I’ve been pretty busy lately, in a pleasant way. My time the past couple of days has been occupied with learning more about Blender and 3D work. I can feel myself noticeably improving not just in my ability to do things, but the efficiency with which I do them. I don’t feel like I’ve been able to say that with confidence about myself in a long time. Over the next several weeks, I’d like to revisit the design of my websites — this one included, although overall I’m pretty pleased with it — and come up with something which I feel better represents my current interests and priorities. I think it’d be a good starting point for the new year.
I think one of the most important parts of it is that for the most part, I’ve stopped looking at and concerning myself with the lives of others. This is one of those things that seems so obvious as a solution since everyone tells you from just about the start of your life not to do this; but I reckon that no matter how many times you repeat it to yourself or hear it said out loud, it’s deceptively difficult, if not outright impossible in certain moments for certain kinds of people, to escape.
I’ve spent just about my entire life, it feels like, living under the shadow of feeling like I’m never good enough compared to other people around me. I think there’s some truth to it, to be fair: I just don’t think I’m all that good or qualified at much. I’ve tried all kinds of ways of reorienting my thinking about it, shifting my perspective, etc, but nothing seems to ever really stick because I fear the deficiency is fundamental, built into the core of my very existence.
I think I’ve come to terms with my mediocrity now though. I don’t really want anything more anymore, or think of myself as deserving or capable of anything greater than the paltry lot of my present outcome. There’s something beautifully freeing in this realisation. No more pretences about who or what I am, no more delusions of grandeur ill befitting of my station or person. All that’s left is me, just me.
Friday the 13th. When I was really young, it was always a noteworthy occasion: some odd mixture of childish fixation and genuine superstitious unease. I still take note of it to this day, even if I don’t outright admit it. I’d like to say it’s habit, but I have to be honest, some part of me still holds on to that old creeping feeling.
I’ve been feeling a lot better lately. I feel pretty happy actually: I feel like I’ve finally settled into a pace and way of life I find both satisfying and meaningful. I’ve been feeling pretty motivated lately to work on a bunch of different stuff: I started getting back into working with 3D stuff again in Breakpoint, and I’ve been getting a lot of writing and conceptual work done on the new project as well. I’ve been reading more as well, and I’ve even found myself taking pleasure in it from time to time. Nothing really feels forced or unnatural in any of this. That’s the thing: I just feel at peace. It’s the strangest thing.
I came to realise earlier tonight that I’ve written a mere seven (now eight) entries over the course of this year to date. It’s been a strange, terribly strange year. I’m palpably getting older now, I can feel it in my bones, my habits.
One of my resolutions for the new year is to return to writing these entries at a regular pace. For a long time I excused my lapses (and now, looking back, one long ever-lapsing Lapse) into delinquency by telling myself that because I wasn’t working, and because this is — well, was at some point in the long distant past — supposed to be a work log, there was no need to record anything. Of course, none of that is true, neither the premise nor the justification. It was because I stopped caring. I watched myself fall short of my own expectations, and then I watched myself fall a bit further just for the hell of it, I guess.
I’d like to re-establish some semblance of structure. I think for now I’ll keep it to at least one entry every week on Friday (although it’s now a few hours into Saturday), with additional entries throughout the week as circumstances may warrant; but eventually I’d like to move back to a daily pace, and concomitantly and more importantly, a daily pace of work as well.
I’ve been feeling more motivated today. I was able to get some work done, and set up a proper working environment finally on all my computers, which means I have no more excuses for not being able to get things done. Sam called as well this afternoon, and it was really nice to be able to catch up. I sent him the draft of the new document, and he seemed to like what he saw, which made me feel a lot better about it, and more inspired to work on it. I’d like to dedicate some time tomorrow to it.
Time has escaped me once again. It’s been ten days since my last entry, and yet it barely feels like two or three have elapsed. I’ve been trying to get back to work, or look for a job, or sometimes, although never for very long, both in the same day; but it’s been excruciatingly slow, to put it lightly, and I am terribly tired of all of it. I feel trapped between the past and the future. The former ossifies and the latter grows dim. I think I’ve become too stuck in my ways, my feelings. My tendencies toward introspection have become indistinguishable from onanistic obsession. I don’t ever even really feel sad anymore: instead, there’s just this gentle, soporific melancholy that clings to me day in and day out, suffusing my hours with a leaden exhaustion that is neither painful nor even unpleasant to endure but simply there. I’ve grown impatient. I’ve been told that I have taken on the self-assuredness of a flagellant. I understand clearly now that my inertness has little correlation to any external deficiencies or impedances I had imagined to be sources of agitation when I was younger. It was I who squandered my potential and buried my talents. My lack is entirely my own.
