Web/Life Design

It's funny how a person's desires change over time.  Well, not so much funny, I guess. More like, random.  If high-school me could see how late-twenties me is living he would be pretty pissed.

I'm not rich.  I'm not famous.  I haven't written a song in nearly a year.  I work 8-5 and sometimes go to bed before 10 o'clock.  Through the week, I spend more waking hours at work then at home.

But high-school me was a predictably naive idealist.  Late-twenties me is a slightly less naive cynic.  Whatever those words mean.


The desire for worldwide fame and fortune was supplanted by marriage and children.  I may not be internationally renowned for my songwriting but I am easily the most kick-ass daddy that my children have ever known.  And my wife laughs at my terrible jokes.  Even when they are only semi-riotously hilarious.


I miss writing music a great deal.  But I was only good at writing two styles: Whiny, mopey bullshit and self-righteous diatribes.  Don't get me wrong.  I am extremely proud of nearly 37% (!) of the lyrics I have written.  Ironically, it sounds to me like both of these writing styles have meshed into the current hipster "It's cool because it's stupid" movement.  If that's true, then I have a goldmine of terrible lyrics and fashion choices aimed at the post-adolescent angst-stricken crowd with a laser beam focus.


Bedtime.  The bane of adolescents everywhere.  At one point in my life I never wanted to sleep.  Fuck tomorrow.  Tomorrow is tomorrow, after all.  I know it's 3 AM but I need to reorganize my MP3 collection by average combined birth year of artist and producer, immediately.

I've spent a large chunk of time trying to pinpoint the exact moment a human becomes an adult.  It very well may be the first time said human chooses to go to bed early, not because of any impending event, but solely because they don't want to be tired the following day.  That may be the exact moment when childhood dies.


But the only one of those afore mentioned teenage gripes that is ALSO a post-teenage gripe is the time spent at work.

Let's do a bit of math for a typical human.  Alarm set at 5:30, leave for work at 7:30, get back home at 5:30, sleep at 10:30.  That makes 17 waking hours, 10 of which are outside the house.  Multiply this by 50 weeks (allowing for potential vacation time) and we get 150 more annual weekday hours spent away from home then actually at home.  I could go on a rant about the distribution of wealth in contrast to actual hours worked in this country but I'm not feeling very rant-y today.

Today, I feel hopeful that I have found a new professional/life direction.

I have recently discovered a love for web design.  A few months back, I saw the website for a friend's new business.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't being updated and I didn't think that accurately represented the people involved.  On a whim, I started looking up HTML and CSS tutorials and decided I would make a new website for my friend.  This would be similar to me deciding that I wanted to build an extension on my house made entirely of unobtainium.  I knew so little that I didn't know what I didn't know.

But I am obsessed with learning about interesting things.  Being able to use text to make design elements look, move, and behave according to my desire is an intoxicating feeling.  I'm assuming this is what it feels like when an artist looks upon an empty canvas and wants to make it his own.  I feel completely unencumbered by any preexisting design templates.  If I want a column of ads in the center of the page and two content columns flanking either side I can damn well do it.  I have the technology.

(I used http://www.w3schools.com/ for my foray into web coding.  I have since seen several places that discourage that particular site but most complaints seem to be semantically driven.)

This potential new professional direction has given me fits of unbridled euphoria as well as days of mental turmoil brought on by frustrating design elements.  Anytime you wake up at 5 AM on a Saturday morning with an idea in your head and have 50 lines of code written before anyone else wakes up you know you have become passionate.

I am hoping to harness this passion of the Christ and progress enough in my coding knowledge to land a job, freelance or contract, in web design. Employers like to say that passion for a job and desire to learn are worth more than degrees and test scores.  I aim to prove my worth to potential employers.

Hide yo child nodes!  Hide yo floating elements!  I'm coming for you Internet!

Society = MMORPG

This post will be one giant metaphor.  You were warned.


I have come to the realization that society has become an MMORPG, a game with no ending that is impossible to "win".  No matter what you do, how much you collect/accomplish, there will always be more.  Finding happiness in life is being able to leave quests unfinished.  Whether you solo your way to 80 (years old) or you combine forces to raid the high level boss task and gain fame and fortune, you will never have everything.  It's just not possible.

Being under the burden of adulthood is killing me.  To me, being an adult is synonymous with a 9-5 job, mortgage payments, being functional in the A.M., living through your kids, 401Ks, talking politics, and cutting ties with anything that gets in the way of those tasks.  That sounds like hell.  I never want to end up like th....wait.....I just described me.  I am the mid-level off-tank who sacrifices dreams of DPS and loot to carve out his own support role for his guild-mates.


