Hi!
It’s Sunday, August 30, 2026.
It’s warm, and our AC is still in need of repair, but we’re doing okay. Anyway, on with things: just an update. I have my drawing table behind me in a box, and my other bench, which was a homemade build, is cleared. I need to get it out of the room, but it’s heavy because I thought I was being artistic using cement blocks, cinder blocks, or those big gray blocks. But it’ll happen, because sometimes I have to force myself to make things happen.
So on a different note, there are a couple of ladies—in their 20s, 30s, and early 40s—on YouTube that I follow. They have these wonderfully calming, natural lifestyle video journals. They’re very cool. Now, you have to kind of look past the clickbait. Yes, indeed! If you don’t know what clickbait is, it’s where the title or the thumbnail you click on or tap in YouTube is set up to be of interest—like certain innuendos or certain poses. They can go from the extreme to the subtle.
On a few of these, I see the clickbait and of course I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to check this out and see what it is.” It looks sensual, I guess, or not quite sexual; it looks very open-minded and hippie-like. So, once you get past the boobs and the butts, there are underlying messages and meanings of peace and joy in nature from a lot of these young ladies. Now, keep in mind, even though there are sensual and sexual innuendos, there’s still this wonderful message. I guess to keep engagement, memberships, and all that, you have to retain your viewership, so therefore, you have clickbait for the…you guessed it-algorithm. You open it thinking you’re going to see something else, but you’re actually seeing the lives that these people are choosing, experimenting with, and trying. Mostly, it’s getting back to nature, wearing comfortable clothing, working with the earth, gathering from the earth, and of course, swimming.
The swimming will keep you engaged, but even then, you have to look past that to see why. There’s this one young lady; she’s very “of the earth.” She travels, she lives in a camper/caravan that she and her partner have built. There are several videos like that, and these video logs—these video journals—are very aesthetically done. They’re narrated, very calm: very “pour a cup of tea,” very “tiptoe through the woods,” very “gathering flowers,” very “swimming below a waterfall in skimpy things.” But what it is, is a journey to find something.
…you can watch these young ladies, and they’re often with a partner, out doing all these wonderful things, and you know, I can get envious of that.
For me, it really helps me understand where I arrived in life. Now, you can watch these young ladies, and they’re often with a partner, out doing all these wonderful things, and you know, I can get envious of that. I want a camper, I want to hang out, I want to swim in streams, I want to walk through the woods. I want to do all these things. But I’ve reached a point in my life where I can’t; my health wouldn’t let me. But, I’ve done all of those things when I was younger.
Part of me says, “If I could just go back in time…” But no, living in the moment, living in the present, is nothing but a bunch of little bitty things that happen along the way in your journey. And it’s not about a journey getting to somewhere; it’s about the journey that’s within you. Within me. So, yeah, am I going to click on a cool video that uses “pokies” to get people to click? Yeah, probably. I want to stay engaged see what that’s about; it’s by design. If I want to see nude women, there are other places to go, but I don’t; I’m too old for that. And that’s the innuendo, but it reminds me of what lives in me. You know, I can visit these places vicariously; I can visit these places in my heart and my mind. I can close my eyes and imagine, and that gets me through. I’ve had my fair share of adventures in life, I honestly have.
My wife and I have explored many lakes, rivers, waterfalls, forests and city pavements in our time-our life has not lacked adventure.
So, in closing, I am thinking about doing video logs again on YouTube. I did them back under emay ayche, my old artist name—did a lot of them—and my motive for doing them back then would be totally different than my motive for doing videos now. I guess my motive would be to give back a little of the lessons I’ve learned in life, to publicly unload some thoughts, you know, which is therapeutic. But I’m well aware not to give too much of myself away, so I might start making them simple at first. Of course, you’ll see them here on my website, and there’ll be links on my Facebook and my Instagram. I’m trying the social media thing again with a different motive; I don’t need monetization, I just need to feel some comfort now and then.
You guys take good care of yourselves. Remember your own journeys, remember everything is within you. Take a walk barefoot every once in a while, across the grass—you know, the grass that grows so slow you only see it when you have to.
take care.
Love,
Mark