Paul Fidalgo's Blog, page 7

What’s it Like on the Other Side of the Paywall?

Using Medium as my primary writing platform often feels like something of a gamble.

Yes, it’s free for me to use, but the only way I can make any money from it is by affirmatively placing my work behind Medium’s paywall. For folks who don’t subscribe to Medium, should they stumble across something I wrote after they’ve already clicked on five other Medium articles, they don’t get to read it. In that scenario I not only lose a potential reader (though not any income because they weren’t su...

We are being held hostage by maniacs.

You know the story. A system designed from its inception to favor empty geographical space over actual humans has allowed a minority of provincial, ignorance-celebrating zealots to utterly confound and rend asunder national civic life, their flames fanned by the opulent boor they have anointed as their messiah.

Innocents are murdered by a 17-year-old with an assault rifle, and they cheer him on. An infectious disease kills nearly 200,000 of their fellow citizens, and they deny the pandemi...

Courage without Recompense

I think one of the most courageous things a person can do is to love one’s enemy. That phrase, “love thy enemy,” can imply a lot of different things, though, so let’s parse out more precisely what I mean.

There’s a version of “love thy enemy” that I think is more like “tolerate thy enemy,” an acceptance that those whose interests are opposed to our own are, at the very least, entitled to have interests and to pursue them. Right off the bat, that’s more than many — if not most — people can manage...

Don’t Remind Me

I have trouble going to see theatre productions, because it reminds me of the work I want to be doing. What I ought to be doing. I want to be on that stage or directing the action, not just watching. Watching is what other people do, what the normals do.

I often feel the same way about music, though to a somewhat lesser extent. Listening to great music too often reminds me of the music I’m not making, the songs I’m not writing or recording or performing. Experiences with the arts that oug...

Struggling for Enlightenment in Skyrim

A Bosmer at home, weight of the world on his shoulders.

Thrown into the land of Tamriel, utterly ignorant of its peoples, politics, or cultures, everywhere I went I was met with suspicion or resentment. I wasn’t the only one of my kind, but apparently my particular race was in the minority here, or at least in the municipalities and wilds of Skyrim. With quite a few notable exceptions, most of the people I met would see my pointy ears and angular features and sneer.

I’m of course describing my e...

Solving for X

If there is a point to being alive, a reason for existing as a self-aware organism in the Universe, it is probably to solve problems. I don’t actually think there is a reason for us or anyone else to exist, nor do I think that the Universe itself provides or requires any inherent meaning or purpose. But if there is any purpose, or if we can impose meaning post hoc, sans propter hoc, then I think the whole point is the solving of problems.

Let’s get this out of the way, just for total clar...

Video Games and My Ceaseless Guilt

During the pandemic era, here in the Lost Year, we have been given a reprieve from the stigma attached to excessive video game playing. The experts have told us, as conveyed to us through the most elite media outlets, that being forced under the fat thumb of the socially-distant lockdown-quarantine absolves us of any anxieties we might have about wasted time, lost productivity, or rotted brains. For the age of COVID–19, video games are now good for us. Hooray!

So now I can spend hours exp...

I Have Trump’s Resignation Speech Ready to Go

In case it’s not obvious, President Trump needs to resign. In order to make it easier, I have taken the liberty of composing his resignation address for him, delivering exactly the message I think he would like to have conveyed to the country as he steps down. 

Mister President, I offer this text to you, and I invite you to deliver it as soon as possible.

Final Address by President Donald J. Trump

My fellow Americans,

Our beautiful country is being torn apart by criminals and ter...

Marching Orders

As of about 10pm Eastern on June 3, 2020, here are a few things I think need to happen to push things in the right direction, in no particular order:

Mark Zuckerberg should resign from Facebook. The United States is in its worst moment of crisis in generations and Facebook, the most powerful outlet of information in the world, is complicit in bringing us to this point. Zuckerberg has proven time and again that he is incapable of either grasping the damage Facebook’s business model has done to...

American Nightmare

It was sort of like a nightmare, in the sense that time seemed to both slow to a crawl and flash by in the blink of an eye all at once. I was at first distracted, playing a video game, the president’s upcoming address to the nation up on our television. I didn’t really want to listen to it, as even hearing his voice is enough to drain a good month or two out of my lifespan. So I played my game and resolved to just let him talk in the background.

I don’t remember the exact moment I was wre...