Why I dropped off the face of the planet, and a status update ...

So, uh, I’m going to put it upright here. Everything I’ve worked on for the channel is going into storage due to a drastic upheaval in my life. While I can continue to stream and make content from my laptop, at least for now, I’m expecting not to truly be able to do so until my real life situation is a lot more stable.

Before I go into how I am personally doing, let me get to the part that is relevant for my supporters. For that, I need to talk a bit about how the channel is setup behind the scenes, and specifically what happens to your contributions at the start of each month.

The proceeds I get from the channel are used to build the channel out. For example, most of my purchases from VCF are made with money contributed through Patreon or YouTube ad revenue, and then shown in a video or at least on stream. As I suspect most who follow me know, I suffer from a physical sleep disorder that, when combined with other factors, has largely put me in a position where I haven’t been able to work for some time.

It’s why in part I’ve decided to treat YouTube as a fulltime job - it’s the first time I had managed to earn money in over four years, and has been my sole independent income for the last six. I’m speaking from experience where $10-20k per year is a lot better than $0 per year. As part of this, I split the channel, as well as the broader community stuff into a new limited liability company, a process I started November of 2022 and finished in January of 2023. As part of this, I opened a business checking account, and redirected Patreon funds and the stream tip jar into it.

Around the same time, I began what would begin nine months of streaming at least six to eight hours per week. Streaming was essentially a promise to myself that I was going to return to making videos again, and I did start a few projects, with the intent of editing them into videos at a later point.

Unfortunately, multiple things kept piling up behind the scenes that started making this look less and less likely. After May of this year, it got to the point that it was increasingly clear that I was about to face what has proved to be a reckoning in my life. Said reckoning hit in June, and has continued through to this day.

Without going into too many details, the best I can say at the moment I was forced to make some very difficult decisions in regards to my personal life over the last six months.

One of these is recognizing and then ending a cycle of abuse that I remained in largely because my financial security depended on it.

Thankfully, I do have something of a cushion here.  Keeping money stashed away for rainy days can really make the difference at times. I also had an unexpected windfall come my way which drastically increased the amount of breathing room I have.

However, I can no longer afford to remain in one of the most expensive housing areas in the world. Complicating matters is working out what to do with  three shelving units of what are increasingly rare workstations and microcomputers from the 80s and 90s.

Fortunately, you guys have already solved that for me.

While I have been largely AFK since May, the number of Patreon supporters hasn't decreased much since that time, and I’ve continued to earn a small trickle of ad revenue from my videos and VODs directly. Since it’s been accumulating since May, the Restless Systems account has several thousand dollars just chilling there.

That means for the first time, the channel is actually in the black.

However, a few thousand dollars will not fundamentally change my situation. Furthermore, none of the plans I’m working on depend on this money either

What it can do is cover a mid-sized storage unit for at least a year or two until I can relocate out of one of the most expensive housing markets on the planet. It will also likely cover shipping costs to whatever address I end up at the end of this process in.

Ultimately, it means I do not need to restart this channel from scratch when the time comes to return to content creation which is better than some of the other possible outcomes.  It’s not what I wanted to do with everyone’s contribution, but I think it's the best scenario given the circumstances such as they are.

Which I guess brings me to my own personal situation.

I wish I could say that this hasn’t been a pretty horrid time. I wish I could say it hasn’t taken a toll.

I can’t.

What I can tell you is that despite everything, I’m doing better than I have in many years. I can even say I have reason to smile as I walk along both on the edges of perdition, and wait on the shores of purgatory.

I can even see myself returning to the workforce at some point in the same near future. That’s a pretty drastic departure from me in 2020, who was at that point beginning the process of applying for Social Security Disability Insurance. It also assumes that I’m going to have a home of some sort to work from, but those are problems for future-me.

Future me is also going to have the job of deciding on what to say about my situation the next time I’m able to come up for air. While I would like to write in detail on just exactly why my life has changed so drastically, it would also require going into the bad that has been going on behind the scenes, and I’m not really sure I’m ready to go down that rabbit hole.

Part of what makes it difficult for me to stream is that I am naturally an open person. I talk about my life, and well, do what I can to be an interesting presenter. Enough people show up for my livestreams and watch my VODs that even my unedited ramblings seem to have value for you all.

Unfortunately, none of what I’m going through are things that I’m really that happy to discuss at length, and most of my time is currently dedicated trying to navigate this challenging chapter of my life.

I am very thankful I’ve had people who’ve supported me through this, and are helping me find my way to safe harbor.

While it's difficult to predict the future, I do think there will come a time when I will talk about this, if only because I would like to think my story might help inspire others to try and change the seemingly impossible circumstances of their life.

For those who have stuck with me this long, before I close, I’ll give you the few words of advice I have gleaned from these experiences:

Things can get better if you keep moving in search of dawn.

After all, even if all else has failed, as long as you keep moving, you can at least have perspective on how far you have gone, even if it's only in the most literal sense possible. Ask me how I know this.

Anyway, I hope to see you all soon. I will likely have a better idea of my living situation, and the future of this channel will look like come March or April.

Thank you all to who helped me get this far,

~ N

P.S. - I may end up doing some relatively quick and dirty videos in the near future, so don’t be surprised if this gets followed up with an early release sometime in Feb. It mostly boils down to a lot of factors beyond my control such as sorting out an audio setup.