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Well, this year was another wild ride. I was not able to do as much as I would have liked with the blog this year. Earlier this year I had put a focus to create bigger and better blog posts for The Weekly Rambler which would take more time and research to put up, such as this one on the Baader-Meinhof gang in February which eventually made me want to do more bigger things like it, and soon after the commitment I released this mini documentary series on my observations of Hitler’s Circle of Evil. From the very start of the year my blog was running at pace, but then slowed off and eventually halted for a time altogether after I started doing an IT Course which took up most of my time, and also the hitch of moving into a new flat.
The start of this year saw me posting more frequently but it was more to do with news and current events as well as politics. The posts where I talked about the top news each week were enjoyable at first but then I felt like it ended up becoming stale and that news could simply be obtained from their typical sources from actual news websites so I decided to shelve it as I wanted to dive more in-depth into different things to provide content that is more unique to the blog.
Some of the more obscure current events I posted about were more enjoyable and I felt like they fitted into the blog more, but again I wanted such posts as these to be even longer and more in-depth. I also did enjoy some of my political blog posts such as this one talking about what I wanted to see with electoral reform in the United Kingdom and the post I did where I looked at all of the presidential impeachments that have taken place in the United States, and for another – this one about The Office of the Former President which was a topic of discussion for a small period when it came up in the US Political world from the boogeyman that is Trump. I feel like those political blog posts gave interesting information and also some thought-provoking stuff for those reading and that (hopefully) were not partisan/divisive, I do try to stick to as close to the middle as I can when it comes to politics, as I want this place to be that of thought and understanding rather than stress and argument of which is all over the news and social media now.
I also tried to bring awareness to some things in the political world as well, such as the Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Bill that threatened to erode our civil rights. I highlighted that not all within the large-scale bill was bad, but that like many large bills such as this other not-so-good things for liberty and democracy are lumped into it, again as you can hopefully tell from the post I tried to take it all within a balanced approach, but I do not discount that it could still be seen as controversial as it does include my own opinions.
Also more on the topic of current events… when the Ever Given jammed up the Suez Canal it inspired me to jump right into researching about incidents that have taken place in the Suez Canal, as well as other interesting information about the Suez Canal itself, again it is little things like this I make that I really do like and enjoy and wish I could come up with more often.
The beginning of the year also saw me abandon two other projects I had begun, one talking about me playing Enter the Gungeon and another which was a story series I made up called Nethersfar, both of which I felt like did not really fit into this blog properly based on other content I had done, despite having a lot of fun writing the Nethersfar series. If I ever get any demand to finish the Nethersfar one sometime in the future then maybe I will, but for now it will probably be just something I add to in my own private time outside of the blog.
I also really enjoyed one of the rare list posts I did which went over some of the significant events of the previous year (2020) which I felt like was an interesting recap on both things a lot and less people knew about, giving a bit of both. This year also saw the conclusion of the long-running Paranormal/Mysterious States series that I started, looking into the myths, mysteries, cryptids, legends, and paranormal stuff of each US State, which I did enjoy doing but now I look back on it I feel like maybe they could be better, this series was the successor to the Paranormal Alphabet series before it.
Although one of the founding topics of the blog was to have a focus on the paranormal I decided to shelf this aspect of the blog as I felt that it was just too common of a thing that could easily be found elsewhere on much more popular websites and blogs – there was just too much of a pop-culture to it that I felt me posting about it just was not helping to make this blog stand out. I still love the world of the paranormal and of mystery – although I may believe less in the paranormal now I have found – but it still has a place within me, but just perhaps not on this blog, at least for now. I do still have a whole bunch of books I bought to research into paranormal and mysterious topics so it is certainly possible I will come back to it in the future, but if I do it will be on things more obscure and unique that is not covered to death elsewhere already.
As well as wanting to focus on larger more unique and interesting blogging projects, I also started taking an interest into the British Commonwealth and the news and politics surrounding it and all of its member states, I thought that this seems to be an area that is super unique for a blog to focus on and as such why not head in that direction? Such posts relating to this have brought attention to Barbados becoming a Republic and started looking into the Virgin Islands enquiry and on Commonwealth Day itself I talked about what exactly the Commonwealth of Nations is. Unfortunately the advent of my IT Course prevented me from doing much more work on this area but I am very much hoping to pursue further into it next year.
