Oof, I’m rushing to get this blog out in time yet again, but this time I’m outside for it! And what nice weather it is for it, even at 11:30 at night. Ever since I’ve gotten that “active” bug again, I’ve taken pretty much any excuse to go outside that I can get. The only thing stopping me from doing more videos outside is the onslaught of bugs in the particular area I have to do them in. If I could find a local peaceful area that I could set up in real quick to do some nice relaxing videos that would be great. I really just need a place where I can set my laptop and lil tripod and I’ll be set. You might have noticed nothing but Tarqaron videos the past couple of weeks and no videos on my solo channel, and that certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed by me. The reality of the situation is that I already coop myself up for a few hours to do Tarqaron videos on my day off, and since I’m not really able to run air conditioning while doing videos because of the obnoxious background noise, I’d just rather not sweat in a small space for longer than I have to. That’s why outside would be my preferred area for filming videos whenever possible, so that I can at least be out in the fresh air and heat rather than sitting in a small, hot room. So once I iron out these pesky logistics of making videos, I’ll be golden. In the mean time there has been no shortage of videos really, they’ve all just been in the Tarqaron format.

As much as I appreciate the small victories like breathing some fresh air, I continue to struggle with feeling like a failure and having regrets about many aspects of my life. As long as I remain complacent as I have been in many ways, I think I’ll continue to feel this way in one way or another. Complacency can really bog you down, and for someone like me who is most happy when I can express my creativity, complacency is a true killer. The monotonous, uncreative elements of my life wear on me and can be really draining at times. I enjoy the fun little activities and video things I do each week, and being around people I enjoy spending time with, but I feel like I could use a major shake-up in my life to spice things up a bit. There’s a weird paradox where I want to establish more of a routine along with a consistent sleeping schedule, but I also don’t want to be stuck in too much of a routine because I feel like I’m missing out on a lot, and many of my regrets stem from missing out on a lot in the past! I just want to live life to the fullest and I don’t know if I ever truly have.

I need to stop being complacent. I just need to push myself.

Videos I Posted This Week:

Tarqaron All-Stars 2 Reunion Special ft. Rusty
Cruella Review – Tarqaron ft. Rusty
Survivor: Vanuatu Ep. 6 Reaction (Finding Cracks) – Tarqaron
Puss in Boots Review – Tarqaron
Intro to the TRUE Gents Challenge 2021 – Tarqaron ft. Ryan

Things I Enjoyed This Week:

Man, people are capable of some pretty horrible stuff, huh? I’ve been watching videos on some combination of outrageous and vile crimes this past week and even though I get hooked on those kinds of videos every now and then, I still find humans’ fascination with the topic of horrific crimes so hard to wrap my head around. Some of the stuff I’ve watched/read about is really disturbing and horrible to hear about, and yet I continue to look into new stories. I’m not sure what it is exactly that brings people back to these awful real-life horror stories time and time again but damn does it really put you in a different headspace for a while. In a sense it makes you appreciate simple things like the comfort of your own home just a bit more. I don’t know, kind of random, but I JUST watched some episodes of the show Panic 9-1-1 before writing this, so it’s top of mind for me right now.

Anyways, on to more of this week. I’ve fallen a bit behind on editing for Tarqaron and haven’t recorded any videos for my channel in a while but that’s alright. I think the biggest thing I’ve taken away from this week is that I had really forgotten how good it feels to be active. I’ve been working on going outside and playing basketball with my friend more regularly and I’ve found that to be refreshing, for sure. Honestly, as much as I’ve always been the nerd whose hobbies largely revolve around sitting inside, I’ve always had a love for doing things outdoors, especially with good company. Basketball and frisbee almost never get old. And in an ideal world I’d have my own little spot to spend time outside every day if I could. It’s well into the night at this point and I would’ve opted to type this outside if not for the fact that it’s raining right now. As sad as it sounds, it has literally been years since going outside and being active in any way, shape or form were a part of my routine at all. I guess it’s time for me to turn over a new leaf again.

