The days have started to bleed together in a fragile, viscous sludge, of mottled greys and other pallid hues. I was actually able to get some work done today despite this, but by evening, I was already well down the spiral of a fatal funnel of feckless, frustrated dejectedness, and as the night progressed I only found myself becoming further and further seized by that awful despair. I don’t understand how things can turn around so quickly. I’m pretty sure just last week at this time, I was terribly optimistic and full of inspiration about the possibility that I could turn things around. Where did all that go, that it feels little more now than a receding, distant memory? And further, what hope do I have at all then if I am so easily defeated by even the most trivial of setbacks? Everything I’ve experienced these past few years has just confirmed, again and again, in increasingly obvious ways, that my interiority has been reduced to a flimsy, tattered scrim. Nothing catches that holds. I don’t feel like I’m able to actualise anything. I don’t feel like I am capable of anything. What remaining talents I do still possess are not really mine, but vestiges of an earlier self who still believed in things and wanted things and expected more of this life. But I can’t do anything with any of that. I can’t do anything at all.
Pentecost. That old familiar sadness has seeped back into my life. I had another nightmare about Ana last night and woke up confused and disoriented and covered in a cold damp sheen of sweat. I haven’t been sleeping well these past few days on account of the heat and I can’t tell whether it was the heat that’s to blame for precipitating this precipitous decline in my mood and thus plaguing my already restless sleep with these feelings or if something inside me had already sufficiently slipped without me noticing and it was the heat that simply created the conditions through which these things were finally able to take full purchase. I am haunted by a pervasive shroud of worthlessness. Why is it that this feels like my baseline state, and not instead the near-obstreperous joy and amazement I felt so sure of just days ago? Someone told me recently that it’s not that my setbacks are particularly severe, only that I have experienced them particularly severely. It’s begun to dawn upon me lately how shallow my sadness really is. This is the thing I hate the most about myself.
It rained throughout the day, and it’s now once again cool, almost cold. I’ve been smoking more again recently. Martin and I get on calls and we walk somewhere and sit down next to each other across that thin virtual thread and we smoke. Months-old packs from winter of last year that I bought with the intention to finish with Ana only to find out not just once but then in the mornings and then in the evenings and then at night and then seemingly every goddamned time I would ask, when I still cared enough to ask, that she apparently just didn’t want to do it anymore, at least not with me. I don’t believe in metaphors anymore. I have been thinking of ending things with Ada soon. It’s not that I don’t believe in metaphors anymore. It’s just that it’s exactly like everyone says. There’s nothing wrong with me except me.
Stumbled around Brooklyn till 5am, then passed out until the afternoon as soon as I got home. It cooled down significantly today after some rainfall this morning, so it was fortunately much easier to not only fall asleep, but stay asleep. Haven’t worked in a few days, although I have been keeping pretty disciplined with the haikus (at least relative to any other kind of output recently). I’d like to get back to it next week. Should start simple and concrete: I think the worm powder fabrication process would be a good place to start.
We’ve now reached the point of the year where it’s quite suddenly become very hot and rather humid. I’ve been trying to force myself to work on my portfolio these past few days. Today was not so good: I ended up falling into a spiral of despair after becoming fixated on the possibility that I had no chance. I was able to shake myself out of it eventually, which I think is good progress in the larger scheme, as usually I just fall into states of irresolute anger which persist for several days afterwards, and end up tanking my motivation completely. That I was able to recognise for myself that I had begun slipping and not only terminate that thought before it seized me completely, but reverse it, I feel, is a significant improvement from before.
Got back from Salem last night. I had a very good time there. I did not expect to feel this way, but it made me feel a lot better about myself, at least for a bit untiL I woke up today. It made me realise just how isolated I’ve been, both from a greater sense of community, and my own feelings about my work. There was a time, before I learned shame, when things genuinely excited me and the work felt not just purposeful but inspired, and inspiring. I think when I first met Ana, it was what drew her to me, and me to her: a tide of unfettered will and vivacity, an intense curiosity about things and a sense of determined grace. I was so happy back then. For the first time in my adult life, I felt like I had people around me who understood me, who saw the value in my work, in my values. There was neither pride nor pretence yet. The work mattered to me, and was dignified. I felt real in a very real and unabashed way.
