More time has not fixed my sleep problem. It has gotten better, but it hasn’t fixed itself yet. I’m able to think fairly clearly. I’m very tired still, and a day at work is still very draining, but I think I’m getting through the worst of the mental muddling that has left me in this state. I haven’t really figured anything concrete out, but I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how I feel about all of the stuff going on in my life (namely my tendency to throw myself into projects with a dedication rarely reflected by those I work with, what part I wish to play in the various communities I’m a part of, how much should I temper my passions in order to avoid further burnout, and so on) and I think I’ve at least figured out what I don’t want and taken a couple steps on the road to somewhere. I know I don’t want to return to my old quiet days of playing games by myself and going entire weeks without talking to anyone save my coworkers. I don’t want to do nothing but what I need to. I also don’t want to give up on some of the things I’ve started, not entirely, even if they can be draining. I know I need to continue to work on balancing the energy I spend against the rest I’m getting. I also know that I want to be a part of communities and that community doesn’t happen without people to oragnize it and do the work. Someone has to be the person to say “let’s do stuff” and while it doesn’t have to be me all the time (and shouldn’t be me all the time!), I am a very organized person who does enjoy logistical work, so I need to figure out how to find balance between this truth and the just as real truth that I’m burned out and constantly exhausted these days.

I’ve also been thinking about community and care more broadly, beyond just the stuff I’m doing in Final Fantasy 14. There’s a lot going on in the world right now and the groups that are the most effective at handling it have turned out to be community organizations. This shouldn’t be terribly surprising, given that local organizations tend to be the most effective at actually getting things done, but it has still been impressive to see them stand up to secret police, the potential collapse of local economies, the needs of people stuck hiding from said secret police, and the labor required to keep their communities safe. But there’s more to community at this scale than just the local ones. Today, the day I’m writing this, Friend at the Table is on the second day of their live streamed effort to raise money for Immigrant Justice (via the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota’s Immigrant Rapid Response program) and so far they’ve raised over $100,000. Over half of that was accrued while poeple were donating four or five figure sums as matching donations and it is truly impressive to see just how much of that donation bar on their page was filled while their community of listeners and viewers tossed large quantities of money into the pot in order to encourage each other to donate more. None of which takes away that even with all those big donations, the constant stream of smaller donations still makes up about three-quarters of the total amount (since the progress bar shows all donations received that were then matched). Two days of streaming and updating goals and silly games and comraderie has resulted in a six-figure sum being raised for a good cause, and they’re still not done yet. There’s more matching donations, there’s more goals to go, and Friends at the Table has another few hours of streaming left to get through before their official end-time (to say nothing of how late they’ll go in an attempt to get the last few of their goals met). Truly, the power of community in action, even if we’re spread all over the country (and world!), is perhaps demonstrated by the fact that the total went up by $5000 in the time it took me to write this paragraph.

It is difficult not to want to find ways to make or find this level of community in other places in my life. I cannot help but think about the fact that today is a holiday, ostensibly, even if it’s a holiday we don’t particularly want to celebrate right now (President’s Day), and I am in the office, writing this between breaks at the end of my day as Monday slowly drags on. My employer doesn’t observe this holiday, after all, so I would need to spend precious PTO and give up on my ability to earn overtime for the week unless I passed forty hours clocked-in anyway. That said, it really isn’t that much of a bother to me (aside from the usual onerous task that is working these days), but it has changed the tenor of the office for a lot of other people. There were many parents here with their young children. Most daycares and schools are closed today, since it’s a holiday, and most parents don’t have access to an additional caregiver to take over, much less the resources to hire someone or even take a day off. So they bring their children in since our employer finds that more acceptable than letting most employees work from home. Sure, it’s great that everyone in the company understands the need and will do what they can to help should the need arive(be it watching children while a parent fetches lunch from the cafeteria or basically creating a secondary lunch special for the surge of children), but I can’t help but think about this as a failure given that proper care in a company that pitches itself as a family, employee-centric, and caring would have been to create a robust work-from-home policy to give employees and parents the flexibility to use as their situations demand rather than merely shrugging their shoulders and letting inidividual managers decide for their teams (almost all of whom have decided against working from home being allowed since their whole job is to babysit adults while we all work and their general uselessness in this role would be revealed–which isn’t to say these people aren’t useful, just that their management work isn’t).

Like I said, I’ve had a lot of thoughts on the matter but I’m not really at any conclusions or decision-points yet. I know that community takes work, that community organization is a valuable service to a community, and that I value the communities I’m a part of so I should consider that maybe it would be good for me to do some of the work those communities require, but I can’t deny that I’m too tired and worn out to do much. Especially because all of my recent efforts haven’t met with much success. I mean, I’ve been frustrated with the workshop I’m running for my FC right now, but it’s not just because I’ve been asked to do the work and am doing the work without much in the way of involvement from others. That’s still a part of it, but it’s the final result of everything. What’s really got me upset is that I specifically polled the group to see who was interested before I decided to spend my time and energy on this project and got a huge response that absolutely hasn’t materialized now that it’s time to actually engage with it. I’m frustrated because the community I’m a part of told me they wanted something and then when I went to deliver it, no one showed up to partake. But it’s not like this is a lifetime commitment or even something I have to drop entirely if I don’t want to do it. I can do it as I feel inclined or if there’s a particular need. Ideally, that’s what someone working to organize within a community will do: find a need and help organize to fill it. And if that need stops, then they let it go and pick it back up again if the need ever returns.

I don’t know how I fit into all of that, necessarily. Beyond the fact that I’ve done this work and will likely continue to do this work. One person cannot hold a community together by themself and this community has gotten very quiet lately, much less active than usual. I don’t know if it’s a temporary thing or, absent the central figure and the shifting of the group’s socialization to another discord for gaming more broadly, the community will slowly fragment and shed it’s more active members who want more than a largely-silent group. I’m not sure I want to spend my time and energy on a group without people also spending their time and energy on it as well, but I’m not ready to let this community go yet. So for now, I will continue to reflect, try to get more sleep, and really think about what work and effort I find rewarding enough to still do as tired as I am. I mean, I’m also job hunting again, at least an hour a day, so I’ve got less time and energy than ever (it’s so draining to run into so much “AI” generated trash and so many jobs that want people skilled with “AI tools”). I also have therapy tomorrow–I’m increasing my appointments to weekly while I’m working through this stuff–so maybe something will come out of that, but I don’t know. This thorny problem has been pretty resistant to eureka moments or sudden breakthroughs, so I don’t really expect anything but some focused time processing what’s going on. No quick fixes for me.