Crushed by Expectations, I Remember Old Video Games. Open Diary.

My uninhibited daily writing practice. Abstract, funny, lightly edited. Wednesday 05/06/2026.

I left my diary open so you’d read it:

The short time horizon of social media feeds demands quantity from creators. I have to find a way to pump out quantity while still giving myself time to produce quality - to grow as a writer. I feel the hamster wheel. I’m not even inside the wheel, a power drunk gigantic hamster got blasted at a corporate retreat and is chasing me around like one of those baddies in that old Donkey Kong Country level (don’t worry this is not a blog about video games.)

The level Millstone Mayhem from Donkey Kong Country. The chaos depicted above is a metaphor for producing content on social media. The likeness between me and DK is impossible to ignore. I’m just missing the red tie. The maniacal beaver is Zuckerberg, perhaps.

Recently, I’ve allowed myself to fall into a tizzy spiral writing an essay that asks the question, “what is an idea, really?” I didn’t intend to start writing on philosophy topics, the essay was an offshoot of my personal writing. Surprisingly, it came up when I was reflecting on a girl that I had a crush on. Sigh. I was thinking about how people connect, how they share with one another, and then I got hung up on the thought, “but what exactly is being shared at the boundary of an I-Other connection?” Note: I’ll post a link to this piece here, when it’s finished.

Now, after spending a day or two cranking out well-meaning and vaguely philosophical sounding ideas I’ve hit a very real road block - I’m not a philosopher. I’m not even particularly well read in philosophy. I can’t keep sinking time into that essay before that drunken Donkey Kong beaver in a hamster wheel crushes me. The saving grace is, I guess, on social media I’m allowed to blend forms. It doesn’t have to be a philosophy essay. It can be half logical, half whimsical. It can be playful. Whatever the f*ck it winds up being, it’s a pain in the butt because I let myself get sucked in and now I’m feeling stressed about time.

The struggle to prioritize that which is important over that which is interesting.

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</begin rhyme>

importance vs. interest…a portent…I missed it…a portal…more miscreants…delicious. delinquents. I drink it. I missed it. relinquish. adrift with. this art is resistance. I’ll end it armistice. *¹

</end rhyme>

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Do you ever feel like this?

I’m going to therapy shortly but I’m actually not sure I need to go. I feel fine emotionally. I feel pressured to get stuff done. It’s Wednesday and I don’t have a single Substack article posted and I’ve been puttering on it for a couple weeks. Gulp. My plan to fix it is to publish one of my poetry pieces today (Post edit: nuh-uh fool, you are going to take this very writing, lightly edit it, and publish your diary as your first post. Dummy.) Then publish an old flow about Catherine (my recent crush. Catherine is a pseudonym) as a blog post tomorrow. and in the meantime finish that essay. Or treat the essay as a blog post? I don’t know. but ok this is do-able. pep talk it up because I’ve allowed myself to get bogged down. Also, I need to vlog and get something ready for this variety show in Boulder I signed up to do and is in a week and I have no plan for. Yikes.

I don’t know if I need therapy today because I seem to have done an ok job distracting myself (which I know I know I know is not the point of ACT therapy, it’s actually the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do) nonetheless, I’ve gone on some dates recently, and whereas a week ago I was

</begin poetic>

feeling I was feeling I was feeling alive. a light, a leap. I might. relief. in sight. I was feeling Catherine, or I was feeling the feelings of the idea of a Catherine. but now, nothing. just the crush of trying to be.

</end poetic>

The high came and it passed.

Whimsy Check

²O boy. It’s been awhile. Anything? Anything? god I can’t remember. I can’t remember the last several days and time is doing that thing where it speeds up and my life’s a blur and it kills any whimsical moments.

Paragraph 5. Positive Energy.

You are doing fine. You are doing a lot. People have their opinions about your break in regular employment. Fine. I got enough money to keep investing in my artsy-ness for a while. I’ll figure it out later. Once more,

I do not want to die a boring person whose entire life is well represented by their Outlook calendar.

No. I say no. I reject. I reject. I have autonomy. I love being alive.

Cheers,

Mark

1. Note to reader: I tend to spontaneously break into rhymes when I’m writing a “flow”. Sometimes by breaking into a rhyme or some abstract piece of prose poetry I will get some really good shit off my chest. I highly recommend the practice of uninhibited writing. If you want better advice from someone credible, see also Jack Kerouac’s method of spontaneous prose. I’ll use brackets (like those found in HTML) to indicate when the writing suddenly changes tone.

2. I record “whimsys” or whimsical moments because I know that the perception of time speeds up as you age, because so little is novel. By tracking whimsys, I hope to slow down time and live a long, beautiful life. The whimsy is the unit of time you never knew about but really need.