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.