Here's what I'm trying to say:  Most humans have entirely too much stuff.  Some of that stuff may be physical, some intangible.  Keeping your vault and quest log full at all times does nothing but clog up your life and hinder you from seeing the beauty around you.

Before a few days ago, I could not have told you the last time I mono-tasked.  THAT is what was killing me.  Not the mortgage, or the kids, or the 9-5 job, or financial stress.  It was the ever-present feeling that I was missing something.  If I'm watching TV then I'm wasting time where I could be reading.  If I'm on Facebook then I'm missing a great conversation on Twitter.  How can I read all the comics and novels I want to read when new ones come out all the time?

This never-ending cacophony of white noise in my head was the root of all my problems.  My son wants me to get him some more orange juice.  But to do that I would have to stop reading before I'm done with this chapter.  And if I do that then I it will put me 14 seconds behind on my quest to read everything by this author.  And what if someone brings up the next chapter at work tomorrow?  I won't know what the monster said to the protagonist because my son wanted some freaking orange juice!

Put some things aside.  Remove some quests from your log.  You can always go back to the quest-giver and start again.  Sell, or give away, those 14 broken dwarf axes in your vault.  You're never going to need them for anything.  Minimize your chat window and take a walk through the starting area for your character's race.  Look at all the amazing artwork that took someone countless hours to create.  You missed all of it.  All you saw was a waypoint to the next quest hub.  What you missed were the seven trees arranged in a semi-circle meant to signify the burial plot and memorial for a great warrior that time forgot.

Okay, the metaphor has served it's purpose.


What makes humans different from other animals?

Self-control?  You're kidding right?
Superior intellect?  see: Jersey Shore
Compassion?  Maybe you misunderstood me.  I said HUMANS.


I only see two things that humans excel at more than any other earthly creature: Creating/experiencing art and having opposable thumbs.  Music, film, novels, comic books, dance.  These are what defines humanity.  Unlocking the achievement of "Read All Asimov Novels" shouldn't be the goal.  Unlocking the enjoyment of experiencing, analyzing, discussing, emulating, evolving, and sharing Asimov's art should be the achievement.

SO...To hell with titles, SUVs, McMansions, and $80 t-shirts.  I'm looking forward to a life filled with imaginary creatures and mono-tasking.

Life

Life shouldn't have to be what happens in between work and sleep.  Work should try to wedge its unwanted ass into your life.  Why is it that to be considered "successful" you have to put work first?  Now that I have an infant in my house I feel like I'm missing 800 things everyday that are WAY more important than anything I'm doing at work.

With respect to jobs, I always hear "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life."  That would be great if someone would pay me to play music, or stare at boobs, or read comic books, or play video games with my son, or eat buffalo chicken.  But I don't see anyone offering me jobs in those fields right now. (I'm holding out for a cross-over.  Maybe boobs covered in buffalo sauce? Or playing music with my son?  Or just the boobs?)

Why is it accepted that you're going to hate your job?  Including drive-time I spend roughly 50 hours per week dedicated to my job.  Quick math lets me know that I waste 2600 hours per year doing something I don't enjoy.  Why is this normal?  Does anyone start college wanting to be phone support?  Or an accountant?  Or middle management?  No.  You get stuck there.

I don't mean to sound like a whiny teenager but my family is the only thing I'm remotely happy with right now.


But that's all that matters.  Right?  Well, kind of.  Loving my family doesn't help me feed/clothe/bathe/spoil them.  And it sure as hell doesn't make me hate the job any less.


But loving your family should make all the bad things worth it.  Well, then I must be broken.  I love my family, and I will do anything for them, but it does not make everything worthwhile.  I'm not okay with wasting any intelligence/talent/initiative that I have for a paycheck that almost pays the bills.  Just so I can turn around and give every bit of that money to multi-billion dollar companies.

I have always adhered to the philosophy of "don't sacrifice today for what might happen tomorrow".  Doesn't that also apply to me?  If I throw away my dreams and desires and put on my Corporate Andy hat just so I can put food on the table, am I not doing that same thing?  If children are our future does that mean that our future is over?

I'm struggling with how to feel about how I feel.

Am I a selfish bastard for bitching when I actually have a job and three other human beings dependent on me?  Or am I an idiot for basically giving up on my dreams at 25?

I have no idea.