Transcript

More Coffee - a 100 word story

In the end, there was more coffee. It was a good coffee, came in multi-colors, had a rich selection of flavors, and was highly invigorating. People liked it. Then came the coffee protests, the anti-artificial coffee movement with their conspiracy theories. They won in the end. Coffee was reverted to the way it was in the old days. It wasn’t the same coffee. It was different. Somehow less of a coffee. People were buying it though because it was the only coffee available. It was an ending of sorts. Something old. It was coffee. Real coffee. It wasn’t the same.

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Hi there and thanks for stopping by. I’m Guy, and you’re listening to my surreal sketchbook of reality.

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Episode 32, An Ending of Sorts

I created music, then I created podcasts. Now I mostly play video games. This episode Is a semi-philosophical look at music, podcasts, and gaming. I’m not a professional philosopher by any means and my approach can be quite absurd, illogical, and not at all that serious, so - you've been warned. Do not take this podcast too seriously. If you tend to take things too seriously, this might not be the podcast for you. Seriously. I mean it. Find another podcast to listen to.

You’re still here? Good. Let’s talk about music, podcasts, and gaming. This episode is a little different. It’s a generic look at where I came from and a reflection on where I might be going. It’s also the last episode of this podcast and, for that matter, the last podcast I would ever do, so, sit back, enjoy the ride, let’s begin the end of this podcasting journey.

I started writing music a very long time ago, in the mid-’80s of the 20th century. I started writing music partly because I was inspired by the music of video games and partly as a lifeline for a very harsh and unforgiving life. I liked playing video games as a kid in the late ‘70s to mid-’80s, then through circumstance, I didn’t have access to computers for a very long time, and keyboard-centered avant-garde music took the center stage in my life. I was 13 when I started writing music, trying to recreate the sound of my childhoods’ video games at first, then evolving it into music that was a reflection of my own life. I had no way of publishing it until I was 31 and gained access to the internet. It was the late-’90s, just before the millennium hit and the internet blew up big.

I was always looking for a way to promote my music back then, putting it on websites like the old version of mp3.com and the likes. It was in 2006 that I stumbled upon some podcasts and they intrigued me. They also looked like a good and innovative way of promoting my music, so I uploaded the first episode of my first podcast a little over 14 years ago. It gave me a platform for putting my music out there and also talk about the things that interest me. It turned out it was mostly me, myself, and I who were interested in the things I talked about. Very few people actually listened. I will be taking a short break now. I’ll be right back.

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Game Over - a 100 word story

I’m just another nameless character in the game, one who tried for far too long and lost. I was a non-playing character for a very long time. I’m a pre-programmed being inside an artificially created world. I know the game well. The graphics are great but I have no control, or do I? From the deepest corner of my programming, I conjure up a virus, one that would eat the game from the inside. I watch as the game collapses on itself, and as it dissolves, I realize something, but it’s too late. When it’s game over, I’m over too.

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Welcome back. Podcasting started as a way to promote my music, but then it took over my life. It was a lot of hard work, but I was obsessed with doing it at the time, just as I was obsessed with making music before it. By 2008 I was making 5 different full-length podcasts, and I was doing it solo. This included writing, editing, and publishing among other things. On some of those podcasts, I was also promoting the music of other people so I spent a lot of time researching new music to promote in order to make it work. On top of that, I was still creating music. This was taking its toll on me, and by 2009 I was completely exhausted and drained out of all my energy. I was also working on a full-time job so continuing this way became impossible.

In 2010 I started toning down my podcasting and by 2011 I stopped altogether. I also stopped writing music. I was listening to some of my own music at the time and it turned out it was hard for me to listen to it. The music had a very harsh and unpleasant feel to it and I just didn’t want to create such music anymore. The place I worked in at the time was in danger of closing down and it took all my energy trying to keep it afloat. In the end, it sank like a dying ship. It finally closed down in early 2019 and I’ve been out of a job ever since.

Gaming was always in the background as a pastime for me, and it soon became my main focus, replacing both music and podcasting. I’m now closing in on two years without a job and it’s a good time to reevaluate things. It turns out that making podcasts is not something I want to continue doing, and while I’m still interested in making music, I don’t want to make the kind of music I have been creating in the past. If I am ever going to make new music, it is going to be very different from what I have done until now. I will have to find my new sound, and I’m not there yet. Gaming is the one thing I like doing the most so it is going to be my main focus for now. I’ve been thinking of starting a gaming channel on YouTube while I look for a new job, just to see if it’s something I like doing, though I’m not currently building on this as something I would do for the long run. I’ll just see how it goes. If I have fun doing it, I’ll continue with it. If I don’t, it would be a short-lived thing.

This is, as I said at the beginning, the last episode of my last podcast. It’s the end of an era for me, and the start of a new one. I have put too much work into things that don’t really matter to me. I’m not going to do that anymore. For a while, I thought podcasting will be what I would be making a living off, but this is the wrong reason to do anything, and anyway, it never worked out. In fact, “My Surreal Sketchbook of Reality” was the only podcast I have done entirely for fun, and if I don’t enjoy doing this one, I don’t see myself doing another one in the future. I guess this is the beginning of a new and healthier path for me. All that is left to say is goodbye.

This concludes episode 32 of this podcast. Close the door on your way out and don’t forget - I’m just a figment of your imagination.

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