That’s right, boys, this marks the two thousandth post at this ‘ere very ‘eavy, very ‘umble blog since it got started on January 1st 2013. That’s 2,077 days worth of blog life, and near-as-dammit one post per day. (For the maths nerds among you – or is that just me? – it’s technically 0.963 posts per day. Which as far as I’m concerned is the same thing.)

Make no mistake, this is something of an achievement for me personally.

The reality is that most blogs stop having anything useful or new to say or talk about after about 6 months. Most people who write blogs lack the discipline to stick it out for the long haul. Most of them don’t try to improve their writing or branch on to different ideas or topics.

Somehow, though, I managed to persevere. Most likely through sheer cussed pigheadedness.

It is generally considered good form to acknowledge milestones like these in some manner. Eagle-eyed readers may recall that my 1,000th post consisted of a (VERY) long full review of HALO 5: Guardians, in which I noted the various strengths and flaws of what was then the latest entry in my beloved HALO franchise.

Since there is no new HALO game to review right now, and will not be until 2019 [pause to vent a considerable amount of nerdrage], I figured I might take a few minutes to write out some of the things that I have learned over the past 5 years, 8 months, and 6 days (just about) of posting random stupid stuff on the internet.

1. Nobody Cares About What You Have To Say

… at least, not at first.

Let’s get one thing cleared up right away:

Most people are idiots and have no real skill as writers.

Furthermore, most people really do not have particularly interesting lives or thoughts.

So when you combine human stupidity with lack of writing ability and lack of anything particularly interesting to say, it is not surprising that a lot of people who start up blogs quickly run out of steam.

A lot of folks start up blogs because they are under the mistaken assumption that what they think, see, and do on a daily basis is of great interest to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not true. The reality is that most people live quite banal and boring lives.

And that is why most blogs fail – because people start writing them thinking that just by writing, they will get famous or attract lots of attention.

That is not how I started out. In my case, I started writing a blog basically because I had nowhere else to go.

I started up Didact’s Reach after years of resisting the idea of writing a blog. I always thought to myself that there was no way that anyone would be even remotely interested in reading about the random shit that pops into my head over the course of any given day.

But I simply had no way to discuss a lot of ideas about economics, politics, race, travel, current events, philosophy, and so many other things. I could not talk about them in public partly because I am actually an intensely private person, and mostly because many of my opinions were (and are) highly controversial given the hyper-politicised and extremely politically correct corporate and social environment in the West.

So I started writing – with zero expectations whatsoever.

I had no idea what I was going to write about, how long I would write for, or even how to write. And I’ll be the first to admit that my blog’s name is pretty stupid. I thought it was a fun play on a pivotal character and planet from my beloved HALO series, but when people kept referring to me, the writer, as Didact’s Reach and asked why my blog was called what it was, it became clear that maybe I hadn’t made a terribly clever choice.

Even so, to my considerable surprise, I enjoyed writing. To my even greater surprise, apparently quite a few people found my work along the way and thought that what I had to say was interesting, provocative, and challenging enough to keep reading.

Some of those people are even published authors in their own right – damned good ones, too.

So I kept writing. And that brings me to the second lesson that I learned:

2. Just Shut Up and Write

To state the blindingly obvious, writing is a skill. And like most skills, the ability to write well is acquired through hard effort and habit, not through simple luck of the genetic draw.

If you look back on my posts from 2013, you will see massive differences between my writing style then and now. My paragraphs are shorter. My sentences are punchier. My grammar is tighter. My points are sharper.

I leave it to my readers to decide whether or not I actually have any skill as a writer – it is not for me to judge the merits of my own works, at least not beyond a certain point. Suffice to say, though, that given that I have several readers who comment regularly and email me about my writing, and given that I have made more than a few very interesting personal connections through my blog in the several years, it is clear that at least some people get some value out of what I write.

Yes, I am well aware that I do tend to go on a bit, but that comes from a curious combination of having a lot to say, and rather a lot of time to say it (these days, anyway).

If you find yourself in such a situation, understand that it is very likely to be temporary, unless you are retired. Make the most of the opportunity to write while you can, because trust me, sooner or later, you will find yourself with a lot to say and no time to say it.

Writing can certainly be a real chore, and it can take considerable effort to “get the juices flowing” and work up the motivation to write about anything. It certainly takes effort, time, and discipline to sit one’s butt down in one’s chair – or, in my specific case, stand at my desk – and write.

My answer to those who complain that it is hard to find something to write about – and I certainly include myself in that category – is simple:

STFU. Nobody is interested in your whining. And write.

