12 Days of Christmas: Beginning Pretense with Glasses

Hard at work. Sometimes.

Since the first and last days of the 12 Days project are oftentimes considered to be the most important of all, I thought I’d start on something unorthodox. And by unorthodox, I mean copy and paste an idea I already posted I couple weeks ago. It’s the first of the twelve days, the beginning of the ani-blogger Christmas countdown, so I decided to write on something apt for today: beginning Pretense with Glasses.

Before I started blogging, I was, well, a giant lurker. I shifted from blog to blog, rarely leaving a comment at times, and at others I just flippantly breezed through forums, carelessly reading without sharing. And while reading from those all-knowing jungles of words gave me plenty of inspiration and ideas, I never could bring myself to actually sit down and share my thoughts. I relied on the post topics and already established blurbs to spill my thoughts, and even then, I was oftentimes to shy to let them out. Although I consider myself a rather sociable person in real life (and arguably more outspoken than I should be) a fear of being judged from eyes halfway across the world always stuck to me.

Since creating this blog on a whim, many things have changed. And I’m happy to say it has all been for the better.  I’ve met countless other anime fans besides myself, many of whom I consider to be awesome, sociable people, and having the ability to share with these people has been an alleviating, fantastic feeling. But more than that, I no longer feel constricted or binded by my own design. Interaction is bliss, and whenever I catch myself and say “Aha!” I can scribble down my whims and form something coherent. It’s fun to see where these thoughts go. It’s fun to see them draw influences from life experiences. And most of all, it’s just damn interesting to see ideas evolve, change, and grow bigger and bigger until they’re ready to pop. It’s a rewarding activity in itself.

I’ve said before that in the time before owning a blog, I didn’t think of anime as a social activity, as much as it was a work of loneliness. After all, countless anime glorify the hikikomori and draw attention to the awkward charm of being inward and a bit antisocial. And while I can’t say that this is always bad (after all, who doesn’t need a little solitude or a wilderness sabbatical every once in a while), I’d rather spend my time watching anime unashamed and with other people who fully enjoy my company. Blogging anime is something which has connected me to countless others, and writing, tweeting, and commenting has only added to my net of communication.

In the end, I see writing as primarily a form of self-expression and also, a way of ultimately coming to understand the writer himself. For me, having an idea stuck in the back of your head and leaving it unexpressed without any outlet whatsoever is one hell of a nagging feeling.  When something bubbles at the side of my mind, it’s hard for me to completely avoid it; I have a habit of spilling out crap whenever I feel the urge, since my filter is either extremely miniscule or completely non-existent. Simply, I’m raucous, loud, and oftentimes full of it, and I can’t stand being quiet. When a thought rises to the top of my head (no matter how ridiculous or gorgeously disfigured and shitty it is), it’s oftentimes difficult for me to really know where I stand until I sit down and speak up. But now, I have an outlet, a blank canvas to spill my word soup, and countless thoughts waiting to spill all over the place.

So much of our life experiences is so unapplied and seemingly unimportant that we simply forget it over time. Few people who I have known have said that they remember the material which they learned in school, and even fewer have told me that they even use it. The same goes for anime; hardly ever does a series of pictures stay with me throughout the years. But since opening my doors, things on the outside have begun to intersect with that of the inside and, as Jung would say, have gained meaning through sychronicity. I’ve begun to see how a quick, fleeting moment in the real world can intersect with a subject as entertainingly unrelated as anime. I now have my own set of figurative ink; to capture these moments and to express them; coming to understand the medium that I love and even myself with each word I type.

It’s an enlightening experience.