| Control freak. Patronising. Arrogant. Anal. Over analysing. Stilted. Robotic.
These are all things I get called from time to time. Usually in the context of talking about emotional responses to things, generally after something has happened between me and someone else and I'm trying to understand it. I hate being called these things. Maybe I shouldn't care, but when I'm trying to be as open and understanding as possible, and someone I care about is able to so easily call me something so negative, it sucks. I hate that.
I can understand the control freak thing. It makes sense. I like being in control of myself. I like having options. I like being able to go into situations and pick an outcome that I personally judge is better for me. That's an easy one. It's also wrong.
The explanation for why is a long one. It comes down to one simple thing: I feel like people want shit information. I feel like people WANT to not really know what's going on. I say this because I know what I feel or why I made a specific decision... This is where the over-analytical stuff comes from: When people ask me why I did something, I try to answer as honestly as possible. Often the sheer fact that I present a decision that I came to in a split second as a logical sequence of reactions to stuff I know is what prompts this: People assume that because I'm looking back at what I did unconsciously and enumerating the reasons I can see for why I'd react that way or think what I did, that I'm apply this slow, plodding, constant level of factual thinking to everyday life.
Nothing could be further from the truth... You don't think about gravity when you catch a ball. But if you were to have to explain the process of catching a ball, you'd have to mention how the ball moved due to gravity because it's a fact. It happened. There was gravity. There was a ball. Some people would be able to explain the whole process a lot better than others. Some would be bored by one person's explanation, others would find it a grippingly exciting tale, all elbows and angular momentum.
I try to explain why I did something as honestly as possible. "I felt like X because this is something that I understand." It sounds horribly patronising as a process, because it makes me sound like everything I do is cold and calculated. I hate that assumption. It hurts when people say that I sound like an unemotional robot because I'm able to look at my emotional responses, remember them, live them nearly as strongly all over again, wrench them apart and go "hey, you, why did you feel that? What made you tick?" and then they go and insist that because they can't do the same thing, that my emotions must obviously not be as powerful as theirs...
What bullshit. You know what kinesthesia is? It's the awareness we all have of our body's position and movement. It's a sensory thing: Some people have great kinesthetic senses, some people's are crap - just like some people have better senses of smell or taste than others. Generally, athletes have a better kinesthetic sense than people who are habitually sedentary. This is one of those blindingly obvious facts: People who are more accurately aware of their movements, balance and positioning are better at doing those things. They learn complex physical skills faster, they're better at mirroring other people, etc. My sister has incredible kinesthetic senses, my mother's are crap. All you have to do to see the difference is watch them exercising to a fitness video: My sister will look exactly like any person on the tape, mirroring their actions perfectly; My mother looks nothing like the instructor, half the time she's not even doing the same things or moving her arms in entirely the wrong direction, but she believes that she's doing it just right. Both are incredibly fit, both play ludicrous amounts of very competitive sport. One is just more kinesthetic than the other.
I'd like to coin a term: empathesia. The awareness we all have of our emotional position and movement. Perhaps that's not enough, maybe we need another term to be able to talk about our own awareness of our patterns of thought and the sate of our minds... Cogisthesia? Logothesia? I like the last one. Let's go with that.
Yes, I'm highly kinesthetic. I don't think I'd be able to enjoy the physical sports and hobbies that I do without that sense. You have to be a little bit overboard to really get into martial arts kata from a perfection of form angle. I feel like I'm logothetic too: I can tell you what I'm thinking and why. The problem with that ability is that I can't demonstrate it the way I can the kinesthetic senses, you can't simply think awarely at someone, you have to resort to words and structured sentences in order to successfully get everything across. It's just that words are far too slow! Believe me, I've tried to enumerate stream-of-consciousness style, it is apparently seriously confusing. But because the explanations take so long, comparatively, people assume that this is not something that happens instantly when it's actually going on. "Oh, well I was feeling annoyed at the time because I has this expectation and in the context around that thing it didn't seem that any other option was going to work out well" just doesn't come across as snappy. They can watch you learn a trick you couldn't do 15 minutes ago and will take your talk of throwing your balance one way and bending your elbow earlier absolutely seriously, knowing on some level that you totally didn't think about it that way when you were learning it: You're just applying hindsight to the memory of that movement. But they won't extend the same courtesy to a logothesic, empathesic insight.
You're just a robotic, controlling over-analsyer who is unaware of the full impact of possible emotions. You can't actually be feeling with the intensity that everyone else is. If you were, how would you find the words?
