Month: January 2025

Turning 61

This morning, at 6:00 a.m., I completed exactly 61 trips around the Sun (this is a correction to my earlier assertion that it was 62 trips; forgive me, I hadn’t had my coffee yet!). I am now 61 years old, and boy, lately I feel it! I am constantly feeling exhausted, and my hips and knees are giving me trouble; I usually take the elevator over the stairs these days.

My birthday always falls in the middle of the absolutely coldest winter weather here in my home city of Winnipeg. And these are the days when I look at the Environment Canada forecast and ask myself: WHY THE HELL DO I LIVE HERE?

It doesn’t help that my relatively new car (less than two years old!) developed two problems related to this bitterly cold weather, requiring a tow truck to drag it to the service centre at my dealership for repairs (and a brand-new car battery). I have missed a doctor’s appointment and a couple of days of work as a result, and I am feeling rather grumpy as a result. Let’s face it; I am now a grumpy old man.

I am still working half-time sick time due to job burnout, juggling requests from instructors for me to come into their classes and teach their students how to use my university library system effectively and efficiently. I still love my job, but I am always feeling tired and worn out lately. I plan to stick it out until I reach 65, though.

I am also still making very good use of my Apple Vision Pro, both at work (where I love the new ultrawide Virtual Display feature when using it with my MacBook Pro; it’s a great productivity boost!), and at home (where I usually use it to watch TV and movies). Zero regrets about buying it. I actively monitor the AVP subreddits to find out about new apps and experiences to download and try out.

And I am still coping with nasty, messy, painful, chaotic real life by escaping into my beloved Second Life on a daily basis, where I can express my creative outlet, amd get into a flow state for an hour or two, designing an avatar look from head to toe.

For example: today, Vanity Fair is in full-blown fairy godmother mode! You each get three wishes… 😉 (please click on each picture in this gallery to see it in full size).

STYLING CREDITS:

Head: LAQ Era2 Elle head (SupremeUHD version)

Body: Maitreya Lara 5.3

Skin: LAQ Susanna SupremeUHD skin with Next Level Maitreya body skin (skin tone 1.5)

Hair: Meadow by MAGIKA Hair (this is an old purchase, I’m not sure they still sell this)

Roses Tiara: part of an old 14,000 members gift outfit from PurpleMoon (the Ninde gown)

Gown: The Fairy Godmother Gown by Silvan Moon Design

Gown AO: Gown AO by Kamilah Hauptmann/Posture Is Everything (I bought this at their in-world store many, many years ago, but it is now on the SL Marketplace here: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Gown-AO-boxed/105284 ; this is an AO which you can adjust to accommodate different styles of ballgowns: small, medium and large skirts, bustles, mantua gowns, etc.)

Wand: I picked this up as a free hunt prize many years ago!

Wings: These lovely iridescent dragonfly wings are my favourite, and they are free from the extensive wings section in the Faery Crossing castle.

I’m still going to wait before I make any decisions about whether to pull the plug on this blog. But I might still pop in from time to time if I have something I need to say.

AN UPDATE, January 7th, 2025: Why My Blog Is On Hold (And Why I Am Not Making A Final Decision Until Later this Year)

A sampling of today’s news headlines from Google News. Shit is gettin’ WILD, y’all.

Today, I wrote the following post on the new Second Life social media platform, Primfeed (which you can currently only read if you already have an account on Primfeed, as I have not yet chosen to make my Primfeed profile and posts publicly viewable):

With all the batshit-crazy political news coming out of the U.S. today making me feel anxious and depressed, I have decided that, in order to preserve my mental health, I now have to abandon the very last traditional social media platform I used daily: Reddit. This means that, from now on, I am only going to be using Primfeed, and NOTHING ELSE: No Reddit, no Mastodon, no Twitter/X, no Facebook, no Instagram, no TikTok.

Corporate-run social media platforms are all becoming a toxic cesspool and dumpster fire, with negative effects on my mental health. I quit Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter years ago, and I have never bothered with TikTok. I haven’t bothered checking into Mastodon in well over half a year now. Reddit was my last refuge, but alas, no longer. I am OUT. (I announced late last year that I was shutting down my blog, but in light of me now leaving Reddit, I will have to take some time to reflect a bit more on that decision. I also need to think about whether or not I want to make my Primfeed profile public.)

It looks like 2025 is shaping up to be an even crazier and more chaotic year than 2024, and I might need to escape to my beloved Second Life now more than ever!

A quick update: last November, my doctor stepped in and put me on full-time sick leave for a couple of weeks. I then went back to work on half-time sick leave, and at the moment, that arrangement will continue until the end of April, 2025. My supervisor at work has also stepped in to address my current workload, and I am no longer working on the project of setting up the virtual reality lab at my university library system. I am just feeling incredibly burned out and utterly exhausted, still, and it is probably going to take me quite some time to rest and recover.

In light of my decision today to quit Reddit (the last traditional social media platform I was still using, albeit without setting up an account, i.e. read-only and anonymously), I do now need to re-evaluate my decision late last year to stop blogging completely. The truth is that I am still feeling tired and burned out, and I don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to blog. So I honestly don’t know where things stand for the blog right now.

My blog will remain up; I do not plan to take it down. I will also keep my associated Discord server running, as it is still being used by a good number of people. I have zero plans to take the RyanSchultz.com Discord server down. However, I have, as of January 1st, 2025, suspended charging my existing Patreon patrons (and a very big thank you to those of you who have chosen to support me financially via Patreon these past five-six years; it has been, and is still, greatly appreciated).

Right now, I need to focus on my physical, mental and emotional health, and I need to focus on returning to my paying job, full-time (minus the VR lab project). Those are my priorities at the moment. In order to help achieve that focus, I am avoiding all social media (except Primfeed), and all metaverse platforms (except InSpaze on the Apple Vision Pro, and my beloved Second Life, which reliably puts me in a comfortable flow state during the creative process, and which consistently brings me happiness, especially with so much bad news happening in my real life).

Everything else must wait, including this blog. I will not make a final decision about my blog until much later this year, once I am in a better place. Thank you for your support over the past 7+ years.

UPDATE Jan. 8th, 2025: Meanwhile, over on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter):