Happy 2025?

I am not sure that I have ever had less enthusiasm for an incoming new year than I have for this one. It seems rather silly, though, that I don’t have more excitement and positive anticipation. I already have virtual and in-person presentations on the horizon (book me now!), plus a Coldplay concert to look forward to. I even have a new passport, so can leave the country if I want.

What is the future of Bug Eric blog? I am seriously entertaining the idea of moving it to either Substack or Patreon. I will need to take my writing more seriously, if so, posting with definite regularity to meet the expectations of paying subscribers. Would I even have subscribers?

While I would prefer not to charge my readership, I must increase my income. This is especially true now that Social Security and Medicare are under attack from the incoming presidential administration. I may not have the “entitled” income and health benefits that I was expecting at my advancing age. I also need to value my work in the economic sense.

As for other projects, I have ideas for at least three more major works. One of those is a fictional piece that seems to want to be a play or screenplay. I keep “seeing” it as being performed, anyway. I would like to collaborate with others, as the current storyboard looks like an exploding star. It is not even linear. Ha! If done right, it could win all the things, including hearts and minds, I think.

None of my future book ideas have anything to do with insects except, perhaps, tangentially. This represents a huge risk since I am the “bug guy” by reputation. I cannot, however, ignore the greater problems surrounding how human beings impact the natural world, and each other. That isn’t a calling as much as a demand for my perspectives and experiences to be shared.

From the aspect of my mental and social health, I am becoming progressively more isolated. There is hardly anyone in my small town that I have even remote interest in spending time with. There are too many people older than I am, politically conservative, religious, unhappy, unhealthy, or all of the above. When I do venture out of the house, it is for an exercise walk, to run an errand or two, or hike by myself in a nearby wooded park. That is it. I thrive on the company of younger people, and that seems impossible here.

Even social media has lost most of its appeal. I left Twitter/X in the end-of-the-year mass exodus, and opted for Bluesky, the popular new alternative. I have enjoyed it so far. Facebook is in decline, with its near total emphasis on commercialization, and a newly-announced commitment to more AI (Artificial Intelligence) content, including artificial users. Actual, human Meta users are aging, and there is simply not the energy there used to be. I may have to learn Tik Tok if I want to stay relevant, and if that China-based platform is not outlawed.

There is no way I can continue suffering a lack of in-person contact, though. I am not suicidal, but as one Bluesky account put it, some days “I can’t life anymore.” The bigger cities of Kansas City and Overland Park are so close, yet so far away, and not really affordable.

Please let me know if you would pay to read more regular posts on Patreon or Substack, and under what circumstances/incentives. If you have suffered social isolation, how have you overcome it?

Thank you, as always, for your loyalty in following me, donating to this Blogger blog, and otherwise lending your support….Now, if I can just turn myself into a cat, I could lounge all day long, and have thousands more followers on Bluesky. Goals!

About the Calendar Photo: This calendar was purchased from melbry//arts. Melissa Bryant does brilliant and important work. Please support her efforts. Thank you.

Identity Denial

Note: This is what you must know about me at this point in my life. I appreciate your respect of that.

There is no such thing as an identity crisis; or if there is, then it is precipitated by a long history of identity denial. Failure to embrace who one truly is inevitably results in resentment, and even hostility toward others. How to reinvent oneself is then the challenge.

I am a writer, a communicator. There was a time I thought I wanted to be a scientist because I felt that was the only path to achieving credibility. The non-fiction writers I admired were also scientists, so it seemed the logical course of action was to enroll in college with a scientific major. So, off to Oregon State University I went, where there was comfort in already knowing some of the faculty and staff who were my mentors earlier in life. Since I honestly do have an affinity for insects and related creatures, I declared entomology as my major.

There were immediate signs that this was not a good idea. I failed mathematics courses. I floundered in chemistry, and avoided physics and statistics. Academia does not reward you for simply having an interest in science. In fact, it punishes you. Higher education tries to break you of empathy and sentimentality for other organisms. Anthropomorphism, the assignment of human emotions to other animals, is banished from the lab, and even from field observations. Ecosystems are abstracted into "models," poor paper substitutes for flesh and blood. Entire landscapes are reduced to soil profiles.

I should have left the sciences for an English or communications major right then and there. Instead I moved over to the School of Forestry where I majored in Recreation Resource Management, where park naturalists earn their cred. I retained entomology as a minor. I excelled at natural history interpretation, but only tolerated, if not struggled with, other subjects. That fourth year was my last. I dropped out with a feeling of emptiness, and certainly an empty bank account.

Despite my lack of an academic degree, I have held professional positions as an entomologist. The Oregon Zoo and Cincinnati Zoo both employed me in their insect exhibits. I worked on a private contract at the Smithsonian Institution, helping catalog the national butterfly collection for a month in 1986. Subsequently, I have had other contracts with the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), and the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources. These jobs paid adequately, if not handsomely, but were mostly unfulfilling in every other regard. Today, there are enough rules and roadblocks that it is impossible for me to be employed this way again anyway. The job application process in general, for almost any position, is so weighted toward exclusion that it is demoralizing and not worth the effort to apply for many of the best potential candidates.

Meanwhile, I persisted in my own efforts to cultivate credibility, and build a following as a trusted expert in the world of popular entomology. At this I have succeeded too well. Actors call it typecasting: Having performed one role so well that they can no longer find work for any other role. Convincing people that I can write about topics other than "bugs" is an excruciatingly slow process, and as I age the sense of urgency only magnifies, and the sense of resentment at my own previous denial of who I am intensifies. Naturally, this expresses itself inappropriately, and I now find myself sighing heavily whenever a stranger asks "Hey, aren't you that 'bug guy'?" At times I want to slap them upside the head.

I will always have an interest in insects, and always be willing to help people educate themselves about the "smaller majority," as entomologist Piotr Naskrecki calls them. However, that is not the sole aspect of my identity and I ask you kindly to respect that. Should you want to follow my Sense of Misplaced blog, even better; and if you can help me find paying markets for my personal essays and social commentary, then you have my eternal appreciation. Thank you.