Remember, not everything you write will be a pearl of brilliant wisdom – and does not have to be. Hell, at least half of the stuff that I post here at my blog is stupid random shit that I find on teh innarwebz in the form of YouTube videos and Instagram pictures of hot girls. All I do is find it, slap some commentary on it in my own particular voice, and post it.

Yet those seemingly useless and vapid posts are precisely what get the gears in motion to write more meaningful, insightful, and just plain interesting commentary on other matters.

3. Be Offensive

The blogs and internet presences that last, do so because they have a unique, interesting, and powerful voice that others find compelling – for whatever reason.

One of the reasons why my blog has stayed active as long as it has is because I have a distinct point of view, and I am not particularly bothered about who I offend in the process of explaining it.

It must be clearly understood that the right to express ideas and speak your mind does, by definition, include the right to offend. What weak-kneed Millennial pansies and politically correct weenies nowadays insist on labeling “hate speech” is in fact nothing more than hard truth delivered like a nut-shot.

The truth is, by its very nature, highly offensive. People don’t want to be told the truth. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that most people don’t even particularly want to be free.

See, being free is really hard work. It requires the substitution of self-discipline and self-restraint for discipline and restraint imposed by others. It sounds so simple when put in terms like that – but in fact, self-control is nearly impossible for most people. Very few people understand that they do not have the right to simply do as they please, and that they have certain responsibilities to the people around them.

Freedom and truth are highly offensive. Defending them is highly offensive. If you love freedom, and if you are willing to accept the truth, then you have to risk being offended.

Note, please, that there is a difference between being offensive and being reckless. There is no need to be recklessly offensive – if, for instance, I were to start posting up pictures or videos of hardcore porn, any one of you would have every right to be violently offended.

Offending people for the purpose of explaining a hard truth is not only acceptable, it is necessary. Offending people just to offend them is merely boorishness.

Furthermore, there is no good reason to avoid taking steps to protect yourself online. That is why I write under a pseudonym, and why only a tiny handful of readers have ever met me in person. Until and unless I establish myself as an independent entity with an antifragile source of income, there is great risk involved in writing under my own name with a picture of my real face.

So I write anonymously. The fact is that we all have to find a way to make our bread, and for my entire time as a writer thus far, I have always had to depend on others to pay me money for my (fairly significant) skills, expertise, and knowledge so that I might survive.

Nonetheless, the truth will not bend and does not care what you think of it. If you must be offensive in order to seek out and relay the truth, so be it.

Never forget that about two thousand years ago, a certain man walked around telling the Truth to all those who had ears to hear it. He was so offensive to the established order that the Establishment ordered that He be arrested, imprisoned, beaten, scourged, paraded in front of His followers bleeding and torn, and finally crucified.

And yet, His truth is still marching on, to this very day.

In no way do I compare myself to Him. He died for the sins of Man – I just write a dinky little not-very-widely-read blog. But I hope that the practicing Christians among you will forgive what seems at first glance to be a facile comparison, and understand the broader point.

4. If You Write It, They Will Read It

As I hinted above, any blogger who starts out expecting to write for an audience of thousands, with half a million page-views a year, within a few months is very likely to be deeply disappointed. Very, very few people have that kind of skill. It takes years of hard work to hone one’s craft to that point.

Most blogs are lucky to have twenty regular readers and a few thousand page-views a month. That’s just how it is.

Moreover, in order to be a good writer, one must have interesting things to write about. And that in turn means that one must seek to cultivate an interesting life.

Some men do this by adopting the “digital nomad” lifestyle, wherein they express their creative talents through carefully selected Instagram pictures that lead their fans to believe that it is possible to live a carefree and happy existence sipping beers on a beach in Thailand while working only an hour or two a day.

I am no great fan of such a lifestyle, and neither are most men who have thought through the implications of it. As Simon Black, founder and CEO of SovereignMan.com, notes – those who adopt such a lifestyle do indeed live the dream, but they do so by sacrificing years of their lives that other men spend slowly building up a carefully accumulated hoard of skills, knowledge, assets, and wealth by learning from those who are better than they are.

And, let’s face facts, after a while one runs out of things to say about sitting on a beach.

The true Modern Man does not waste his time and energy on trivial hedonistic pursuits, beyond a certain point. Instead, he spends and invests that energy on skills, pursuits, hobbies, and interests that make him a more interesting, well-rounded, capable, and simply masculine man.

When you start writing from the perspective of a man actively trying to improve and beautify his life, trying to become both a better man and better at being a man, then you create a virtuous cycle of philosophical exploration, critical self-analysis, and wisdom that builds upon itself.

