There is a prompt over on twitter that I responded to both
as a joke and
semi-seriously, and I have to say it makes me feel extremely old. If you look through the thread you see a lot of individuals with massive changes that they have gone through during the previous decade. Me… I have more or less been in maintenance mode. For me all of those big changes in my life happened last decade during the years of 2000 and 2010, but even then… you probably need to bump down to at least 1994 to start the clock of major changes given that’s when I graduated from High School and started a series of rapid events.
It is also making me realize that I have lived a really freaking charmed life. I more or less didn’t severely fuck up my life at any point and have to rebuild from scratch. I went to High School, went to a weird sequence of schools that eventually added up to being a 4 year College degree, and then upon exiting nailed a job as a developer right out of the gate. I didn’t spend time languishing in the service industry or working a sequence of dead end jobs waiting for my break. I just exited out one door and entered another. I’ve never really left the path that was the most obvious one laid out in front of me.
It does at least on some level make me wonder if I failed to grasp the point of life. Did I just take the easiest sequence of options and not really try at all? There is a version of me that probably has no clue how I got to this point in my life. That version wanted to go into video game development, which I pretty early decided was an unrealistic goal. I always sorta figured it was the equivalent of a kid who likes Football wanting to play for a professional team. I was nowhere good enough to make the cut so I sort of self censored myself and went for the more realistic options where were web development and eventually the comfortable life of a corporate developer.
The problem with comfort is that it can be a prison cell. I’ve reached a point in my life where it would be very difficult to make a serious change because it would ultimately come with some pretty dire financial ramifications. I flirted with writing piecemeal articles for pay and quickly realized that you have to work a hell of a lot harder doing that to cobble together something resembling a living. Yeah I could make it work probably, but as it stands my salary is what subsidizes my wife’s “teaching habit” so that isn’t really an option. Same goes with making a leap into some sort of game development, because I would ultimately be starting back over at square one.
I am jealous of the folks who have had the strength to burn down one life in order to build a new one that better suits them. I don’t think I have that in me, and the truth is I am actually happy in the life that I did build by following whatever path was laid out before me. Sure there are frustrations and when those mount it makes me wonder what life might have been had I made a few tweaks here or there to the plan. I think this questioning if I made the right choices however is what helps to fuel my sense of impostor syndrome. I feel like I just sort of accidentally ended up in the position that I am in and that I didn’t necessarily “earn” anything that I have.
I realize this is a weird downer of a blog piece, but I sat down and it just sort started pouring out of my fingertips. The truth is I have been having this conversation with you in one form or another for the last decade given that this blog was started in 2009. I’ve also been active on Twitter and built a sort of extended family there for the entirety of this decade as well. I’ve played so many games and through them gathered up a bunch of people that have followed me in the various bits of nonsense I have managed to get up to… and they have became another family as well. Then there is the AggroChat crew which really is closer than most of my family. I hate the term “blessed” because it seems so damned trite at this point… but I am not even sure what other word I could use to represent the same concept.
I am exceptionally lucky to be here sharing everything with you, and when I feel down and like nuking everything I have built from orbit… it is that realization that slowly moves me back from the ledge. Thanks for being with me for the last decade, and thanks for caring enough to talk me through the issues that I occasionally have. I’m not super close with my natural family, but over the last several decades I have managed to build a brand new one and I think that is probably my big accomplishment for these past ten years. I love you fine assortment of folks. Now I am going to stop writing before I somehow ruin the moment.
