leaning into that small, unpredictable kind of magic.
Beyond the daily activity streaks I shared in my previous journal, I’ve also tracked other parts of my life on a daily basis, such as my phone usage & time spent on socials.
I deactivated my personal Instagram. The hobby one’s still up, but I’ve removed the app from my phone. When I need to do my postings, I pop-in from time to time, so it’s been a much lesser presence. Of course, there were times where I’ve gone off-track, but now that I have them recorded in my paper journals, I’m fully aware of the statistics.
Every month, I do self check-in & reflect. Even out of writing these online posts & journals, it gives me the clarity about myself, overall well-beings & shows me areas I can improve.
Random good stuff. I’ve been following an older guy who shares savage wisdom online. His words hit hard, like a slap or a punch to my heart. Then I stumbled across a young guy living in a van with his cat. He’s the complete opposite: calm energy, with a fresh perspective mind, which I admire too. Both have such valuable outlooks on life, in their own good ways.
Another random of catching moments. Someone I’ve long admired noticed & shared my post, unintentionally brought a bunch of people to my little corner. His DM reply about my Witcher collection sent me over the moon (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners puns intended). P/s: Sir, your simple kind gestures made my whole month, & I’m not overreacting when I say that.
Okay chooms, what else I catch upon?
I backed a new project: The Expanse: A Little Death. Most likely releasing on my birthday month, next year.
After almost a decade sitting in my wishlist, Witchbrook finally has a release date. An easy, day one purchase.
I was part of alpha-beta tester for D&D Project Sigil. I also did some combat & lore-studies for older RPGs, so I was on Pillars of Eternity for a bit.
Why cozy, when you can go extreme? Haha okay, this was more about my artwork, so there were Kerby Rosanes & Derwent art supplies involved.
If you think my art post is so random, wait till you hear that I had actually hit 65-days streak of learning Polish language. Who am I kidding now?
Another humbling experience that says I know so little & have so much more to learn. Shared my thoughts of an epic scale worldbuilding sci-fi, from a beast of a book I read recently.
I also wrote over 2k words just about books, & my brain fried from digging up memories. Give it a read if you haven’t.
There’s definitely more I want to ramble about, but this is already turning into a novella, so (maybe) in some future journals. I don’t run on any kind of schedule; things just drift in & out with my energy & mood, which both seems lacking lately.
If you’ve been reading & hanging out like the loyal cave-dwellers, you probably get how my brainsomnia operates by now. Hmm.. routines? Still chaos. But hey, at least I managed to catch some sleep now after releasing some of the big stuff.
