And so should YOU!
2x Award Winning Podcaster
- She/Her
- author-x.itch.io/
Hi I'm Dana, I mostly just tool around with friends, play RPGs, and listen to podcasts, but I've also been known to make podcasts at SuperIdols! RPG and I've written a couple of short rpgs at my itch page and on twitter.
how does one gracefully give up on a long term project that’s just not going to get done, no matter the effort or good intentions?
this is an area where having a bullet journal like I do is a great tool for this.
What I do for this kind of thing is I put the stuff of that project together, I put it in a place like a folder or a box, and I put that away. I accept, honestly to myself, that I'm not going to do it; that the time spent trying was not time wasted.
I thank the project, honestly, for what I learned doing it.
If it's a public project, I actually try and announce it: "Hey, this project is done."
The reason I say a bullet journal is a thing is because something I try to do is journal gratitude. Think in terms of thanks, think in terms of the things you can accept and appreciate and say as endings. Write down what you're grateful about for it and then
let
it
go.
You aren't guilty. You aren't wrong. You didn't commit a misdeed. Accept the limits, accept that an end can happen. And be overjoyed that you have the opportunity to try things.
I think if most of the platforms had their druthers private accounts wouldn't even be a thing, because to them content that not everyone can see is potentially leavin money on the table. But it's such a clear need people have that some of em end up providing it anyway, and some services like discord are somewhat built around private spaces.
Anyway, I think it's super important to have spaces where you can talk about stuff with an audience of exclusively people who already know you, rather than theoretically uh the entire world - people who know you and have all the context of you-the-person and won't assume the absolute worst of everything you say.
If you don't currently have that and you're feeling like online spaces are really hostile and alienating and designed like hellish attention zoos... well, private spaces won't fix that but they might give you some respite. It's really valuable to have a choice of spaces in which to say something - you start thinking, "Is this something I need to shout from the mountaintops? Or do I just want to say it to a few friends?" Which is a pretty baseline healthy thing, but online is weird and mostly designed by vampire capitalists. Take back your humanity from em wherever you can.
bringing this over here, since it crossed my line of sight on bluesky a few times today. this artist wants to put together a class-action lawsuit re: (gestures to various anti-nsfw horseshit)