Happy birthday to me and my blog! We’re both turning a year older this month.
And while my age will just be a rather mundane number, my blog is again hitting a significant shift: it turns two years old.
What are the marks of this age? Let’s check.
By the age of 2, your toddler is talking, walking, climbing, jumping, running and bustling with energy. Your child now has a growing vocabulary and acquires new words on a regular basis. They can sort shapes and colours and may even show an interest in potty training.
-Unicef.org
Well, I think I can at least account for the climbing! Here’s a snapshot of my website traffic over the past 12 months.
I’m definitely proud of the increase. It’s been a lot of hard work and a lot of continuous, non-stop, do-it-even-when-i-don’t-wanna writing.
Speaking of writing, since the start of 2025, I’ve written about 35,000 words here. That’s like half a book. And if we’re counting since the very beginning… the number is over 300,000. Wow!
I published my first article in April of 2023. Since that date, I’ve published a total of 273 posts. They’re not all in-depth guides, some are just updates about my life here, but still… I’m closing in on that 300 mark (not that… that was ever a goal… it’s just a big number).
Of those articles, there are some that have BY FAR become the most popular. Aside from my Fluid Condenser series, these are the top three articles on my website:
I’m always excited to look back and see what people are clicking on the most. And I find it really interesting that Alchemy has made it up the ranks.
As far as my YouTube channel goes, I’ve uploaded a total of 195 videos. And last time I checked, there are 21 episodes of M3. I’ve started my third season! And if you wanted to watch all of it, it’d basically take you a full 24 hours of straight binging.
I can’t really explain why — and honestly, it’s probably the worst production of anything I’ve ever made, but my Steel Tongue Drums video is still at the top of my YouTube charts. Folks are also still watching my videos on Singing Bowls and Agatha All Along.
I have to say that I put a lot of time and effort into my longform video content. By contrast, I usually put very minimal effort into the short videos that go up on my channel. Naturally, the shorts get way more views (like thousands… thousands more) and the two top-ranking ones are both of our cat, Loki — one where he chases a squirrel… and one where he hides in a box. Thus, I have discovered through trial and error that educational and magickal content is a very unsuccessful niche when compared to silly cat videos — but I keep working at it anyway. And honestly, we all know that silly cat videos will always win.
Selene and I have been to a ton of festivals this year, so you’ve seen a lot of recaps… including…
Throughout all of this time, I have designed, re-designed, and re-re-designed this website. I hope you like the way things are going.
And in terms of other pretty cool things that have happened this past year… I mean, in addition to all the blog writing, I did finish an entire book. Hopefully at least by next year’s recap, I’ll be able to tell you how to physically get a copy.
Another thing I’ve really enjoyed is occasionally getting messages from random folks thanking me for writing a particular article. It might seem weird, but it’s meaningful to know that something I’ve written has been of use to a random stranger on the internet.
I said this last year and I’ll say it again: I very much appreciate anyone who has taken an interest in what I create — listening to my music, watching my videos, or reading my writing… and people who have express that interest by subscribing to my mailing list, following on social media, or even supporting me on Patreon. My ongoing goal is to have raised enough support funding to cover the expenses of things like hosting this website (websites are expensive, man) or some of the software I use for interviews. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m sure I’ll get there soon! And I also very much appreciate my wife, who both puts up with me and supports me doing all of these crazy projects all the time.
You’ll never understand how many new ideas are constantly popping into my head. It’s a lot! And I want to do all of them. So… there’s more content coming soon… and if you want to stay up to date with the latest, just go follow me somewhere.
Aerik Arkadian 
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