And this is where it comes back to seemingly wanting shit information: You want to know how I felt or why I felt that way? Ask me. I'll tell you. Honestly and without dissembling, just like I could tell you if my arm was above or below my head, it's easy. The hard part is putting that down into words, because it gets meta: I can see myself thinking about how to structure the explanation of that thought, I can see how the words that are floating up relate to what I know about you and how I expect you to hear me... Again, this sounds super analytical, but it's just there, floating up alongside the sentences. "Your hand is facing palm-up" isn't something you have to say out loud for it to be true, it just is, you can feel it. I don't analyse what to feel, or the learning that goes into talking to someone, it's just there. I can follow the chain of logic back if I want to, it's coherent along the things I understand about the world. Maybe that's the odd part. The way that it's all linked up, able to be questioned, explained. Maybe that's not how everyone works. Maybe it's weird to know the basis for an assumption you made. Maybe it's just crazy even knowing that something was an assumption instead of fact. I don't know. People seem to act like it is, which is why I feel they seem to want shit information. | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment   |
| I keep meaning to write about it. It's a highlight of my life so far, something I dreamed about in that "yeah, but it'll never actually happen" sort of way. But I just can't write down how it felt.
Arriving at the awards ceremony early, finding our table, feeling a tad uncomfortable in my new jacket. Starting to talk to other indies at the awards themselves, finding some familiar faces and watching Ed warm up his camera. Realising just how goddamn fucking cool it is that he's here with us. Laughing at Anthony Carboni's jokes, watching people go up on stage, seeing the random groups of people next to us on the show floor all day get revealed as being responsible for this game I loved, that game that rocked. Hearing the design category roll around, wondering what they'd show of our game (it's not that cinematic), basking in the good video they put together, might as well take this as the high point y'know, we're not winning it. OMG we're winning it. Get the fuck up. Stairs? Lights. Don't mess up shaking hands! There's a microphone in front of me and the guys are on either side, I think there's a smile starting, one of those big ones. What did I say in the car? Oh yeah, how we didn't have a speech prepared 'cos, well, Minecraft. It's already rolled out, I think I actually said that. Guys, help me out here! Nandrew leans in and says thanks to us. Thanks to us? Dude, we're here because of you! He cracks a good joke, Messhof better let us play Nidhogg now. Aeq says thanks and rounds it all up because he's awesome like that. Holy crap we're going backstage. There's Tim Shafer! There's Edmund McMillen! There's Tommy Refenes! I'm shaking hands. There are cameras, I think IGN is interviewing us? The smile's really hitting now and I'm starting to shake. We're being herded back to our table, but I kinda just want to stop and hug the guys and say holy shit a lot for a while.
At the table everyone's shaking our hands and going crazy in that special, very quiet way. I grin the grin of being a kid at Ed. I think he really gets it. I'm hardly hearing Anthony now, but everyone's clapping so I clap. Suddenly it's grand prize time, there's a bit of tension as I dare to let that feverish hope catch a little air. Hey, we didn't expect to win anything, why not dream big? Minecraft takes it, I don't feel sad as the hope snuffs out again. Holy shit we've got an IGF award. The IGF segment ends and the GDCA awards begin, I feel like I only know half these games, but some people I follow on twitter are here. The speeches are longer, but people are sneaking over to say congrats. Tim Shafer's funny makes these awards feel really quick, I'm enjoying the laughing. I go crazy when Minecraft wins again, go Notch! Go guys! Suddenly those are over too. Andy shows up first, somehow, and is even more manically happy than we are. I'm so pumped! He and Nandrew disappear and slowly the hall starts emptying, I don't really know where these people are going. Truffle from twitter appears and introduces herself, she loves DD, we love Mass Effect. People know who we are, this is so crazy. It's starting to get a bit empty, maybe we should leave too? I go off to try and find Nandrew, he appears as I'm shaking a startled-looking Tim Shafer's hand. I think those guys are from Rockstar. Too late, we start milling towards the exits.
