The blog is undergoing maintenance right now. This means my sorry butt is currently erasing excessive labels, adding labels to really old posts (2005, 2006, 2007... etc) in order to make them more accessible, re-adding videos into entries because the videos have been removed from youtube (or I didn't know how to add videos at that time...), adding/ changing pictures, correcting typos etc. It will take a while to be done with it. The blog will be better afterwards. It will still be massive (hey, it contains 13 years of writing!), yet more organised. Needless to say, I am not changing the content in any way. Please be patient if things are a little all over the place. It will look and function better when I am done. :)
For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, scroll down and go to the section named 'Labels', under 'Popular posts', right hand side of the blog. If you click on a label, it will show you all entries I have ever written with the particular subject. I am not done yet; it will probably take a week or so. The amount of work needed is insane, so please give it a few days and check again. And as per usual, if you enjoy my content, please consider supporting what I do, so that there is more and better content! 😉 Thank you.
I began this blog in 2005. There is a massive amount of work in it, and I always thought it should not be done for any other reason than to speak my (weird) mind. Consequently the idea of generating income from it never crossed my thoughts. Besides, when it began, it had zero hits. With the passing of time, this changed. Right now I have hundreds of pageviews for every new entry I upload. Still this translates to absolutely zero income.
I know what you are thinking. Well, if it is art, it should come from the heart. Money has no place there.
Yeah. Except for the fact this heart resides inside a body, and the body in question needs food, clothes, electricity for the laptop, an internet provider and so on and so forth. After these needs have been covered, then the brain of the body in question can come up with some sort of content for this blog. Never mind what that content is. Since you are here reading this, I guess you are familiar with the fact my entries jump from one bonkers subject to the next like a frog on acid. Unless you are a newcomer, in which case I should warn you: you might not like the content of this blog. If you are racist, homophobic, sexist, narrow-minded etc., then you most certainly won't like it. You may even not be any of these things and still not like it, and that's fine. Just be warned this is one of the weird places on the internet, OK?
With that in mind, let's take a look on the matter of paid writing as expressed by the excellent writer K.J. Charles, with whom I wholeheartedly agree:
I am not lazy; I could have re-written the same things in a slightly different way, but I see no need to alter her crystal clear and very funny argumentation. I will only quote two small portions of her article:
"You know what’s a real challenge for many people? Paying their rent;
feeding their families; keeping afloat. You know what makes that harder?
Not being paid."
"Paying authors lets them write. It doesn’t make them less genuine, or
less hungry (except in the actual literal sense, obviously), or less
heartfelt, or less busy. It just makes them able to live and thus do
their job, ie writing."
I am still unemployed. I have stopped sending CVs to random jobs, because I might get hired only to discover they won't pay me, or won't pay for my social security, or expect me to work overtime for free, or any combination of the three/ all three. This is the reality in Greece nowadays, as described also here and here. If, and this is a BIG if, you get hired, then you might not get paid. Which brings you to the next interesting dilemma. Keep working for free in the hope of getting some of the money they owe you, or stop working and losing the money they owe you for certain? We're also probably the country with the most heavy direct and indirect taxes in whole Europe in relation to our income. We're in the top ten of countries with heavy taxes, and yes, French people might have a higher percentage of tax, but they don't get paid a 500 euro wage per month. They also don't get taxed if their annual income is 8000 euro. Please don't get me started, because this will become a screaming fit in block capitals in a manner of nanoseconds. It won't be pretty.
So, as I said, I've stopped looking randomly for a job and I am only looking into those jobs that I know from a reliable source will do the three important things: pay you, won't work you to death, and pay for social security. Problem being, I run out of unemployment benefits this month, and next month is going to be, ahem, interesting.
If you read this blog, and especially if you enjoy this blog (cause I know there are some people silently practicing what we call hate-reading for their own bizarre reasons) please consider helping me. There is a donation button at the upper right corner. If you like my content, please consider even for a moment the possibility of buying me a coffee. If this blog is a friendly place for you, if it has helped you, kept you company, or amused you in any way, then give it a thought. It's not compulsory. But the content you have at your disposal is the best I could come up with that given moment, and as honest as it gets. It's a gigantic portion of my time and craft. I don't want to make this blog restricted to members only or add stupid advertisements. I want it to remain public and viewable by everyone. If I get even the smallest income from it, it would be tremendous help. I've never gotten anything from it, except for two coffees bought by two close friends. If I get a bit of income, I'll be motivated to write more and more in depth. If I don't, it will continue being the random thing that it is now, writing when I feel like it because I want to, and also because I have a bit of time to spare after my work. If you want this to change, you can help me towards it. Unfortunately, I can't do it alone.
To change subject, here is a very interesting music video I came across recently. It's slow, dark and haunting. I hope you'll enjoy it. You can find their music here: https://cisfinitum.bandcamp.com/