That being said, I still love me some nerdy indoor activities, and I’ve been sorely lacking in that department as well. In my ideal world, I’d have a schedule that perfectly balances video-making time, outdoors time, and movie/show/game time mixed with time to spend with friends. Right now I just feel like so much of my days are going to waste, but getting back to some regularly-scheduled outdoors time is definitely a step in the right direction. If I could fully fix my sleep schedule in accordance with that it would definitely help matters as well. If anyone ever wants to play some basketball or frisbee with me, I’ll pretty much always be down.

Videos I Posted This Week:

Survivor: Vanuatu – Episode 5 (Bubba Blunders) | Tarqaron Reaction
Shrek Forever After | Tarqaron Review (w/ Spoilers)

Things I Enjoyed This Week:

Hey there! I’ve got nothing to say, really. I’m doing okay this week, nothing too earth-shattering. I’m still just kind of going through the motions, so once I break that cycle then I’ll have more interesting things to talk about.

A smaller goal of mine at this point is to get myself in the habit of waking up earlier and more consistently so I can have a healthier schedule and fit in more physical activity early in the day. I’m so used to being able to get up later generally, though, that it’s going to be hard to hold myself to it. But I’m confident that once I can consistently get up earlier and have a more reliable schedule, it will be better and healthier for me in the long-run.

I haven’t really had time to play any of the games I’ve been wanting to play more of for a while, and I haven’t had time to catch up on any of the shows I haven’t watched in a while. Once I establish a better schedule hopefully I’ll have more time for everything I want to do in general. I’m still going strong with making videos but I have a lot of ideas that I’ve yet to tap into since my schedule isn’t reliable enough at the moment.

I feel like I keep saying this but my goal now is to have a more interesting topic prepared for next week’s blog. I’ll always do mental health/life updates but ultimately I don’t think there is enough material there to fill full blogs each week, as you can see here. So I think I’ll come up with more focused topics to delve into outside of that to mix things up and add more variety and depth moving forward.

Videos I Posted This Week:

Our April 2021 Favorites! | Tarqaron Discussion
“Dealing” with depression
Survivor: Vanuatu – Episode 3 (Team Twila) | Tarqaron Reaction
We’re reviewing every Shrek movie
Shrek 2 | Tarqaron Review (w/ Spoilers)

Things I Enjoyed This Week:

Seems like Friday has snuck up on me again! It always does, every time. Not only that, but I just fell asleep as I was sitting here so I’m lucky I even woke up with enough time to write this in time. The fact that I couldn’t help but fall asleep like I just did even though I know I have a lot to do can only be explained as a consequence of burnout, from a combination of overworking myself and not getting enough sleep, of course. If you just look at the sheer difference in output in the “Videos I Posted This Week” section from my blog posts over the last few weeks compared to this one, you can tell that I’m probably a bit exhausted. But hey, I’ll be happy as long as I put out at least a couple of videos a week. This is honestly the amount of videos I was aiming for when I started posting on my solo channel again, so weeks with more than this are a bonus, if anything.

Honestly, I’m really struggling with my place in life at the moment. I’m constantly unsure of my purpose, what I’m meant to do with my life. I have this desire to change a lot of the aspects of my life, but also feel like I have such limited tools with which to do so. I’ve been feeling particularly lonely lately. I just really wish I had someone I could completely confide in and be 100% vulnerable with. And as I get older, it feels less and less likely that I will find that person. That’s a pretty sad perspective, I know, but that’s just how I’m feeling. As much as I feel like I can be pretty open, like with this blog, I’ve never really had my person, a person who I can fully trust who loves me as much as I love them. And as much as it might not look like it, I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic. I’ve just never had that person, which can be draining, for sure. Every time I find someone who I think could be that person for me, it’s just not reciprocated. And that in and of itself is draining as well. I just feel like I would have been able to navigate life better these past few years, and these past few months especially, if I had someone to share my experience and have that level of comfort with. It’s tough. Maybe I need to focus on finding more happiness for just myself first, but I guess I’m just tired of doing it alone.