We get out and have no idea where all these people are going. Adam says hi, Bruce is around here somewhere. Where is everyone going? Oh right, afterparties. We don't have any invites. Someone points out that there's a great big invite made of perspex right there. Heh. As we go up the huge escalators I get a good photo. The first door to the outside opens and I nearly bump into Peter Molyneux, I reflexively say hi before I realise what's going on. He congratulates us on the game and says he's made a note to grab it. We laugh and say he doesn't have to say that. OMG! Peter Molyneux is showing me the piece of paper he made notes on during the show, DD is on there, this is so cool! I get photos with him as his wife waits for us. We congratulate him on the lifetime achievement award, but I mean, he's Peter Molyneux, he knows. Jane McGonigal and Kiyash appear and congratulate us, I finally get to talk to them! There's a tram outside the Moscone Center, it offers us a ride "Sponsored by the Irish Government!" and "Have a drink!" we have a drink. The tram doesn't go anywhere and we decide to get off, Jane and Kiyash have offered to take us to the roof of their building to show us San Francisco, we like this idea more. As we leave the tram bartender pours Nandrew's beer out the window, can't walk around the city with an open beverage.
I finally get the chance to talk to Jane about Evoke. We cover a lot of ground and there's some cool ideas and stuff neither of us knew, but it's not a long walk to their building. The view from the roof is amazing. There's the Bay Bridge, there's Golden Gate, there's the Embarkadero (I don't know what that is), Lombard street is that way, more information and stories about the city. They've done this before. I think I'm wearing a hat. I AM wearing a hat. Jane and Kiyash gracefully kick us out ;) As we're walking to where the Scandinavian party might be we meet some friends, they're going there too. Maybe. I smile at a girl in the crush as her eyes catch mine crossing the busy street, she presses free passes to a stripclub into my hand. I only realise this later, examining why my back pocket has stuff in it. At some point we take a detour to fetch the car and move it closer, dropping the trophy off in the boot.
The party is incredibly full. We meet more people. The guys from Vlambeer are here and making hordes of jokes. They have a plushie! Nandrew and Aeq peel off, led by someone important's girlfriend into the club. Ed and I stand in the queue, wondering if we'll get in. It's starting to get a little cold now. I haven't eaten yet. We run into some more friends from the conference, this is good, people in the line didn't seem to want to talk to anyone, screw the line. Nandrew and Aeq come back out. Yes, Nandrew did get to play Nidhogg. Mission accomplished. Suddenly everyone's hungry. Ed finds a restaurant on his phone's google maps. We walk there through construction sites and over odd half-build bridges. The burgers are good, the fries are curly and I'm so incredibly thirsty. People start calling as we're in the restaurant, I think I managed to speak to my parents. They watched the stream live. I cry when I tell them we won. There's a lot of happy at our table and 3 other people in the whole place. I think it's 1am. Maybe it's later, I can't remember. We head back to the car and try to find Derek Yu's house somewhere in the really hilly bits of SF. There's absolutely no parking anywhere near the corner the house is supposedly on, we can't hear any party noises, so we circle a few times and then give up. It's getting really late now.
I manage not to fall asleep on the way back to my aunt and uncle's. The drive takes an hour and we miss our turnoff, Ed's phone saves the day again while Aeq and Nandrew sleep in the back.
...
The smile's hitting again. I'm going to remember this for a long time. Hopefully I can write about it properly soon. It feels like there are some big parts missing from that, I don't know if we went to another party or not. I'm not sure who kept telling us where to go, because we had no idea where any of these events were. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Security: | | | Subject: | awkward | | Time: | 01:48 am |
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| Hello there LJ. I should probably post about the epic trip to the US, winning an IGF award (yay!) or being utterly broke in a month. But well, you're not FOR those things anymore, you're still the place I come when I need to type something up just to get it out of my head so I can look at it the next morning, poke it and redigest whatever possible bile was driving me so that I'm a nice person again.
At least, that's what you're for at this very moment. We'll see about tomorrow morning. Or the day after.
So...
I just had the most awkward social evening of my life. Well. The most awkward evening in a while. Actually, the evening was pretty good, it's just that some of the people I was with were rather socially off-putting. I don't really know how else to describe it.
Let me try to explain how it went: Had just seen a movie I'd really enjoyed with a bunch of friends, some that I know very well indeed and some that have joined in on our evenings out for a few months now, but I don't know too well. The movie ends and all the people I don't actually live with turn around (sitting in front of us, late to the ticket counter) and start slagging off the movie. I'm still in that glow period, enjoying what I've seen and stitching it all up in my mind. Red Riding Hood. Maybe you had to grow up with German folklore to really get it.