I feel like posts on the British Commonwealth and their member states can be good content to fill out this blog while I work on my larger documentary-style posts, as well as other posts on things like by-elections, local elections, and interesting US elections that pop-up here and there, which is me expressing a little hobby of talking about these elections, why they are significant, and then for fun giving my little prediction of who I think may win, again I keep as neutral as possible on these things.
I also did a few personal blogposts on my life, more so when I was in the midsts of my IT Course, but also beforehand related to the troubles I faced on the hunt for a home for me and my brother, of which both of us have Autism. On one particularly frustrating day after having come back from visiting an appalling location I jumped right on to my computer and typed up this blog post. Luckily by the Summer we did end up getting a place, very luckily indeed, and now as I type this I live within that place, but fast forwarding back to March it all just felt like a never ending nightmare, but the outcome I eventually reached is always a sign to never give up – go to near end of the linked blog post to see my little inspirational pep talk, hopefully it helps anyone else going through a tough time to just keep pushing.
Another really insightful personal blogpost I did was talking about my life with Dyspraxia, a poorly understood and little known condition that I and many others also have, although anyone can get Dyspraxia whether they have Autism or not, it does affect people with Autism to a greater proportion. Either way though it can be both an annoying, funny, upsetting, and frustrating condition to live with – but it is also not the end of the world! It would just be good if more people could be aware of it.
But yes once I had found a flat and also started the IT Course from July onwards and following the committment to larger more documentary-style blogposts, there was a mass slow down in my blogging where mostly all that was seen was a continuation of the still ongoing Government System Series – which I hope is not becoming too stale but it may well be. But then even those I had no time for from August onwards as the flat and IT Course took up all my free time, I did still post up little updates and observations from time to time, but nothing I was really proud of – the blog had hit a glut!
The blog did not really start up again from November onwards but even then it was not up to the level it was at from January-July, although I did release my series on the British Army which is a part of a larger series to do with armed forces of the Commonwealth, it had originally been shelved because again I was not too sure if it was really that good of a series, but with the ongoing glut I decided to unshelf and finish it, and I am currently working on the next one on the Royal Air Force which will not be out until next year.
And that segways us right on to the big topic of 2022. Wow, this year zoomed by didn’t it? Well actually, it took the same amount of time as any other year, but it sure felt quick. Next year is exciting for me now as I have secured another of my personal goals – finding social and hobby clubs, I have already begun one of such which is a group for 17-25 years olds to meet once per week to do games and crafts and other activities, and this social club has already opened up so many other pathways, such as one pathway to an Art Club that begins next year thanks to me entering a Christmas Card contest that I got joint 4th place in, and another opportunity they introduced me to – a free course on gaining insight into the film industry! So next year for me is exciting times and I am sure I will be blogging about them.
But what about 2022 for this blog? Well one of my other goals next year is to find a part-time job, I am looking into either something in the IT sector since having completed the IT Course or something to do with animals… or even just a warehouse operative which to me sounds fun, being hidden away in the back of a shop or warehouse and sorting out stock/contents. Okay… but what does that have to do with this blog? Well the thing is… it could affect this blog as again if I do secure a job it could take more time away from this blog…
BUT I am determined not to let that happen. I am going to try my absolutely hardest to focus on the content I really wanted to do this year… such as documentary series like posts and posts on the Commonwealth and its member states. I really want to try and make this blog into something rather than just letting it run into gluts over and over again. This means I need to invest more time into the blog and that is what I plan to do next year, work on blogs more than I did this year. It won’t be easy trying to get myself to work beyond the times I usually limit myself to, but I believe it is the only way this blog will ever get properly off the ground.
If I want this to happen I need to seize it and go for it, I can’t just do bits here and relax there and then push that to later and then not bother with that or this, or making excuses for why I cannot blog right now. I need to get to it, you do not get anything easy without putting in some initial tough elbow grease to get up and off the ground. Lifting off is always the hardest part because you need to shine out and keep shining out, then once a decent dedicated base is formed it should become easier to get a flow of content going adapted to the general audience I have attracted. That’s the general plan anyway, it likely does not sound good on paper, but it’s better than nothing.
I hope you all have a merry Christmas or a Happy Holiday or/and a happy new year! I will see you from January where I will begin working on blogs again from the 3rd.
And yes… the never ending Government System series will be continuing on until its end… next up is Malta which will be out next year hopefully sometime on the first week of January.
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