I’m really not looking for pity here. And I know I have people in my life who are there for me, but this is a different kind of loneliness, I guess. I know I’m oozing big loser energy here, but I’m just trying to be as up-front as possible. This has always been a difficult aspect of my life for me, since I’ve struggled with it for as long as I can remember, but I’d like to talk about it more moving forward and see if I can crack the code for what I need to do. As with a lot of the things I’ve talked about in little bits and pieces across this series of blogs, I’d like to devote the time to talk about this topic in a more long-form way some time, but who knows when I will do that. Always something to keep in my back pocket, I guess.

Videos I Posted This Week:

Survivor: Vanuatu – Episode 2 (Dolly in the Middle) | Tarqaron Reaction
Reading your comments! (GoT, Grace VanderWaal, Depression, & More)
Shrek | Tarqaron Review (w/ Spoilers)

Things I Enjoyed This Week:

I actually have no idea what to write about this week. I always feel like I’ll be more prepared with something to talk about in the next blog, and then I have less and less to talk about it seems. But hey, that’s just the reality of doing a weekly blog that is as transparent as this is, I guess. Not every week is eventful. Though I concede that most of my weeks are generally uneventful, all things considered. And that’s just another thing I need to work on (doing more things).

Motivation is my biggest problem right now, for sure. In many ways I’ve become complacent and a lot of elements in my life have stagnated, and that’s exactly what I wanted to avoid. I’ve gotta get myself out of this rut and then I can really start making progress. Mentally it’s just so hard. I filmed a follow-up video to the video I did talking about my depression, so hopefully that will give some more insight into what I’m thinking. That should be up within the week.

Since I have nothing to talk about, I won’t even waste your time with nonsense (I considered writing about literal nonsense). I bought New Pokémon Snap on the day it came out and still have yet to play it, and now Mass Effect: Legendary Edition just came out and I bought that as well. I even have problems motivating myself to play video games these days, it seems. My goal is to play ASAP, so I guess that will be my exciting goal for the night. See you next week, I promise I’ll think of more interesting topics.

Videos I Posted This Week:

Reacting to George Carlin – YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS
Survivor: Vanuatu – Episode 1 (Yasurrrr!) | Tarqaron Reaction
Tarqaron All-Stars 2: A Survivor Simulation
Announcing Our Next Movie Review Series! | Tarqaron

Things I Enjoyed This Week:

As much as I enjoy making videos, the problem continues to be me not having enough time in the day, not only just to keep up with the video-making upkeep but to have time for myself as well. This is evidenced by the “Things I Enjoyed This Week” section below, in contrast to the “Videos I Posted This Week” section. Not only is the section so small in comparison, but the three things I do mention are all things I previously mentioned as well. So I just haven’t had time to experience much new entertainment in a while, which is unfortunate considering a goal of mine was always to expose myself to more movies/tv/games/music and it can all sort of get lost in the shuffle when I have so much on my plate.

That’s why ideally my career would allow me to talk about all of this regularly, so that I could spend pretty much all of my time focused on things that I love. That would be a dream for me, anyway. Being able to devote myself fully to my passions, without being bogged down by everyday monotony in a space that more or less drains creative energy. Because as it stands right now I know that realistically the amount of time and effort that I put into these passion projects isn’t exactly sustainable in the long term since it can be draining to do on top of my actual work and consumes the large majority of my free time. But the level of enjoyment and satisfaction that I get from it is undeniable, to the point that I can’t help but imagine this kind of outlet being in place of my work and wanting to make that happen. At this point I realize that I don’t want to continue having to deal with an unfulfilling work life in conjunction with a fulfilling but unprofitable use of my free-time forever, so the goal for me is to work towards combining the two, or at least reaching the best compromise imaginable.

Mentally, I don’t know, I’m just kind of stagnant at this point. Not noticeably super down but not noticeably super happy either. I think I’ve just leveled out for the time being at a point in depression where I’m not emotionally devastated all the time like I was a few months ago, but I’m also not often on cloud nine either. I have my ups and downs pretty rapidly sometimes, and that may have to do with the disparity between the two sides of my life that I was just talking about here. I can go from a monotonous day at work to a fun time recording/planning videos in a matter of hours, so with that my mood can go up and down a large scale fairly easily. So here’s to finding that balance, and here’s to reaching my ideal career.