I’m terribly afraid that my decision to continue making games is compelled less by a genuine love and care for the work, and instead, by the shameful suspicion that, in practice, I am incapable of doing anything else: not even in any grander philosophical or artistic sense, but just the baseline commercial and material one too. Some part of me still finds the work to be quite meaningful and intrinsically satisfying, and harbours a desire to keep on doing it because it is a beautiful thing and that’s what should really matter above all else. But that part’s grown really small as of late and most days, it just feels like a mockery. And the saddest part is that, if I were to claim like a true artist or whatever that that was the saddest part, losing touch with that feeling, I mean, even that would just be a lie in service of a pretence that I’m barely able to convince myself to maintain in the first place. And even then, I don’t know who I’m trying to convince with regard to my supposed merits as a game developer, professionally or creatively, either. Nate was right, after all: I haven’t even finished, let alone released a single game. No, it’s not that I slipped. I never ascended to any meaningful height to begin with.
Engulfed in autumnal shades. I’ve succumbed to a bit of a slump. Spent the morning driving around, and then the rest of the afternoon lying in my bed in a listless stupour. I feel tired all the time, and profoundly uninspired. I’ve been reading Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World. It moves me deeply, sometimes to the verge of tears.
It’s been a while. I’m not really sure what to say regarding the events that’ve transpired in my absence; or, perhaps more accurately, I find it too difficult at the moment to recount it all in anything resembling a coherent, let alone neat presentation. Anyways, I think it’s best to focus on what lies ahead. I don’t have the energy to write more at the moment but will resume updating this log on a regular basis again moving forward.
I’ve been working pretty consistently again these past few days. I’ve been feeling a lot better too overall, in terms of both my health and my ability to maintain a steady perspective on the near future. I feel pretty fulfilled with my how my life is going, and although there are still a number of things I’m still in the process of sorting out for myself, I feel pretty confident about my ability to handle them. In the meantime, I’m trying to fit in as much work on the game as I can. Every day, the work seems to come just a little bit easier. I hope that soon, I’ll be able to return to a regular working (and with it, posting) schedule.
I have become possessed by a terrible, sickening anger as of late. It’s there the moment I wake, it pollutes my dreams. I feel trapped. I feel enslaved to the past. I just can’t seem to shake it or move past it, this vile pain. So many people to whom I once felt so close are now irreparably, irrevocably gone, and I don’t know why, or what to do. I know for certain by now that I am the solitary root of every problem in my life but I do not know how to fix what is broken within me, I feel helpless against my own wretched nature. Why is that it is always the people who tell you that that they care for you the most who end up maiming you so grievously? The worst part is that I would do it again, because even that agony was so much better than this devastation, because I have no sense of self-worth. I still have nightmares about Ana every night. I can’t remember anything else except her disappointment and anger. There’s no person left there anymore, no matter how hard I try to look for one, no matter how desperately I try to claw back through the confusion and the din. I was just a burden after all. A stumbling block on the way to a more hopeful refuge where I am not and never was. There are days I’m convinced that I’m dead. In my dreams, I never really made it out of the basement but was devoured whole by the devil in that damp dusty darkness. That somewhere along I-15 North one winter the earth just opened up its mouth and I vanished into it without a trace. I hope they’re all suffering. I’m pretty sure they aren’t. Everyone can find a way to escape it and move on except me. Why? Why am I broken in all the ways in which other people can, must be strong? I don’t have anyone left to blame except myself. I’m too stubborn. I’m scared. I don’t feel like I’m capable of correcting my course.
Watched Perfect Days with Alex. It filled me with a strange, vast feeling that made me think of Ana in a way I haven’t been able to access so fully in a long time. None of the anger or pain or fear. Just the warmth, and the clarity, and the tremendous, overwhelming love. I felt it again, all at once, for just a bit. It made me really happy, and then really sad. All of a sudden, right there in the middle of the street, I wanted to fall down and slip between the cracks in the subway grates and dissolve into a deluge of tears; but I didn’t, and couldn’t. I wish I did not remember all that. It makes me afraid.
Some time later, we tried to start a fire out of napkins and damp twigs cocooned in a sheet of aluminium foil set inside of a pizza box. It failed to catch, but it was ok. We achieved the effect we were seeking. The air was warm and pleasant today, positively vernal. These are dangerous nights. The kinds that make me believe my life could change for the better.
