It's been a few months since I did a blog post. Honestly I've been feeling super paralyzed. I have been feeling almost afraid to write in this blog because I am worried that it won't quite fit or I'll need to move it somewhere else. I think that's my OCPD talking. Did I ever update the three people who read this blog about that diagnosis? I don't think I did. I keep collecting mental illnesses like Pokémon.

Anyway, I decided I would engage with this blog again so that way it is real again in my mind. And since it's 2025, why don't I start off the year with my favorite kind of blog post: the meta, self-referential kind. This time though, I'm coming up with this shit on the spot. I might have done that before idk

So what is this blog supposed to be for? It's supposed to be an outlet for me to write shit without worry. Well that obviously has failed because I worry about the blog. I am literally creating problems for myself.

I think a lot of the stress comes from the fact that I have started a new project: The Insubordinate. It's currently a blog (? wtf even if a blog?) hosted on Substack. I'm aiming to write one piece a month - frequent enough for regularity but infrequent enough to allow myself time to refine the ideas I write. I am running behind this month, but studying abroad has been pretty stressful and disorientating so give me a fucking break.

The Insubordinate is supposed to be more serious and actually have eyes on it. I'm planning to upload on YouTube too, but I've been trying to figure out the format. I'm thinking that I'll just read the blog posts on camera, but I also want to make it engaging. The form of a video essay is different than an actual essay — I know that, although I don't know exactly how the two are different. To perfect that while putting in minimal effort is my goal. I'm not lazy, I just need to set low expectations for myself so that 1) I actually get myself to do the videos and 2) I don't labor over perfecting the videos forever.

Before, I was putting a concerted effort into this blog. I would write FOR the blog. But I think those days are over. I plan to convert this blog into my dumping ground. I might put a draft here only to refine it later. I might never refine the shit I put here. There are no standards, other than that it's bad. Bad as in not polished and publishable you know? I can still put things I think are good here. I can put works in progress here.

This will mean that I will be updating “blog posts” with new versions or links to the final version somewhere else on the site. It's just gonna be a little more crowded. Honestly it's gonna be more of a dumpster than a blog.

I might as well also lay out my plans for my other personas/projects, since it's getting a bit crowded. I plan to pursue The Insubordinate as my main political project. The channel Bapple Backup will be retired, and Bapple Business will either also be retired or used for random shit I wanna post. I have to think about the subscribers that came from my homework video. Maybe I shouldn't give a shit. I wish there were a way to merge YouTube channels. Bapple Business was already retired for music — my music will now all be under the name Plain Henley. My poetry and other artistic works will be under Plain Henley as well.

Everything I make will be here, on the Epsilon Repository.

Now, you might be thinking, “Why is Edward talking so much about himself? Is he an egomaniac?” The answer is that I am going through an identity crisis again. This is for me, not for other people. Other people will just experience what I produce and figure it out. I don't expect anyone other than myself to think or care so much about my work. I mean, you're free to, but why would you? I do appreciate people caring about my work, that's not what I'm trying to say. I don't know, just don't judge me.

Why am I using so many pseudonyms? Because they're helpful? I think they're cool? I use Plain Henley as a stage name because I want to communicate that my songs aren't an exact reflection of myself or my feelings. I don't think a good art has to necessarily be accurate to me. The stuff I make for the Insubordinate, on the other hand, I stand by. I intend that work to be reflective of my opinions, so I'll use my name. Plain Henley is a persona, while the Insubordinate is a project.

Ultimately, I think it's time for “Bapple Business” to go. The name doesn't fit the kind of stuff I am making or that I want to make. The only room I think it has is for stupid shit. For video game usernames and shit. In that way, I think it's reflective of that aspect of me.

All of this is just me trying to parse out various aspects of my soul and label them. I've given all this years of thought, and it's time to fully commit.

This is in tandem with me changing my workflow. I realized that I probably shouldn't use my school email for my Chrome profile because then my college can see all the perverted shit I search, like “food near me” and “one big database vs many small”. I'm also switching because I need to think of myself as a person outside of a student. I need to figure out who that person is. As it turns out, school really doesn't do a great job of helping you figure that out.

So I'm using a professional personal email address, which I think might be necessary now that I'm in my fucking 20s. bapplebusiness@gmail.com doesn't cut it anymore. This is all contingent on me actually checking my email. I don't like to delete emails because what if I need a record of something for some adult reason, but then I realized that you can “archive” emails instead of just fully deleting them. I just archived literally every email I've received for all of my email addresses, which is a lot. Hopefully nothing important was in there! If there was, I can find it.

I'm also shifting all of my writing and everything to Notion instead of Google Docs. Google Docs is just too bloated for most of what I want to do. Organizing Notion is also a fun and useful activity in itself. It's like a second brain. Does it make me more productive? Lots of people say that you spend more time customizing Notion than you save by using it. But that's not the two options for me; I'm now actually doing stuff instead of not doing stuff. I say yes, it is helping me. Also, I don't care, it's fun.

I reorganized my computer today. I realized I should probably know where stuff is. I'm 20. Did that reorganizing fuck up all my Ableton projects? Yeah, but that's nothing I can't fix. I also cleaned up my projects on Ableton. I have 3 songs in a state of almost being done, but I don't like working on them because they're such a mess. But now I have a computer that can actually handle having more than one copy of something. Crazy what that will do. Technology is so cool. I also hate it.

I've been living in an alternating cycle of depression and motivation. I think that's called… living? Or being bipolar, idk. Probably not. I just don't know how people do it. Do other people struggle to even get up in the morning? Like, is that normal? What can you do, the world sucks at the moment. But that's another blog post. Until next time. Bapple out.