This place that has kept me alive for so long is also killing me in a different way. Slower, subtler, more certain. I’m sure of this now. People have been telling me this for years but I’ve always been too scared, too ashamed of my own inaction and complacency to admit that they’re right. I am decaying in this place, and most days, it no longer feels much like a home but a cell. If Tawanda wasn’t around, I don’t know what I would do. I have finally begun to feel the nascence of growth, I think. The emergent possibility that I not only must but can outgrow this if I want to have any chance of living a life worth living. I miss Ana terribly. I have no choice but to relearn everything.
I got a little bit of writing done today, and spent some time in-engine editing old code. It’s not much, but at this point, I feel like I have to take every bit of progress as a minor triumph against the tide of my despair and inertia. Tawanda and I are going away for the weekend to a poetry conference. I hope I’ll be able to convince him to write with me a bit. It looks like it’s going to rain all throughout the weekend, but we’ll be by the sea.
I’ve been really troubled as of late. More so than usual, at least. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Constantly agitated, both emotionally and physically. Some days I just wake up and crumble into pieces. Despondent. I was struck today by the sudden desire to start writing again. Maybe I’ve just been spending too much time with Tawanda. I seem to be pathologically incapable of self-improvement.
Heavy rain. Spent the workday continuing to fix bugs and clean up old code. The game now seems to launch and run without any issues once again. I need to start looking at some pretty extensive optimisations soon though; performance on the workstation is shockingly poor. Part of it is definitely a limitation with the hardware itself, which was an intentional choice when I purchased it; but I was not prepared for it to be this poor. After some cursory observations with the profiler I’ve determined that a massive source of the slowdown is the amount of draw calls the game is making per frame, which is obviously problematic as it’s simultaneously a core function of the game, and I know very little about how to go about resolving it.
I spent the majority of the day cleaning my room and re-organising my desk. I fixed some crashes in the project file in the evening. The weather has been exceedingly pleasant these past few days. I’ve been feeling disconnected from my own feelings. These are troubling times. I think I need to start exercising again soon.
Finally settled back home. Attended a tea event at the church for Mother’s Day. I purchased a plant. I’m not sure what it is, but it looked pleasant and the decision to acquire one came to me suddenly and clearly while I was washing a plate. I think it needs to be placed outside.
I’ve finally managed to retrieve my old plot drafts. They are much more detailed than I remember. I’ll go over them this week and see what I can salvage. It’s looking pretty optimistic, for once.
Finally succumbed to the marketing and tried out Obsidian and, unfortunate to admit, it’s been pretty nice so far. Just having the ability to live-preview rendered Markdown files with proper indentation and ordered listing a significant upgrade to the Sublime Text experience. I don’t for a second buy any of this “second brain” bullshit I keep seeing promo’d everywhere (and which completely turned me off of it until now), but I can certainly see myself getting good value out of its ability to easily handle and display several nested folders’ worth of offline Markdown files, while retaining my ability to manage my own version control externally. I plan on trialling it for another week and if I don’t run into any issues, I think I will transfer the bulk of my documentation over to it.
Otherwise, the usual.
Got some writing done tonight. Revisited Estelle’s plot. I somehow seem to have lost my drafts for all the others. I have a suspicion they’re saved on my old laptop, to which I no longer have access for the time being… maybe it’s for the best, though. Needed some time away to gain perspective. There’s enough content here to work off of in terms of constructing a tangible slice. Very few new mechanics or interfaces involved. Something to start with…
Over the past several weeks I have become very acutely, increasingly convinced, and afraid, that hell is real and that every day I am on the verge of making a decision that will irreversibly precipitate me right into its annihilation. I’m just not cut out for this, I think. All this. I still struggle to justify it intellectually but something’s changed on the level of my soul, I think, that I cannot comprehend but whose shadow is palpable and undeniable. I feel like I am constantly on the verge of breaking. Less than zero. Nearly every interaction feels like an agitation, a pretext to judgement. It is no longer the atrocity within me that I fear others will sense but the inadequacy. Like my father said. Useless eater. Hell is real, I am certain of it. There are moments when I feel like I am burning from the inside. Like God has cast his eye upon me directly. But I am not being cleansed. There is no purification and what is burning away is just me.