I had to take some time to think about some things. I don’t really know what else to say beyond that. I guess I feel better, although really, it’s more like a kind of resignation than genuine peace. Maybe growing up means accepting that most days, there’ll be little practical difference between those two. I still feel motivated to work on the game. Funnily, I actually feel more motivated than I have in a while. I feel unburdened again. No one really expects anything of me anymore, or thinks I’m capable of anything. I can act on my own terms again. Every time I tell myself my life is about to change, I’m proven terribly wrong. I think things will just be the same, exactly the way they always have been. Always will be.
It was cold today. I spent most of the day asleep. No nightmares, I just felt a bit heavy. Had a meeting this morning about the draft. I’m feeling pretty optimistic about the next month or so of work. The plan is to aim for one full outline every week. It feels very doable. They’re gonna have someone at the company convert it to a flowchart. I think it’ll be really helpful. It’s already been really helpful in giving me a sense of the scope and scale of the game, and the work that lies ahead.
Another pretty reasonable day of work. The sky was unusually warm and bright this afternoon. I buried a bird that had flown too hard into the front door. It was pretty small, and had a neutral expression on its face. Its eyes were closed. I spent the rest of the evening working on the plot outline. I’m finished with it for now, although I’m going to wait a bit before attempting revisions.
Much better luck today. I was able to talk to the doctor this morning, which helped a lot. I spent the rest of the day working on the outline for Estelle’s plot. It’s not quite done yet, but still, I’m pretty satisfied with it for now. I think if I can pull it off, it might really actually amount to something. I fear that maybe it might be a bit too ambitious for me right now; but maybe that’s exactly what I need to get myself back into the course of things.
The day starts. The day ends. Another month, another season. Everything moves forward except me.
Another dim and directionless day. The weather has been very pleasant the past few days. I look out my window at all the trees and I think about going out but I never do without some greater external motivator. I feel like the world has become a bit emptier. I still haven’t been able to work.
I had planned on resuming work on Monday, but I’ve found myself deeply haunted the past few days by strange, troubling nightmares that have completely disrupted my ability to sleep soundly. I wake multiple times a night in a thoroughly disoriented state, from which it takes me hours to recover when I wake. Many of them are about Ana, but just as many are about people and places I haven’t thought about in a long, long time. I don’t know what’s come over me. I can barely think straight after I wake up: sometimes I don’t even really know if I actually am awake, or if I’m still trapped in some extension of the dream. Even after the confusion clears, I find myself so thoroughly drained for the rest of the day that I can hardly gather the energy to remain conscious, let alone do anything of worth. I’ve sunken into a deep and all-consuming melancholy. I don’t even know what it is I want anymore, only that I do not — very likely cannot — have it. I feel like I’ve just lost. That’s what it is: not just that I am lost, but that I have lost. I don’t feel like I’m capable of moving anything anymore. Not even a single mote of dust upon the face of this planet.
I’ve been in a dim, lethargic mood as of late. I don’t know what’s come over me. It’s progressed beyond sadness, into something more inexplicable and maybe even terribly cosmic in a way. I’ve entirely neglected all duties and responsibilities this past week. I’ve started “playing” Skyrim again, if “playing” instead means sitting at my desk for hours, sometimes even days on end, manually sorting and resolving hundreds of conflicting records for so long my fingers begin to seize and the muscles in my back begin to ache. It keeps the hours at bay. I should get back to work soon. Next week, I swear. I feel like all my strength is gone. Not much really helps. This winter can’t be worse than last year. I just want to lie down for a while and not have to get back up.
I’ve slipped into a terrible sadness. I’ve been having trouble sleeping. The nights are longer now, and the days much colder. It’s pretty nice: it finally feels like autumn. I pass the time on repetitive, harmless tasks. I keep on thinking to myself that one of these days it’s not gonna be like this any longer, and I know I’m right: it comes and it goes and it comes again. Nothing ever really changes meaningfully.
We blessed the animals this morning in commemoration of the feast of St. Francis. In the evening I went to see Anya in the city. We rode the ferry down the East River and ate some overpriced pizza. It rained all day yesterday, but today the air was bright and clear. It finally feels autumnal, although the leaves are still green. I’ve been having particularly bad nightmares about Ana again.
I finally ate the Easter rabbit today. There was no occasion for it, really. All of a sudden it just felt like it was time. I feel saddened. I wish I had not done it, but at least I cannot do it again now.
Recorded the commentary with Johan for the Next Fest broadcast. I should get back to work tomorrow on the new content. I’ve been feeling disoriented and confused lately. I’ve been thinking about suicide again. I’m pretty pleased with the new configuration of my desk.