And when you start relating your misadventures, mistakes, and lessons learned to other men (and women), with a critical eye toward your own work, then you will inevitably build your own audience.

Don’t worry about building an audience straight out of the gates. That will happen in time. Focus instead on finding your own voice, your own niche, and build on that.

Speaking of mistakes, by the way…

5. Own Up To Your Mistakes

This is critically important. If you are a self-important stuck-up jackass who can never admit to being wrong about anything, sooner or later you will be catastrophically wrong about something – and you will get caught, because most things on them thar innarwebz are forever.

Someone can always go back through your posts, images, Tweets, whatever, and find something stupid that you said which was subsequently completely contradicted by the facts.

If this happens, be man enough to admit it openly and publicly.

Again, if you look at my early writing and philosophy, you will find a markedly different point of view and voice than the one you see and hear now. And that is because I have, indeed, been quite badly wrong about a number of subjects.

For instance, I used to call myself a libertarian, because I thought that the libertarian philosophy of free markets and free people worked in real life. It doesn’t. The reality is that the libertarian approach only works in a culture that is compatible with it, and only when there are institutions already in place to support a libertarian approach to self-regulation. Without those things, libertarianism quickly becomes libertoonianism.

My biggest mistake in my entire life was to embrace atheism as a teenager and repudiate God. I slapped His Hand away at precisely the time when I should have held it tightly, and I have been paying the price ever since.

Another, somewhat lesser but still pretty dumb, mistake is the fact that I continue to write pretty much for free. I don’t sell any products here – not yet, anyway – and don’t promote any particular lifestyle for money. I don’t do affiliate marketing, copy-writing, sales pitches, or courses of any kind. And yet, if you look through the archives of my blog, you will find a huge amount of accumulated knowledge, wisdom, and experience gleaned from what were sometimes some extremely harsh lessons at the hands of a very hard and uncaring world.

Yeah, let’s just say that I’m not always all that good at following my own advice…

6. It’s Good to be a Stubborn Asshole

Most people would argue that pigheadedness is a vice, not a virtue. And certainly, that is true in cases when you simply fail to learn from your previous mistakes and keep doing the same thing over and over again.

Yet there is a lot to be said for stubborn people.

Our defining characteristic is our refusal to give up. We keep striving, pushing forward, trying harder, to achieve whatever it is we have set our sights upon.

Writing is an excellent occupation, or hobby, for the terminally stubborn. Writing is a tremendously powerful tool and an incredibly valuable skill, and those who have the simple mulishness to stick to that task, more or less inevitably end up getting pretty good at it.

In the process, they usually develop a unique and charismatic “voice” that is interesting, challenging, powerful, and often somewhat intolerant of stupidity – because by definition, those people have put in a lot of hard work to hone their craft and do not have time or patience for idiots.

Such people usually become some sort of asshole.

It is no bad thing, by the way, to be a stubborn asshole. For one thing, stubborn assholes who have become that way through hard work and developed excellence in one particular area are rarely boring.

We are a lot of things, not all of them good. But we are not boring.

And that is why I recommend that people who have something to say and want to write, should simply do so. Don’t bother trying to get rich or be famous – first get good at writing, then worry about monetising your skills.

Here’s to 2,000…

My final word goes to my readers, who have put up with me for all of these years:

Thank you.

I do not write for anyone but myself, obviously. Two thousand posts later, that basic philosophy and guiding motivation has never changed. I write what I write and I don’t really care who I offend, educate, enrage, or enlighten in the process.

Yet, many of the visitors here are regular readers and commenters who have in turn educated and enlightened me.

When I ran into trouble earlier this year after I lost my job, several of you were kind enough to contact me directly and offer to help. Many of you prayed for me and interceded on my behalf with Our Lord, who has seen fit to bless me many times and yet seems intent on making sure that I learn some fairly harsh lessons very thoroughly. I am profoundly grateful for this – more than you can possibly know.

Some of you have sought my help as well in the past, discreetly or overtly, in matters relating to financial assistance or product promotion or book reviews. You know who you are and you know that I am a man of my word and can vouch for that fact. I will continue to do so for as long as you continue to ask for my assistance.

(Admittedly, my assistance is not always of the most timely sort. I’ll be the first to concede that I could do better about responding to reader emails and comments and requests. I do get to them… eventually.)

I write for shits and giggles because posting this stuff on the internet is interesting, educational, and challenging. The effort is rewarded by the feedback and support from my readers – all 5 of them.

So, thanks again, and I hope you continue to stop by, read, comment, and challenge me. And I hope that I continue to provide the kind and quality of writing that you have come to expect and respect over these last 2,000 posts and nearly 6 years.