Videos I Posted This Week:

Epic Rap Battles of History – Season 4 | Tarqaron Review
Reacting to Repeat by Grace VanderWaal
Survivor: All-Stars | Tarqaron Review (w/ Spoilers)
Talking about my depression…
Picking Our Tribes For Tarqaron All-Stars 2
Taking on 1001 Movies To See Before You Die
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier | Tarqaron Review
I love the new CHVRCHES single

Things I Enjoyed This Week:

Woof, I am exhausted. I can almost immediately feel the effect of pretty much doubling my workload and I feel like my free time is even more minimal than it was, but I guess that’s all part of why I need to work on striking a balance like I mentioned before. That being said, this tired feeling is not too unfamiliar to me because I used to put out daily videos when I just had my solo YouTube channel and even though I enjoyed it, it definitely could be draining at times. I’d often find myself getting home from work and then being too exhausted to do anything really productive. So I have that feeling coming over me again and that’s the kind of thing I’d really like to avoid if possible. I’d like to work on being more energized and healthy in general, and that’s where striking a balance can be challenging since so much of what I do with my free time honestly involves just sitting inside. But again, and I know I’ll be saying this a lot, but I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have even a platform (albeit small) to express myself. So I’ll work on finding that balance.

On an unrelated note, I still deal with moments of extreme sadness that just kind of spring on me from time to time. I guess that’s a given when you are depressed, though. That feeling is never really a gone, it just gets tucked away from time to time. It’s not always logical. I could be having a great time and then one stray thought enters my head and my mood crashes from it. In my very first blog I go into where a lot of my depression comes from, but it can mostly be boiled down to loneliness. I’ve just always struggled with a feeling of loneliness, and even when I find myself surrounded by more friends and supportive people, I struggle with feeling like I don’t quite belong. I’m unfortunately on a bit of a time crunch right now, but I’d definitely like to take some time and go more in-depth on some subjects like this, either on this blog or maybe even in a dedicated video. I feel like it can be really helpful just to hear someone else’s experiences with depression from time to time and I feel relatively comfortable opening up about it, so I will try to do so as soon as I can. Then again, I also have plenty of fun ideas I’d like to get around to as well! So we’ll see how I can mix it in with everything else.

Videos I Posted This Week:

Taking Random BuzzFeed Quizzes | Tarqaron Discussion ft. Rusty
Survivor: All-Stars – Episode 18 (America’s Tribal Council) | Tarqaron Reaction
BLACKPINK: Light Up the Sky | Tarqaron Review
Watching my first reaction to Taeyeon 5 years later
Revisiting Boombayah by Blackpink

Things I Enjoyed This Week:

It feels a little weird being fully back in the swing of things with my solo channel, but I’m glad to be back at it! It’s been liberating being able to talk about such a wide variety of things through these different outlets and now I can’t imagine it any other way. It is really crazy looking at the list of videos I posted this week across two channels since this is the most output of content I’ve had pretty much ever. So while it is liberating to have these outlets, it’s also taking up a large majority of my free time so it will be challenging in that regard but I’m excited to challenge myself moving forward. I have pretty much a constant queue of videos to edit so it can be overwhelming but I definitely prefer that to having nothing queued up.

I had some really low moments this week where I found myself feeling like I was lost, similar to how I felt in the beginning of the year when I started this blog. I experience some really low lows sometimes, no doubt about it. And unfortunately I’ll probably be feeling lows like that at some point each week for the foreseeable future. But as annoying as it is to keep putting it out there in every blog, I do want to be as transparent as possible. All I can do is work towards a time when I can hopefully have nothing negative to say in at least one of these blogs. I cannot express enough how much I appreciate everyone who continues to be a positive force in my life, and everyone who continues to show me true kindness through both the good and the bad times. It’s thanks to these people that I am able to keep my head above water, along with the joy I get out of making videos/content. I am far from where I want to be, but I’m a lot better off than I could have been had I not had these positive forces in my life.

