I feel like a dork writing this post. It's certainly #firstworldproblems and I'm certainly lucky to be able to do this but ... I'm kind of freaking out.

I mentioned I quit my job and decided to travel. But now I'm finding travel is kind of .. um, overrated? I guess that's a personality thing. Some people might find it invigorating to travel long term. Me, not so much. Elizabeth Dunn claims long vacations don't make you more happy than short ones. The advice seems to be take lots of short trips rather the 1 long trip. Sitting on a beach watching the sunset is great but after a while everything gets old? I don't know if that makes any sense. Maybe a more common example is going to say 5 different cities in Europe and after visiting the biggest church, market, museum in the first 3 cities not really feeling like visiting the more churches, markets, and museums in the remaining 2.

Another thing that's happened is my burn rate is higher than I expected. I don't like naming numbers because it makes people jealous and reveals how lucky I am and how whining about it so messed up but ... as I mentioned I was paying certain amount a month in San Francisco for rent. So, my goal was to spend not too much more than that for hotels while traveling. That means staying at places under a certain amount a night. Except for hostels though that's a really hard goal to meet in certain places. I managed it in some cities in Europe but London? Not a chance. Singapore? No way. Honolulu. Not even close. Tokyo I managed to rent a short term apartment within my budget but only because I committed to being there several months.

I guess all of that is basically the long way of saying I feel pressure to choose a place and live there to lower my expenses. And that brings up my issue. Where? I still have no clue what I want to do. Indie games? I need partner🌙. Do I really want to do make indie games? I don't know.

Teach? Clearly I've written several educational articles on my other blog and I've been answering questions on stack overflow which makes me feel good but teaching sounds like a very low−paying job and I'm not sure I'm willing to go there. Also teaching sounds like a highly political job at most schools. Maybe I should start my own? But I have no clue how to do that or if I'm motivated or skilled enough to do it, or if I'd even find it fulfilling. Even scarier is trying to keep up with tech while teaching.

Maybe make some kind of web app? I have no idea what that would be. Better forum software? A better dating site? (not even sure how to make it better. My sole idea is to try to brainstorm a way to get rid of the aholes and still manage to get people to sign up.

A mobile app? Like what?

Just go back to work? That feels safe but dumb given the opportunity now to do my own thing.

Something else entirely? No ideas there.

But that's just it, where do I settle? SF? LA? NYC? Tokyo? Singapore?

And −−−how−−− do I find motivation? I don't feel like traveling has helped that at all, except maybe to make me realize I'd rather be somewhere more permanent and doing something productive rather than just sightseeing. Maybe I should go to a bunch of tech conferences, hack−a−thons, or game jams? The #1 thing that dissuades me from doing that is just how big a sausage fest each one of those is. It's depressing for some reason. It feels like choosing to be alone and nerdy by choosing to do stuff where there are generally only men. I know that's irrational ... or is it?

Another which I also mentioned before is I'm just not as big a gamer anymore. A play maybe 4−5 games a year to completion? I'm not addicted to Candy Crush Saga or Puzzles and Dragons, I never got into Pokemon, Everquest, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Counterstrike, Skyrim, or any fighting game. I haven't been able to get sucked into an RPG since the mid 90s. I appreciate new ideas like Portal, World of Goo, Braid, FTL, Anti−Chamber but I've rarely gotten into them. I've never played DOTA or League of Legends. In fact until a year ago I had never heard of it. I guess what I'm saying it's it's hard to work up the motivation to start an indie game studio if I'm not actually feeling it anymore. Maybe hanging around other gamers would bring back that love of games?

I also need social support, as in friends. If that's my goal I either have to pick Tokyo or else make a serious effort to make some new friends, something I've never done in my life. All of my friends up to this point have been naturally occuring for lack of a better way to say it.