Spent the day rearranging my monitors, and packing. Having trouble falling asleep; I don’t know why, but I’ve always found it difficult to sleep the night before a flight. At least on the way out. I just want to get this over with. I need to remember to change the water in the plant before I go.
Collated a bunch of weather data across a 60-day period for use for reference in Avery’s logs, and as raw input for the weather engine. I need to revisit the plot again some time soon. After some debate I’ve decided that I’ll be bringing my computer after all. Frankly I’ll count myself lucky if I even have the chance to open it a single time for more than five minutes, but just in case. Maybe I’ll be able to get some writing done.
I pushed my first commit in nearly two months earlier this evening. The day’s work was slow, but steady and untaxing. I feel terribly lonely. When I wake up, there’s no one there to greet. The daylight rises and falls with little notice. My nights are passed in silence. But for once, I’m getting things done. Maybe this is the way I’m meant to live, at the end of it. I fear I am not enough to fill this space on my own.
I’ve been trying a bit, day by day, to get back to work. Every day I try to sit down for at least twenty minutes, choose one set of assets or scripts, and go through the code, updating any relevant sections to standard with the new naming scheme. It’s slow, fatiguing work, especially since my ability to keep several things in focus has nearly completely eroded with disuse and confusion. I haven’t tested if the game runs a single time throughout the process, which I know I should be doing’ but I also know for sure that I don’t have the capacity to deal with the work or cognitive burden of troubleshooting at the moment. It’s helped me reacquaint myself with various systems I had designed years ago that I’d either forgotten in terms of function, or even altogether in a few cases. I’ve stopped going out as much. I feel a little bit less trapped in the designs of the past.
I’ve been feeling a stymied motivation to work on the game recently. I think it is in part due to my steady regression into a state of terrible despair, not all too different from the one in which the work was born. I guess this is how my life has gone: cycles of brief hope followed by long stretches of the same precipitous, violent loneliness that has defined The Way Things Are as long as I’ve been aware. Every time I come away from it thinking for a moment that maybe if I had tried a bit more, or slightly differently, or was slightly different, or more capable, or less of me, than maybe things could have been better, could get better. But I think that that’s just some shit I tell myself because I am too inert and stuck in my ways to change or end my life otherwise, and after all, hope is the baseline state I think, the last vestige of divinity present within us after all these years. I cannot convince myself though in the hours I have been living. I cannot convince myself I am anything but less than zero, or that I deserve anything more. Last night I had a nightmare that I had buried myself alive. No matter how much people try to tell me otherwise I just do not believe. I cannot. It is because of this, I think, that I am doomed.
It’s gotten a lot warmer and brighter lately, since I got back. More people outside. Spring is the loneliest stretch of the year. I’m terribly tired all the time, and I can feel myself growing increasingly angry and prone to spasms of vicious, primitive sadness. There’s this hole in my soul that just won’t go away. Once you start, you can’t stop. Days pass by. They just keep on going. They just keep on going.
Christ in the tomb. A free-floating sense of nauseous uncertainty. I am stuck in a loop of self-condemnation: “I feel worthless so I don’t try anything so I am worthless”. I don’t know how to get out of this. Slave to aetiology. Clarity has never helped: what good is it to be able to see the grooves and indentations on the bullet that is hurtling towards you, know its exact caliber and exit velocity and angle of trajectory, when you do not have the ability to move out of its way? It made impact long ago yet my nerves are only just now beginning to catch up, even as it tears a pathway in slow-motion through my life. I don’t know how to describe the sadness. How do I get better? It feels impossible to imagine a future for myself. How can I be fixed? I cannot change, and I seem unable to learn. There have been times in my life where I was so convinced that I was able to get better but every one of them ended in failure. I squandered my opportunities, each and every one. Because of what I am, and what I am not. I think I am doomed. I don’t know what to do or how to live with that.
Haven’t gone to service in over two months. I get the sense that I’m devolving somehow.
