The Trials and Tribulations of 2026
To say that 2026 has been exhaustive for me would be an understatement. I hesitate to call it the worst year of my life, as 2025 fought strongly for that position, but with a handful of months remaining in its running - 2026 continues to put up a strong fight to steal the only recently set record.
Melodramatics aside, life has been having its fair share of ups and downs. I don’t plan to share the nitty gritty details of said ups and downs in this post, but I wish to address their existence, and more generally address my general state of being, and the type of shifts I wish to make in the coming months. This month has acted as, what I have been referring to as a “tempo reset,” but what is realistically an attempt to claw my way out of the pit of burnout and dread I have found myself within - and this post is emblematic of that tempo reset, and what sort of changes I want to make that will not only affect me, but hopefully reflect in the content that may appear in future on this blog, and any other avenues I wind up choosing to present my creative and personal endeavors on.
Death Stranding, LinkedIn, and the Torments of Academia
The first main - I hesitate to call it a highlight of 2026 - was the thesis grind I engaged in from February until June. I wrote about Death Stranding, COVID, and some interesting dynamics of digital solidarity and reflections on themes of connection in our present moment. It’s up on Google Scholar for anyone to read, so check it out here if you’re interested:
Amidst this thesis grind, was an equally as strenuous LinkedIn grind attempting to find jobs or opportunities I could pursue once my Research Master’s was wrapped. This whole period was pretty dreadful, as I’m sure any fellow thesis writers can attest to, and left me in a real state of loss, confusion, and hopelessness as to where my future was headed. I had grown to hate academia, and so had found myself stranded as to where to go next.
Becoming Familiar with Death and Loss
It is a very strange thing to be writing so much about death, and themes of loss, all while experiencing so much of it. My Grandad passed in 2025, and following this my Great Granny, and soon after my Great Grandad, in 2026. I will spare the needless explanation as to how sorrowful this has all been, but will acknowledge at least that there are many among those of you who may be reading this whose words, presence, and acts of kindness have helped me through it all, and that I will forever appreciate dearly.
It’s never an easy thing to lose someone you love dearly. It’s all the more difficult when it happens in conjunction. Amidst what has already proven to be a harrowing year for a plethora of reasons, these losses have made grim times all the more difficult.
The Peril and Uncertainty of the Endless Grind
Moving on from all this, I have found myself drowned in the pressures of work as I balance jobs and attempt to haul myself out of this era of the unknown, and into a more stable future. This, has proven exhausting. As I write, I now balance three jobs, work seven days a week, and am suffering the mental toll of it all. I have found myself barreling towards burnout, with no end in sight, and have to put it lightly, been enabling myself to slip into dark pits of despair.
This all sounds very woe is me, and while I say all this I also do acknowledge the universal nature of this. We all lose people. We all struggle through our theses. We all have confusing periods of uncertainty in our early twenties where we work jobs we hate and question all our life decisions up until now.
I know the pain is shared.
It doesn’t make it any less tough.
And that is okay. I don’t write this to make myself out to be a unique case, or to siphon sympathy. I do this as a means to move towards a better tomorrow. To address the peril, and to be candid about my struggles, so that I one day may look back and know that this struggle was a part of the journey, that it shaped whatever path I end up taking forward, and that it wasn’t a secret burden I chose to shoulder on my own - but an experience that I openly admit is now hewn into me, and in the context of this blog, sown into whatever works I hopefully strive to create here and elsewhere going forward.
A Return to Self, and a Reflection on Failure
I’ve been going to therapy, and it’s been a great first step in making the type of shift that I want to make in how I manage my life, and my passions. I’ve also been getting increasingly into journaling, and have finally found my stride in making journaling part of my daily practice in a way that is bolstering my self-care habits, and reinvigorating my creative drive. It’s now one of my favourite DIY hobbies.
It’s allowed me to get back in touch with my creative passions that have for too long been shelved while I struggled against the scorns of life’s trials.
Short Form Content: The Devil Incarnate
For those of you who follow my socials, and my creative endeavors in general, you’ll know that I had a short stint in short form content creation at the start of this year after boldly and short-sightedly announcing my return to creating online content towards the latter half of 2025.
I hated it.
It was momentarily fun to be in the creative driving seat again. To be recording myself, to be churning my creative passion into videos, and refamiliarising myself with editing softwares - but the creation process for short form content proved to be one that infinitely frustrated me, consumed my time, and ultimately left me deeply unsatisfied with the type of content I was making as I found myself distracted from making the things I actually want to make.
So don’t expect any Loran TikToks or Instagram Reels anytime soon. I had my short lived run, and I’m more than happy to leave it there.
The Siren’s Call of the Video Essay
In truth, there is a type of content I have long been driven to make, long been advised to make, and long considered. The humble video essay. In many ways it’s the perfect storm for me; my essay writing skills I’ve acquired from academia, my commentary skills from years of prepubescent YouTubing, my narrative analysis passion that I exercise with my friends and fellow creatives day in day out, etc.
But video essays take time. And I am in short supply of just that.
However, I do yearn for it, and as I refocus my passions and efforts in the coming weeks, it’s one call for effort that I would really love to answer. Whether I do or not is to be determined, but know that it is something that often plays on my mind.
The Want to Create Media, and the Pandora’s Box that is my Mind
Video essays aside, there are many, many creative projects I wish to work on…
- My D&D world lore.
- D&D storytime videos / actual play podcasts.
- Film / Media discussions podcasts with my best friend Max.
- Actual lets play or streaming content.
- Music.
- The several novels I continuously return to and wish to complete.
- The several TTRPGs I wish to / have already begun designing.
- Teaching myself game dev and actually working on making video games.
The list truly goes on, and it’s just not feasible to accomplish all these things at once. I’ve been slowly learning to accept that that’s okay, and I hope that in accepting that, and becoming more in touch with my creative energy rather than the expectations I set for myself, that maybe some of these will see fruition in some way / shape / or form. I truly cannot say for certain yet, but know that the drive to create still burns so brightly within me, and more than anyone else, I desperately wish to embody this creative drive and to produce works for those of you who care, for those of you who know I can do it, and for those of you who aren’t reading this, and may find said works in the future.
The drive is well and truly there, and while the past few years of my life have been a struggle to get that paint on the canvas, the wish to finally do so is one of the main things that keeps me going through all this, and I really do feel like a breakthrough may yet come.
To Conclude, but certainly not Finish
I’ve not been doing great for a long time. Perhaps longer than I’ve ever realised. But I’m learning to come to terms with that, and to move towards a future that I will be happy to occupy, and happy to share with you all.
I wanted to rekindle this blog, to have a homestead for my creative works that isn’t a social media, but to also just experiment with writing again in a way that is non-committal, personal, yet still fulfilling for my want to create and share media.
I will hopefully continue to post here. It is hard to say, and I don’t wish to make promises of consistency, but acknowledgements of intention. Last year I made bold claims about taking myself seriously as a creative, but I think in doing so, lost sight of what it meant to nurture myself as a person. I hope that my insights here are evident of both my capacity to reflect and change, and also my intentions to retain that promise in taking my creative drive seriously. Just to do it in a way that emboldens and shapes that drive into something meaningful, careful, and emblematic of the type of creative projects and narrative experiences I truly wish to deliver. For myself, and for the rest of you.
As always, much love to those of you who care about me, and who make efforts small and large to make that care known. You are the unsung heroes in this story, and I one day hope that we can reap the rewards of this journey together.
Keep on keeping on.
Aaron.