Hello Mathchan. I'm not in math or anybody important, so I've found it basically impossible to communicate my ideas, but attached is a pdf outlining an idea for a proof of the Collatz conjecture I came up with about a year ago. The proof is based on a paper by Mandelbrot:
https://users.math.yale.edu/mandelbrot/web_pdfs/136multifractal.pdf

I can't attest if it's correct or not, but really I'm just posting this because I wanted it archived so that maybe some day someone will find value in it. Also you can do whatever you want with it, rewrite it or whatever.