Yesterday I received an email from a young man stationed in the Middle East. I won't break confidence or mention his name, but he wrote to tell me how much he enjoys the blog and how it has helped him pass the time during his deployment. I can't begin to tell you how much emails like his mean to me. Words are not enough. Thank you for reading and for your service. It is readers like you that keep me going.
I went over and over today's post, trying to decide what to write. There is a lot of negativity flowing around lately. What really struck me was a conversation I had recently with my wife, who is graciously accompanying me to Fanfest next week. I will spare you the details, but the conversation essentially boiled down to a slight concern she has about "haters" who may also be attending Fanfest. You may not be aware of everything that goes on behind the scenes here at Eveoganda, but my wife is. I tell her everything. And there are some legitimate concerns that we both share. The other side of the coin. You may be ready to dismiss this, but that is because you are not aware of my "stalker", or the threats, or the supposed "parody" accounts, or the apparently jealous blogger, or any of the other things I have to deal with.
You are not aware of them because I don't blog about it. Which is odd given that most of those haters usually throw drama in my face whenever I mention something like this. I'm sure that some of them may even show up in the comments to this post.
So I decided instead that today I would focus on the positive. I'd think about that young man's email and the hundreds of other positive emails, notes, convos and positive energy that surrounds me. And I would lob some much needed and perhaps unexpected hugs at those that seem determined to hate. I don't understand you, but I know that a hug makes everyone feel better. So consider yourselves properly hugged today.
And I'd like to take a moment to also thank each of the incredibly awesome and extremely positive members of Stay Frosty and our brothers and sisters in A Band Apart. It is hard to explain how someone as horrible as I am has managed to gather such a large group of incredible people around them. Weird huh? Thank you all for being the living, breathing and powerful counter-argument to hate. All I ever have to do to dispel any hate hurled at me is simply point at you. Case closed.
Ignorant people confuse "drama" with "story". Haters hate thru a cloud of self-righteous blinders that narrowly focus rage on supposed injustices that are often self-created. Self-imagined. And self-fulfilling. Prophecies of doom upon which they themselves tread. It is sad. But again, it comes with the territory I suppose. We can't have day without night. Good without ebil. And the line between what happens in-game and out-of-game is a hard one for many people to deal with.
So I'm lobbing Big Hug Bombs all over the world today. I'm staying positive. I'm taking a new stance both in-game and out. For the first time EVER I've started blocking people in Local inside Eve, I've never done that before, but it is surprisingly awesome. As soon as anyone says anything negative, boom! Blocked. I like it. And I've started un-following negative people on Twitter and in other areas of the community. Once again, pretty awesome. I'm working hard to distance myself even further from negativity. And if it takes ignoring people, then that is what it takes.
In many ways, the upcoming Fanfest represents a turning point in Eve for me. And I'm feeling very strongly that I need to re-focus on positive energy both in-game and out. And while I have always been an extremely positive person, I've also always been more than ready to fight the good fight. But I'm coming to understand that even good fights are still fights. And maybe sometimes, it is better to just walk away.
Consider yourselves hugged.