(for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)
Good morning masons and carvers, welcome to Day 461 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
Last night was bad for me.
Seriously bad.
My partner got into bed, and I felt the overwhelming urge to cry.
So I did.
Every little bit of negativity I had been feeling over the past three months somehow bubbled to the surface and came out as I struggled to find the words to even say what I was feeling between sobs.
One thing in particular stood out to me, about how some days I feel that I am lying down in the middle of a crumbling castle with rubble falling down all around me. I should really get up and stop being in the rubble, especially cause there is a high chance some will fall onto me, but I cannot help but watch things crumble despite my best efforts.
Sometimes my mind gets hyperbolic in viewing my own situation, because my actual circumstances currently are nowhere near as bad as my mind perceives it, yet I constantly self-flagellate about how unworthy I am for the things in my life, for the people I am able to be around, and for the gift of life I receive every day.
Losing my job really did a number on my confidence and feeling of direction in my life, and whilst initially I definitely had some amount of serenity about what had happened due to my complicated feelings to the tech industry, all I feel now is an intense dread whenever I send off another application because I have lost every bit of sauce I used to have.
I… very much want to give up some days, if I am fully honest. Everything that has gone on over the past three months has demoralised me intensely, to the point I do not know how much things that used to motivate me in the past mean to me anymore. Waking up is a struggle, keeping up appearances is even harder, and trying to put my life back on track feels almost insurmountable between everything else going on.
But I know I cannot give up. That everything I am feeling right now is a temporary setback more than what things are going to be like forever, and in a year’s time everything will have changed again.
Stability will return to me, but right now my fire does not even feel like it is smouldering, I very much feel like I am a pile of wet ashes with no ability to reignite.
The ashes are still there though, and once they dry out, I know I will be back to the phoenix I so admire.
In all honesty I had lost sight of why I even loved the phoenix to begin with. A mythical creature that can reincarnate through its ashes, ensuring defeat can never be permanent. Something that always comes back, no matter the circumstances, to shine again. I know I still have that potential in me, all I need is an opportunity to show it.
Internalising that I still have potential is probably the hardest feeling I am going through right now, because despite so many wonderful people in my life who know what I am capable of, everything that gets said to me in that regard does not make it into my mind. It makes me feel lonely, not through any fault of the people around me, but I struggle to feel as if I am conveying the gravity of my situation well enough.
So I write, and leave a record for those who come after, to know that I was here. Through the struggles, the fears, and the pain, I dragged myself further and further to my goal, even as I so desperately wanted to give up.
My mind may be against me, but so long as the body survives, the ashes will dry out, and will ignite again any day now.
Outside of my wonderful partner and amazing friends, there is one person that has been bringing me a surprising amount of comfort due to his streams, and I want to talk about him today. Introducing pretty much the only flesh streamer I watch nowadays: Otzdarva, or Otz for short.
This is admittedly a terrible image of him, but it was during him streaming Halloween: The Game in recent weeks and when someone asked him whether or not it was going to take market share from Dead By Daylight he pulled this face and it made me laugh incredibly hard.
Otz first started streaming in 2015, and became a Twitch partner in 2016, meaning he has been doing this gig for over a decade now, and despite only having started to watch him this year, I see a man who is still somehow extremely humble, knowledgeable, and generally keeps a down-to-earth approach.
His primary stream game is Dead By Daylight, which is how I started watching him due to having a passing interest in the game due to my partner’s amount of playtime, with both of those factors coming together to eventually influence me to play the game, with me using Otz’s streams to help learn more about the game and approach it in a somewhat holistic way rather than raging out at any minor inconveniences.
The game is not his only wheelhouse though, as he will frequently stream Souls-like games, modded and unmodded, alongside flavour of the month releases in the indie and multiplayer spaces.
Whatever he plays, I am drawn to Otz for his surprising amount of wisdom and insights on things. Every so often a chatter will ask him a question and the response he gives often takes me aback due to the detail, consideration, and message he puts behind what he says. He comes off as someone with a fair bit of lived experience, whilst also not styling themselves as an authority figure on whatever he is talking about.
One of the best examples comes from a recent stream where a chatter asked about how to leave a toxic relationship, and Otz gave genuine advice about connecting with your friends and family about the situation to help see how much this person’s needs have gone unfulfilled, and even said he would be looking out for them in future chats to see how they were getting on.
He also recognises the insane amount of privilege he holds in order to make video game streaming his job. In one stream he had a donation from a chatter who regretted they could not donate more, and Otz went on the record saying that he appreciates every donation but to not feel bad about not being able to donate more because he does not need donations to stay afloat.
And to top it all off, the guy has the exact kind of humour I am looking for. A mix of dramatic reactions when shit hits the fan or a ballsy play goes exactly right, and deadpan comments in response to absurd situations that defuse the tension wonderfully. The best example of the latter came from the Dead By Daylight Hardcore Survivor Challenge he and three other streamers participated in earlier this year, when they were discussing the ideal of professional competitive game playing and wondering how it could be applied to their game.
This lead to Otz making a comment that stuck in my mind since:
“I do not think I could play DBD professionally. The idea of my rent hinging on hitting a skill check would increase my stress levels dramatically.”
It is so succinct, but so funny especially considering the contrast with the fact all four of them are playing the game “professionally”, but not at a competitive level.
The last thing I want to highlight is Otz’s own website, which includes an FAQ section that helps to learn all about the guy and how he got into the position he is in today, alongside commonly asked questions about his preferred games of choice.
And so I do not leave his grimace as the thumbnail, I am going to include an image of a short break screen he put up as he went to the bathroom one stream, with a very nice message that I think more chatters should keep in mind.
A bad night can lead into a better day, and so long as I am still writing, I am still here.
Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are having a good day today, and that the Monday blues are not bringing you down too hard.
We can make it through whatever comes our way, all we need to do is persevere through the dark to see a brighter dawn.