It was warm and humid and grey, and the bare branches swirled outside my window with the nascence of a summer breeze. I feel like I’m becoming sick with sadness. It poisons my thoughts with clouds of resentment and doubt and deadens my limbs with dreadful torpor. I need to get something done by the end of this weekend, or I fear there may be terrible repercussions upon my wellbeing.
Another week has passed with little to show for any of it. I’m barely cognisant most days. The burst of energy and motivation I had the other week feels completely alien now. I can barely remember what it felt like or what inspired it. I’m beginning to consider the possibility that I will never really return to a place where I can make games in an inspired or meaningful way.
I spent this morning trying to get some writing done, but it just wasn’t really coming to me for some reason. Managed to get maybe three paragraphs in before feeling completely empty. The nascence of coherence teeming just beneath the surface but unable to crystallise. It makes me quite sad.
Fundraising dinner this evening at the church. It was a nice time. First time I’ve been around a number of people in a while. I’ve been struggling a lot lately. Terribly sad, and more often than not, emptier than I thought a person could be. It’s really hard to write about anything because it’s really hard to think about anything. Despite everyone, I feel quite alone in the world.
I’ve just been playing AC Shadows the past couple of days, which is why I haven’t written much. It’s a beautiful game, vast and assured in its emptiness. It reminds me of these nightmares I had when I was a kid, where I’d be watching my father drive away every Saturday in his Civic, the weekly grocery trips, and I’d be sitting there in the family room that’s now my grandfather’s room playing with my Legos peacefully in the corner until after I while I’d realise that they left me behind and I’m the only one in my house, and then the only one in my neighbourhood, and then the only one in the whole wide world. And there’s nothing else to it, probably; any of this, I mean to say. My father sold the Civic to a guy on Craigslist, I think, one rainy day when I was a teenager, maybe. I feel pretty inert, and my sleep schedule has been rather poor too. The days pass quickly and with little commotion.
I’ve been struggling to find the motivation to get any work done this past week, although every day, for multiple hours, I’ve thought extensively about it. I feel very unfocused. I’ve been working on my resume every day, and thinking about jobs a lot. I feel a bit more optimistic this time around, both about my prospects, and the process in general.
I’ve been rethinking the structure of Plan a lot. I feel like the conceptual work has gotten out of my reach. I overscoped a bit too much as usual, got too ambitious. I’ve been thinking about ways to salvage it. I think one way is to start by regaining some focus on the core of it: the strength of the moment-to-moment writing which, at the end of the day, is what I reckon I’m both best at, and interested in. I’ve been looking at examples of text-heavy/visuals-light games for some guidance and inspiration. What I’m really hoping for is that I might find something in one of them that is able to suddenly strike within me the impetus to begin working on my own work. I can feel it fomenting inside of me. I just can’t seem to access it yet.
Felt better today, enough to finish my resume and submit some applications. I took all of yesterday and today off to clear my head. I feel calmer and more collected. I think I’ll be ready to get back to work tomorrow. I actually am looking forward to it.
Today, just like yesterday, and the day before that, and probably the day and days before that one too, is just another one of those days where I feel like I’m nothing more than the calm, creeping accrescence of all my life’s failures and humiliations. Useless.
I’ve definitely hit another slump. Haven’t worked all week, no plan or initiative to try to start again. I’ve been regularly staying up until dawn every night for no justifiable reason. I feel like things are really starting to slip out of my control. My thoughts have become completely disordered and ungovernable. I don’t even bother turning on my work computer anymore…
Haven’t worked in the past few days. I don’t know what’s been going on. Dark thoughts clouding my mind. Impatient and unfocused.
I’ve been feeling a terrible emptiness. Aggravated all throughout the day, angry. Dwelling on dark thoughts. I couldn’t sleep at all last night so I stayed up and forced myself to attend the 8am service. I was the only one in the pews. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I was feeling pretty good the past few days. I don’t know what’s changed. Lost focus, is what it is. Life is good for me when it is small, contained. I lost sight of the immediate comforts and pleasures, started looking outwards again. Inadequate. Can’t do anything right.