Now, people can totally have their own opinions, I'm cool with that. But it suddenly hits me that these people are trying to score points against the movie to impress ME. This is borne out by the total change in tone once I and some of my closer friends express positive feelings about the movie. There's sort of an impasse that gets reached where we're all talking in a circle and half the comments are funny (I'm going to go ahead and say that's "us") and the rest are just plain weird ("them"). See, I'm already polarising here, but this is exactly what I'm trying to get at: The polarising nature of how the evening went down.
In the end, there was this palpable feeling of "us" building a funny, ridiculous tale out of the things people were saying, literally countering negativity by building up grandmothers to make them epic wolf-nad-stealing bad-asses, not lowering or ripping off anything. Simply building an entertaining situational inversion. People were laughing. Thankfully laughing too hard to say much. That's a good thing.
The thing is, I don't think I'm expressing how much the perceived negativity that these people brought with them to the evening actually affected me. Sure, I'm probably overly sensitive to social negativity loops, given how much they've impacted me and my friends in the past. But I really did feel an alarming similarity here, except it wasn't as malignant, more like just benign negativity for the sake of trying to impress each other - nothing directed against other people on purpose. Sort of a runaway feedback loop of people laughing at the sorts of jokes that get "oh snap" responses from morons online. Uncrafted humor.
... Jesus I'm a dick.
So. That leaves me in an odd position. I don't want to be around that sort of pattern, it's not nice and I can see how some of the people that used to be regulars at these evenings are drifting away due to the negative need-to-impress loop. I can see the signs though, so does that mean I need to be a little stronger and try to break the loop? Sort of patronisingly assume the unasked-for mantle of the guy that quietly gets each particular loopee over their own particular social hurdles? Do I even have the energy for that?
On the other hand, do I even want to bother? I mean, should I be spending my time investing in people who aren't going to grow my social environment... Damn that sounds mercenary, but there it is. I like people that introduce me to cool new ideas and cool new people. I like people that challenge me with new humor, thoughts or concepts. Maybe that means I'm getting to be more of an asshole as I get older, but I'm finding it hard to really come up with the interest to want to find out how these socially difficult people each have their own awesome points.
Pot. Kettle. Black... Probably. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Today (well, yesterday - the 3rd) has been totally amazing.
I slept in after seeing my family off on their drive back to PTA last night (man I love living in Cape Town) and I can seriously sleep in.
Cleaned around the house for a bit, set up the new microwave/convection oven I got for christmas (don't I sound wonderfully domesticated), realised the best way to inaugurate it would be cookies. Off to the shops.
Dammit and Chippit arrived (yes, those are people) while we were out, rushed back to meet them. They're staying here for a few days while Chippit's here on holiday. Good seeing both of them and they're being really cute together. Dammit's just moved to CT for her honors at UCT and came bearing hand-made plushie companion cubes for Marc and I!
COMPANION CUBE!
We arbed about, Bryan arrived and the arbing turned into testing a boardgame Chippit's been working on. Spot the game developers ;)
Sounds of SMSes attack the house and Marc goes off to ivestigate. Returns saying Nandrew says we need to SKYPE RIGHT NOW and something about IGF.
IGF?
Independant Games Festival. We entered Desktop Dungeons in it last year October.
We're finalists in 2 categories: Excellence in Design and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. It's still sinking in. Right now. Holy shit. We're IGF finalists. We all call our parents.
Phones go crazy as the news spreads and hits the net, we tweet, reply, post and generally rabble-rouse. We decide to go celebrate and have dinner in Long street. Royale doesn't disappoint - Kyle and Katie join us and go crazy too and get why I'm a bit teary-eyed when I think about it too much.
Get home to hordes more tweets and congratulations and discussion and talking with friends and playing games. This is the best holiday ever.
We're IGF finalists. We get to go to the GDC. We have to fly to the US and meet idols and talk and be awesome. Oh hi there validation, you're pretty damn cathartic today, you know that? :) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Security: | | | Subject: | iceberg | | Time: | 04:16 am |
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| You've been on my mind recently.
Exactly why, I don't know. You've just been there, popping up on the edge of thought or emotion. I haven't dreamt of you yet. Haven't had that gut-wrenching snap back to reality as I wake up and your breathing turns into nothing but my arm over the pillow that has to be next to me before I can fall asleep. Perhaps that's why I'm writing this out now, squinting at the screen through glasses that I hate instead of lying in bed with you in my thoughts. An iceberg I need to navigate around.