Woke this morning to discover my desktop computer effectively nonfunctional. I spent about an hour attempting to diagnose and fix the issue, but eventually gave up and, in a fit of impulsive frustration, went to Best Buy and spent $1300 on a new one. It made me feel better, actually. My room is in a state of complete disarray. I have become possessed by the utterly misguided yet persuasive notion that if only I were able to effectively rearrange the contents of my living space to be more hospitable, I may yet be also able to rearrange the conditions of my life to be more bearable.
I woke up today and thought about hanging myself.
Finally made it back home. I don’t know what I’m gonna do tomorrow. I’ll probably just end up working. But for now I just want to rest.
Finished and released the demo. I feel okay about it, I guess. I don’t really know. We’ll see how the response is. I’m not optimistic that things are gonna be much different than they have been, or there’s gonna be a sudden influx of attention and interest; but that’s fine. Mostly I’m just pretty tired. There’s not really any anger left in me anymore, just a bit of a quiet ache where something used to be. I finally get to go home tomorrow. I hear it’s been raining a lot in the city. You know, at the end of it all, despite the surrounding circumstances, I think this was one of the better trips I’ve taken. I got a lot of stuff done. Next time though I think I’ll just stay inside the States.
I had a dream that the build was approved and that I was happy and when I awoke I discovered that the build had in fact been approved although I was still not happy. I spent the rest of the day cleaning up some ancillary tasks and lingering issues, all of which I was able to complete to satisfaction, which means that the build will go live tomorrow and, for now, my work comes to a rest. Just in time for me to return home, as well. When I get home I will sleep for a long time. I hope people will like the game.
Didn’t really work today, just reviewed some tasks and repeatedly refreshed the Steam store page to see if the demo was cleared (as of right now, it hasn’t been). I made some new assets for the store page. I feel calmer, and more listless. I haven’t gone outside in two days, maybe even three at this point. Tomorrow I’m going to get a bunch of stuff done, the last of the immediate content that warrants attention. I hope the demo clears tomorrow.
Calmer today. I spent most of the day working. The demo is in a more respectable state now. As of this current moment though, it’s still yet to be approved, which means I’m probably not going to be able to make, at the very least, the first day of the press preview segment. What a debacle. I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m going to add in a few more bits of content tomorrow, and then get it up. After that, I’ll spend the remainder of my days here at ease. I look forward to returning home.
Spent the entire day working. Significantly rebuilt the backend for the in-game computer, so that it’s now handled as a persistent object in the game world that’s visually accessed through the workstation in the outpost. This will hopefully make it easier to ensure compatibility later on down the road for various interface elements like the navigator and network sweeper that share a significant amount of cross-functionality and design with their workstation equivalents. I also designed a better-looking login screen.
One more day tomorrow before the press preview starts. Technically I have until the evening of the 28th as well, but that’s cutting it pretty close. I hope that the build is approved by the end of tomorrow.
Woke up to a terrible sadness. Spent the rest of the day working so I wouldn’t have space to think about it. It mostly worked, except the moments it didn’t. The build failed approval because apparently at some point the content warning survey was updated to a new format, and I’d failed to keep it up to date. Fortunately someone at Raw Fury was able to get it back in the queue almost immediately… but all that means is that I’ve now been shoved back into the review queue once again. I don’t know how it’s going to affect the approval date seeing as they took basically the maximum amount of time they’d allotted themselves for this in the last round, but there’s not much I can do at this point except just continue to work on the stuff I can actually work on, which is what I did today. The air is cool and pleasant in the mornings and evenings, and the days billow with a breeze that comes sweeping through the rooms of the apartment every quarter hour or so. You can buy a 66cL bottle of beer for under $5. When I’m not working, I lie there and stare up at the ceiling and feel my heart tearing apart at the seams in slow motion and think about shooting people’s loved ones in front of them.
I finally got around to finishing (ie paying for) the registration process for the Apple Developer Program this afternoon, which means I can now export to Mac for the next year at least. I hope that hundred dollars pays itself off. I hope that the game will be done by then. If it isn’t, I think I’ll hang myself. I won’t lie, I feel pretty awful about this demo. I have a feeling it’s gonna completely sink. It completely falls short, like just about everything else I do these days. I don’t feel like I can do much of anything right anymore. Can’t keep any promises, maybe never could. I’ll have to find some other way. I finally fixed the config menu window, and consolidated the code so that its functionality is shared with the faux-BIOS config menu during the spin-up sequence.