Defiance

Yep. It's been a month. Well, longer than that actually. A month and a couple of extra days since the the thing we'll just call the "shenanigans". Not too much has changed really, and this update is more to have something, anything really, to let out some of the steam just before I break down like an old boiler.
On a basic level, I've confined myself in a device of my own making. A device designed from the ground up (which is what I do) to make me as uncomfortable as possible while simultaneously making myself useful at every opportunity.
The more, astute readers (assuming that any are there, which I continue to doubt) could probably figure out exactly what my problem is at this point, but I still refuse to divulge the nasty bits. This is not the forum for self pity or anything even resembling it. Instead, as the last couple of hundred things would show, it's full to the brim with my own odd wit mixed in equal measure with the deep insights into the price of failures, and the staggering aura that success can bring. Set backs of any variety exist only as obstacles that get dashed, usually within 1-2 posts. It creates a kind of episodic nature to this particular diary that I continue to find endearing. but there I go again, getting all self important and assuming that my words have any value, to any one.
It's always a danger when you're talking - the thought that your words are important because they came out of you. Falling to that particular dark side is a sure fire way to be a terrible assed writer. I don't care who that writer thinks they are. Once they stop thinking that they have anything to prove, they've failed.
Anyway, it seems that once I step away and then return to our regularly scheduled programming, that I get all excited by the prospect of writing at all. So please excuse my hubris and my dust. I think I'm getting to my point (finally).
Anyway, back to the device. It works like this - creating games, brings me joy. Thinking about the way that they work, it makes me happy. Designing them is stimulating in ways that illicit substances could never be, since I am the driver of it, not a passenger. Programming, for all of my vocalized hate, is the means to my end. It also tends to make for the best short victories.
So, I am using my own nature, against me. Basically, until I get the new thing sorted out, I have forbidden myself from writing about, thinking about or working on any of my games. The only caveat, is that I still chat with my team members so they know that I'm not dead in the proverbial ditch.
Instead I fill my days with nothing, with nonsense. With a dozen little mindless things awaiting something, anything really, to happen. Acting as a fisherman and hoping, waiting, for a catch.
This is not a place where I complain. Nor is it a place where I tend to wallow in my own self pity. Usually. Today, I'll indulge myself with but a single sentence. It goes like this : I cannot remember a time where I have been more unhappy.

But here's the thing, and this is the important part, and the reason that I write this particular entry today, I've never had more of an understanding of exactly what it is that I want, and specifically, what it is that I am. I have created a space where I have denied myself something, the one thing that brings me the most joy so I can continue to live. To me, it's not just a thing, but the thing. It would be like if you banished a Chef from the kitchen, or told a Musician that they cannot play. I have taken from myself, if only temporarily, the thing that brings me both joy, and it seems, meaning. I keep saying that I need to do this, so I can get back to work. Everything becomes the means to that end.

So, now we're getting back to the titles you see. I've said it before, and I'll continue to say it for as long as I can speak.

I am a Game Designer. Nothing will ever take that from me.