Don't get me wrong, it's not unpleasant remembering us, it's just... Odd. Disorienting. After so long, longer than we were together, I'm sort of over the old tortuously romantic idea that I'd had my love and it was done and that would be enough for one lifetime. Maybe that's why this is happening - I'm not sure if I'm falling, actually falling, for someone or not. Maybe it's because she's been saying things about her own recent love that I find achingly familiar, things that I don't think I could tread all over with my own clumsy advances...
So to deal with deciding to place myself firmly in the friend zone, I think of you. I remind myself of how the one person I wanted to care above all else, found me wanting in the end. Don't worry, that old line doesn't hurt, it's too worn out now. Too blunted by the truths that I've picked up over the years. For instance, I don't think you'd have stood by me as I blundered about, figuring out my way through starting a company and getting my head around being OK with doing what I really wanted to do. You'd have been too impatient, too judgmental of my meager results. I think ;)
Even what I just wrote might be self defense. See, I'm suddenly interesting without trying to be. I find myself picked up in the sheer joy of creating an idea as fast as I can talk it out and having that be good. Great, even. That's both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. So I shy away and when I do, the strangest things come tumbling up to fill the gaps: Your laugh, lots of your laugh; Skin like coffee with too much milk in it; A belly button; Shortening my stride; Little purple flowers and a smile and disbelief; But above all, this happiness. A glorious happiness that was so easy to sacrifice for.
Why are you in my thoughts? Why now? What do I want from you, your memory or the parts of myself that I buried to survive you? Maybe I just want all of myself back again, like I feel as though it's important that I don't have any holes anymore. Maybe you're just memories now, coming up for air with the rest of it all as I rebuild - or maybe you're just shadows flickering as my perspective shifts and I help someone else through the pain of realising friends aren't always true.
Whatever you are to me right now, I miss. Yeah, I miss you. There, that's the wrenching feeling. Iceberg avoided, I hope. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I'm spending a week at my parents' place in PTA. Came up on whim for my sister's birthday, here till thursday... I can feel that this is where I did a lot of sculpting of myself, it's almost as though there's an overlay on top of everything that carried the feelings and echoes of who I was then.
These are roads that I ran down with Miktar, late for a movie. There's where that bus hit me. I fell for Illona on that otherwise unassuming patch of dusty roadside student parking. Over there's where I first realised how afraid I was becoming of school - scraping my arm against a wall to fake a bike accident. The tree that tore my Quake poster. Walking to the library. Swimming until your toes bleed. They all sort of jumble on top of each other, young me looking up from a book at the same time as an older me jogs past, pushing a car.
But there's one feeling that permeates all of it: As I look back and around and through my own thoughts, I feel a loneliness here. I know that this is why I had to move away, but I couldn't identify it then, having had it grow stealthily until it nearly smothered all the things I had yet to do. There's comfort, my family is finally all in one spot again, but it's a strangling warmth at the same time. All the teen friends aren't here to be familiar with.
New friends, twenties friends, yes. They're great. I've missed them and I'm going to go out over the next few days and enjoy their time like never before because it'll be that much more limited. But nobody here grew up with me. Nobody else sees shadows of the overlays that I feel here, nobody else whose shadows I see is here to lend them colour. To flesh them out.
I feel as though I couldn't grow here anymore. Frustration was growing instead, that's why I moved. To new spaces that are still somehow familiar, but ones that don't have echoes of me all over them. Places that I can go and fall in love in, discover new jokes with, learn new skills exploring. I'm glad I moved.
I'm glad I grew up here too. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Inception started today in SA, finally. Just seen it, but let's rewind a bit to go over why today turned out epic...
Woke up super early to get to UCT in time for the practical that went along with my lecture yesterday. Marc and Rodain came along to help out the students with GM, just like we do at DevLANs. UCT admin screwed up pretty badly (I'm really getting frustrated with the CS faculty there, maybe it's just their game development stream, but nobody seems to take anything seriously) and ended up not having GM properly installed on the machines that the students were supposed to use. Blah... Dodged politics and simply fixed stuff - which I think took everyone by surprise. The students ended up saving the whole thing: They seemed to get a kick out of making something they could play. We'll see how next week's prac goes, hopefully they'll be doing cooler stuff (and we'll have kicked the admin types into a semblance of a shape that doesn't look like a pear).
Felt pretty tired the rest of the day - two early mornings preceded by Starcraft-2-inspired late nights in a row AND yesterday's last-minute Geekdinner attendance really took it out of me. Sleep is going to be amazing this weekend. Fuck yeah... Anyway, normal workday, forced myself to keep going despite really wanting to veg out and nap.
