Yang Jingyu or Ma Shangde was a communist sniper guerrilla during the Chinese warlord period and Japanese invasion of china who died in the 1940s. Does any of this information matter? No I just felt it’s nice to give context about who I’m talking about. What matters is that about a year ago I started writing the script for a YouTube video in which I would tell the life story of Yang(because he’s very cool guy, read the Wikipedia link) and also the story of early 20th century china because there sadly isn’t a ton of info on this guy,at least not that I could find. Now this video never came to fruition which is a good thing because it was not good that I had made it.
Now the video was good if not to toot my own horn. But what it represented and what it meant to me was the problem. Because it was never going to be created because I wanted to perfect it. Every time I finished it i added something to it, whether that was another joke or more context or anything at all. I was always worried what strangers on the internet would think of me even tho none of them would see it because it was another of millions of YouTube history videos. But it held such power over me, i spent months working on it. I’d take a break from it but like the ring calling to Frodo I couldn’t give it up. I’d lie to myself that with just one more line and I would be done.
Now this script wasn’t the only thing like that at the time. I hated all my work and was constantly trying to make it “better” so that people wouldn’t judge me. But Yang Jingyu was the worst of them. All my other work had deadlines and had to be given up eventually. Not Yang tho, that was my personal project and I had all the time in the world to work on it. Just like every other personal project I had worked on and never released for fear of criticism, It lay in my google docs. But then something changed. One day I just clicked and sat in front of my work for the last time. I don’t know what overcame me but I had suddenly realised the problem for what it was. And without thinking I deleted it.
And that was it. My “magnum opus” was gone. Now thinking back I wish I still had it so I could finally make the video, though knowing me I would never have made it. It was step one of changing myself for the better and actually dealing with my self hatred. I realised in that moment that it was an unattainable goal. And now i make meh work most times but at least i post it. This blog is the antithesis of Yang. It’s sloppy, with spelling errors, no point and (not to be a wanker, tho that’s what this post is) raw(yeah i hate using it to). But Its also something i enjoy doing, i actually post it and i’m not embarrassed by anything i write.
I don’t know what the point of this post is and if you were hoping for something as interesting as my last post I’m sorry to disappoint. But that was my struggle of loving my work and myself. All i can do is thank you for reading this and I hope you read more. God this was so wankery
Also the title was either Dr Strangeglove or a Moby dick joke.