I feel bad putting out such short blogs, but to be frank my life isn’t actually all that exciting at the moment, so I feel like this is more palatable than going through excruciating detail about the monotony. But these weekly blogs serve as a reminder of where I’m at versus where I want to be, so they give me things to work towards while also being able to express my thought process and check in mentally. So in that way I am definitely grateful to this blog as a very different outlet for me! That being said, although most of my videos are more light-hearted in tone, I definitely have some ideas for more serious/vulnerable topics to go into on video as well, which might be worth exploring in the future. I have a lot of ideas I’m always bouncing in general, so stay tuned!

Videos I Posted This Week:

Our February/March 2021 Favorites! | Tarqaron Discussion
Two years later, I’m still mad about Game of Thrones
Survivor: All-Stars – Episode 16 (FINALE!) | Tarqaron Reaction
Grace VanderWaal’s new style
Wolf vs. Bear | Tarqaron Review ft. Rusty
Stardew Valley is a gem
Survivor: All-Stars – Episode 17 (Reunion) | Tarqaron Reaction
Reacting to Y by Citizen Queen

Things I Enjoyed This Week:

Over the last few months, I’ve lost friends but I’ve also gained friends. I’ve experienced some of my lowest lows but have also been given a lot of kindness and support. I know I’ve mentioned this before and it makes sense that I inevitably will repeat myself a lot as I move into double digits of blogs now, but I just want to reiterate that this year has given me a newfound appreciation for any small acts of kindness. It’s so easy to take people’s kindness for granted, but once you experience the polar opposite from people in your life it makes you appreciate that kindness much more. So more than ever I find myself taking the time to appreciate whenever anyone extends an olive branch to check in on me, when someone leaves a nice comment or gives me a nice compliment. Not that I didn’t appreciate these things before, but they just mean even more to me now. It’s crazy how even something as insignificant as someone who I haven’t spoken to in ages liking a post of mine can really be uplifting. A simple act of kindness, even just one click to show your support for someone, can go a long way.

All that being said, obviously a highlight for me this week was uploading videos on my solo channel for the first time in over a year. I never intended to take such a long break, and I never really took a break from videos since I was still uploading on Tarqaron through all that time. They were just different videos. And I’ve put so many years and hundreds of videos into my solo channel so it feels weird to have left it inactive for so long. But at the same time I’m excited to be back to it. Though I will have a lot more on my plate since I have to do the work for two channels now instead of one, my goal is to put less pressure on myself for my solo channel. Whereas before I was focused on primarily reaction-based videos and as a result would have lists of videos that I felt like I needed to get done on any given week so that I wouldn’t fall too far behind, I’m trying to have a more lax approach this time around where I can more freely just kind of talk about whatever I want each week without having to check things off. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a ton of things I want to do for the channel, but I’ll just be taking a more laid-back approach, especially considering how much time it requires for me to edit and post for Tarqaron alone. And definitely nothing is set in stone. I said that reactions aren’t my focus anymore and that’s true, but that doesn’t mean that I’m opposed to ever doing them. I’m really just feeling things out and seeing where I want to go with it. It’ll take some time to get used to recording videos in this style again as well, so forgive me if they aren’t the best videos I’ve ever put out.

I’m excited to see where things will go from here because I’m not even sure myself. It is definitely refreshing, between this blog, the two channels, and anything else I work on, to have all of these creative outlets to pour myself into. I keep bringing up this topic of “keeping busy” but it really is true. It will be a challenge to juggle it all with nearly daily posts at this point but I think it will help to keep me sane and I’m game to see where it takes me.

Videos I Posted This Week:

Survivor: All-Stars – Episode 15 (Pony Ride’s Over) | Tarqaron Reaction
Chance Time – Spin #5 (Paramount Plus) | Tarqaron ft. Rusty
Conclusion to the Gents Challenge 2021 | Tarqaron Discussion ft. Rusty
I’m back
I think I’m in love (and her name is Due Lipa)

Things I Enjoyed This Week: