Art, Blogging and Buddhism: My Week So Far.

As some of you may have noticed, I moved back to Ghost yesterday. I didn't want to move again, I mostly liked Bluehost and Wordpress, but monetizing was even harder with them. For one, on Wordpress to do ANYTHING you need a plug in. There is always a pro version and they will prompt you until the end of time on upgrading to said pro version. You figure on top of your hosting costs and things this will add up quickly. This blog thing isn't like when I did it for fun about ten years ago. Part of the enshitification of the internet and how everything nickel and dimes you to pieces.

Then there is just the sluggishness of getting anything done. You put on the plug in, try what you wanted to do, that doesn't work so you have to remove the plug in and try that one. It goes on and on and on, then some plug ins require you to update your code for them to work right.

I'm pretty tech savvy, but I'm not a developer. I was feeling like this before long.

So I gave up and moved back here. Thankfully I was easily able to import things. So that part was easy. I had just spent all day messing with ads and figuring out monetization. Not because I'm greedy, but because I spent a LOT of time and work on this blog because its my passion project. I love doing it more than I can remember doing anything else. So, I would like for it to at least pay for itself or come out a little ahead.

I ended up working with Admaven which is like adsense since I could never get adsense to work. The ads on my end have been for dating sites which is weird, so hopefully those go away soon and real proper ads start showing up. I tried to make them the least intrusive as possible, so I hope you can bear with me.

I've been working on Midjourney more. I started on Midjourney back when it was only in a Discord server and you had to give it a bunch of weird commands. Now it has its own site and is much easier to use. Here are a few recent creations.

As you can see, its quite advanced. Far more than it was when I first was using it a couple years ago and everyone had 8 fingers on one hand. Or people's skin looked glassy. I've found this has opened up massive creative avenues for me and how my mind works. Far more than my hands could keep up with. Someone the other day told me I was great at creating AI art. This made me feel strange because I enter and sometimes tweak prompts to get a good image.

My therapist said its like anyone working with computers, you have to know what to tell it to get it to create something properly and a lot of people don't know how to do that. Some artists I've seen try to use AI and always come out with deformed images. So, I guess he has a point. I still hold to my dada/chaos ideals that copyright should be open and anyone can use the images I create.

I've recently been studying Buddhism. I know I'm a Norse pagan, but have been feeling pulled in that direction lately and one thing I learned on this path is listen to that little voice that tells me things on a spiritual end. So I have been trying to listen.

Things I like about Buddhism

It focuses on non-attachment, non clinging and preventing suffering. One of my issues having autism and bipolar is I tend to obsess over things or worry about people being angry at me. I'm often terrified that someone may be mad at me and play out long dramatic scenarios in my head when the truth is, they may just be busy or havining a bad day.

So with Buddhism, I could work toward releasing those feelings and letting go of my obsessive thoughts and worrying about outcomes of various things. Learn to embrace the idea of impermanence and then maybe my mind will finally calm down.

I've been doing guided meditation at night on videos I find on Youtube. I often end up falling alseep, but I figure that is ok, its in my mind and helping me relax. I need to try it during the day as well and actually focus. I know there are no deities or mysicism per se and I kind of like those things, but I like the overall vibe of the teachings. And how its not centered around worship or rituals but personal growth and enlightenment as well as empathy and caring for others. Something we desperately need these days.

I think with my mental illness this would be a good fit for me. Not going to try and jump in like I normally do but kind of wading in and seeing how it goes. I'm reading a book now called Buddhism for Beginners. Years ago when I first left Christianity I read a few books on Buddhism and in retrospect I don't remember why I didn't follow through.

So that's been my past few days. I think the blog is where it needs to be, I got ads working and oh, I don't want to forget, you can subscribe for a small monthly fee if you'd like an ad free newletter. I know they can be a pain, but I need to find a way to justify spending so much time and energy on this. We'll see how it all goes. Thank you all again for taking the time to read. Sorry for being so neurotic, but I guess that is part of the theme of this blog. Everyone take care of yourselves and until next time.