Met Bryan, Steve and a bunch of their friends at Spur in CW prior to the movie, much laughings. On the way in from the roof parking we noticed that one of the access ladders to the roof over the mall's arched sections was missing a padlock... Inception.
During the meal the idea just sat there. During the movie I was too busy getting brain blowjobs to care. (Seriously, that's all I'm saying about the film - no spoilers here - I will be seeing it again and it'll still be glorious) After the movie and the obligatory messing with Marc - who had been out of it all day due to possible illness (I got a whole bunch of strangers to stare at him as he came out of the cinema... Watch the film) - the idea had taken hold. We had to climb the roof.
The access-ladder led to the top of the arched roof, which then had another ladder up to the top of one of the glass domes covering the light-wells where the escalators are inside. The domes have little gazebos on their crowns that have huge spotlights shining up from inside them. I now know that these gazebos don't have strictly solid floors :)
That was a lot of fun. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Security: | | | Subject: | karabou | | Time: | 01:30 am |
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| Just got back from watching the Germany v Spain game with my family from the US at Karabou (at least, I think that's what it was called) in the V&A. It's been nice actually meeting and hanging out with my aunt and cousins for the last couple of weeks. We seem to get on pretty well, they would have to share the Day sense of humor to survive my uncle, after all ;)
Hoping to have the cousins come round to our place to chill this weekend before the whole world cup final thing. That'd be cool. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Me? I'm looking for a girl who can debate anything from climate change to religion to the origins of consciousness. A girl that can kiss entire sentences. A girl that can learn anything in 15 minutes. A girl who makes walking hand in hand feel like dancing. A girl with a muse inside of her that just needs to get out. A girl for whom a smile is simultaneously everything and a good start. A girl of the senses from common to hedonistic. A girl whose mind and body are beautifully focused on living. A girl that doesn't need completion or competition.
This used to be part of my dating site profile but it has nowhere to live now, so I put it here. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Saw Up in the Air earlier today... One of the things the movie makes me think about is what it is you're doing with your life (which I think is one of the core points of the film) and... Well. Wow.
Little things, like looking at a game company's website and mentally comparing that to QCF's current site that I hacked together at the point of maximum frustration. It just drives home the sheer scale of what it is that I'm trying to do. I'm trying to build a game company with basically just sheer effort.
I can look back on the posts in this journal and pretty much track the crazy fucking optimism that I take for granted every day. I read what I wrote 5 years ago and I remember that I was certain things were just around the corner. I was sure that I just had to work that little bit harder, put in a few more weeks and it'd be on to the next step.
Exactly what that next step was, I don't think I really had any idea. I know that some measure of financial security was part of it. But I think I've probably hit some of the elements that I know I cared about then, creative agency is a big one. And we sorta managed to hit that at the end of last year... Actually, looking back, everything I've done for cash has sort of been on this gradient of more and more creative input from my part. At least, that's how I view it. I think this is the biggest possible expression of that: I'm making something entirely unbidden and trusting my financial future to it. I wonder what that means about my personality?
I don't think that I'd really have believed anyone who had said "Hey, you'll have your own company in 5 years time, you'll be funding your own game for a year and you still won't have any fucking clue what you're doing." It's not like I expected any sort of enlightening experience, but the idea of 5 years of effort going into where I am now? Maybe I'd have taken a desk job. Maybe.
... No I wouldn't. I'd still be trying, heck, I still AM trying. I think that's the only thing I really know how to do when sort of completely out of my depth. Try. I think that if I poke too hard at my wonderfully irrational hopes for success, I'll actually break myself before I break them. That's a scary thought... I hope therefor I am.
After all, if I didn't have the hope that DD would go big, I could have spent this year flying around the globe. QCF had the cash, Marc and I could have done it, gone traveling anywhere either of us wanted and in the end, teamed up again and done some more software development contracts. Worked the normal way again.
Thinking about it, I don't think I'd have enjoyed that year all that much. Sure, it'd have started out fun, but I'd have gradually gotten the feeling that I didn't have an idea on how to make the future better for myself: I'd be resigning the year after that to doing work I didn't want to do. I'd be systematically killing my own hope, because I'd know that when the travel stopped, I wouldn't have a better base to build on. That's really alien to me.
So. I hope I get out of this funk soon. Sometimes reading your old LJ posts is good. Just don't go back over everything to the point where you feel how stupid you used to be on top of how lonely you are now. That's the part I'm going to have to remember to avoid, next time ;) | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
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