Making my younger self proud
My 16-year-old self would be proud of me today.
After years (decades?) of toying with the idea of learning to animate and taking zero action, I finally signed up for animation classes. And I'm EXCITED. I can't draw at all. But I've always loved animation. I'm curious to see how it goes. It's once a week for 12 weeks, and it starts in just three weeks. I'll be learning the principles of animation and maybe making some super short videos. I'll share whatever progress I make if I decide to keep writing.
I feel like I have had a second wind in the last month; perhaps because of my think week that felt only mildly successful, but I'm in an inspired season of life.
Let me take a step back for a second.
First off, whoa. I'm still alive.
It's been nearly a year since I last wrote you but here I am. We're nearing the start of my second program year at TKS (in a month) and I figured I'd write something down for posterity.
Last year my writing quota was consumed with Raising Unicorns: my online journal/reflections of my first year as a director at TKS. I committed to writing every week (I intentionally skipped one over the holidays) and wrote ~35 issues, which I was happy to do. I have since taken a break and don't think I'll keep writing it next year. This decision gave me a bunch of relief.
I've realized that writing is really one of those things that I tell myself I should do. We all have many shoulds in our lives and most of them are not actually things we want to do, otherwise, we would say want instead. #deep. I realized this when I (mostly) unplugged and went to a farm for 5-days in July to read and be alone with my thoughts...and Youtube. Writing was something that created a mental burden for me — I went to the farm with a list of 5 or 6 blog posts I wanted to write and didn't do any of that. Instead, an empty notebook and a printed-out draft post loomed over me each day and I avoided them. I realized that most of my creative / creating energy was being drawn toward building things.
I was coming up with ideas for games I wanted to build next or different apps I might tinker around with if I had brought my laptop. I'd ignored it for so long and pushed myself to write because that's what I felt was written. I'm finally able to articulate my life philosophy: do what you want. It sounds so absurdly simple but is important for two reasons. Firstly you need to know what you want which requires quite a bit of reflection and self-awareness. After that, it's important to realize the amount of agency you have in doing things you want to do. You don't have to do anything. Boom.
Back to my second wind. I've been reading a lot more on so many different topics and feeling pretty inspired. I read about the history of puzzles, the philosophy of science, and a great book about the creation of a video game. I've also been buying books at a more rapid pace too. Oops. But I think that's okay!
Anyway. It feels like this is a diary right now. tl;dr - I'm gonna put my energy into building more things this year and not trying to write. I don't consider this newsletter as writing and I won't hold myself to any specific standard.
Other notable things from the past 12 months:
did some small home renovations painting, re-doing our bathroom, and feng-shui-ing our living room.
i am almost done 75 Hard (9 days left)
my mortgage rate increased approximately 7 times
i brought the piano out of storage (and now it's instead on display getting just as much play time) - my first lesson is actually tomorrow.
finished my first year at TKS and am running an in-person program this fall (starts in a week!!)
Hopefully, the energy I'm feeling keeps this newsletter alive.
PS: in the middle of writing this I published a mini post about something I finally gained clarity on.
Hope you've been well.