#PastebinMonday 07/15/2024 My Feelings Are Complicated Edition

'Sup, doods.

I try to position myself as a decent person. I do not have anything resembling a perfect moral compass, but I do strive to not be a net negative on the world. I end every stream with a call to be decent to each other. I think we can strive as a species for a bare minimum level of decency.

Something happened on Saturday that had me questioning my moral compass. It left me sick to my stomach and drove me to write down my thoughts in order to make sense of them.

My feelings are complicated, doods. I resisted the urge to post an immediate reaction as it happened because 280 character blocks are not enough to properly convey nuance. There's no way that a single post fka Tweet would be sufficient to explain the feelings going through my head as I heard about the news. I immediately took to my document for writing these updates to organize these thoughts. Here is where I land:

Decent people do not make attempts on someone else's life, especially of important people, especially in front of many people. Decent people do not wish for another decent person to lose their life. Decent people should want other decent people to get by and go on with their lives.

On the other hand, decent people do not have multiple books written and published about all of the lies that they have told. Decent people do not use their power to endanger the lives of others with their actions or inactions. Decent people do not get convicted of 34 felony counts at once. Decent people do not say unsettling things about women such as “grab 'em by the p***y.”

If you are not a decent person, it is possible to engage in positive acts to redeem yourself to a minimum level of decency to function in society. If it is not possible for someone to redeem themselves and they pose a danger to the physical safety of others, they should be removed from society. HOWEVER, decent people should NOT take it upon themselves to remove irredeemably indecent people. Natural selection needs to take over at that point so decent people do not get dragged down.

I was torn, doods. I would never have wished for those bullets to be fired. And yet, in the moment I heard the news, I wished for those bullets to hit their target. I would never want bullets to be fired maliciously at a decent person. That said, I cannot, in good conscience, acknowledge the words and actions of that target as those of a decent person or someone who can be redeemed to be judged a decent person. And yet, I don't think you can be a decent person if you arrive at needing to attempt on someone's life as a solution to your problems. I also posted after the debate that the undefeated Father Time needs to claim some Ws. What does that say about my decency? I felt apathetic in the moment. Apathy is my default mood when it comes to people. It's proving to be very difficult for me to change that.

Now I'm sad, doods—not because someone indecent tried to end someone else's life, not because they failed, but because AN INNOCENT PERSON DIED and many people are going to react to that event by voting for that indecent person in November and I truly wish that they could get the help they need to not be brainwashed by them.

I am glad that the shooter was taken care of, dood. I can't imagine someone resorting to an attempt being able to redeem themselves to basic decency. They needed to be removed and they were promptly removed. I am also glad that they missed their target. Irredeemably indecent people do not need to be removed from society by indecent means. I still won't shed a tear for his eventual passing (hopefully of NATURAL causes).

Doods, I am still shaken to my core and sick to my stomach as I compose these thoughts. I would not have been able to properly convey these thoughts 280 characters at a time. I experienced some complicated emotions and had to write them down to be able to process them in a way that would allow me to move on with my life. I was in the middle of editing clips when this happened and had to stop and gather myself because I experienced a logical breakdown. If I was a robot as some people have joked in the past that I was, I would have literally short-circuited.

After some time removed from the situation, I can give a precise TL;DR of my perspective change. I was apathetic when it came to one bad person murdering another bad person. After Saturday's events, I decided that I should actively condemn all murder. (Years of apathy is really hard to get over.)

I had to say my peace in order to move on with myself. I hope that putting it together in this form allows you to understand where I am coming from on this tragedy. Prayers should go out to the families of the people that were affected by this attempt. Lives were lost. Decent people were hurt. No one should have wished for anything like this to happen, regardless of the outcome.

I might come off as insane after this. I've been speedrunning Puzzle League games for over 10 years. Of course I'm insane! I see a doctor this week. I expect to make progress towards fixing myself then.

My feelings are complicated, doods.


Today's (permanent) extra streaming goals:

Goal #1: finish clipping personal shorts. I fell far behind on this BEFORE the weekend's events.
Goal #2: edit personal best videos in Tetris Attack Easy – V-Hard and Normal.
Goal #5b: finalize the tournament layout once and for all in a way that I can adapt for the Pokemon Puzzle League tournaments. At this point, I don't expect to be able to do this before the next Pokémon Puzzle League tournament.
Goal #6a: clean up my own stream layout. Most of the framework necessary for a semi-proper stream is done now thanks to streaming the process, though I'm not currently motivated to stream any other part of it at the moment. Next major objective is to make alerts. I have stream reaction clips to put in. Emotes, one or two alternate overlay themes, and alternate timer themes would come soon after. As soon as I think of things to put in, I will add them to the list.
Goal #6b: catch up on video archives that I have yet to upload since I restarted streaming. I may put them on a separate channel.
Goal #7: script and record footage for my Puzzle League tutorial series. I have some scripts left to touch up before feeling comfortable with moving on to recording gameplay. Then I will need to record my talking points and edit it all together. Getting back to this will be easier once the workflow for the monthly tournaments is finalized.
Goal #8: release the Puzzle League tutorial series YouTube shorts once a day until they're all done. I really do think I need to time the release of the series with a ramping up of my streaming schedule so that I can take advantage of whatever there is to gain from releasing the shorts.

This week's schedule:

Wednesday @8pm- 10pm ET – Wild Cards Wednesday – Poochy Open Warm Up, Easy – V-Hard Runs
Friday @9pm- 1am ET – Friday Night Salt Mines – Poochy Open Warm Up, Easy – V-Hard Runs/Races
Saturday(/Sunday?) @ 2pm ET - Poochy Open at PuzzleSpeedrun


That’s my life story for the week. Until next time, everyone, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING THAT IS GOOD, be decent to each other. Later, doods!

--Cards