I suppose this blog is becoming more of a check-in/life update rather than my initial intended purpose to discuss major topics. The idea was to consider the concepts that I’m learning, whether about programming, business, etc. and discuss my findings. In a way, this is still what I’m doing I suppose, it just, for better or for worse, feels as though my own grasp is coming to its conclusions as I write rather than before. This being at the edge and pushing forward past what you know is how I hope my authors to write even their MVNs, so perhaps this is very on brand? Regardless, that’s beside the point for this week. Instead, let’s begin by framing with a condensed version of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If: If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; … If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
I need to leave my current location. There is too much pessimism, and I can’t seem to escape it. Though, I fear, regardless of where I were to move to, this pessimism is more of a sign of our current state as a culture rather than an issue with my current city. So perhaps this will not be solved? I’m not certain. It was an issue where I lived last, and it is an issue here, so who knows. But my! Wouldn’t it be heaven to work in an environment of individuals constantly in pursuit of greatness? When people criticize leading business owners, they lose out on the fact that, when operating correctly, they create a safe haven for the exceptional. Culturally, I fear we do not wish to acknowledge or praise the exceptional. Of course, however, the exceptional exist, and they are driven by improving themselves and improving the world; how twisted it is that we attempt to silence this improvement and criticize the attempts! Well, good, I needed to rant for a bit about this. Next, let’s talk about a less-than-exceptional situation: my condition in work. For the past couple of years, I’ve been privileged enough to live on savings from a previous job. But now those savings are running out, and I’m looking for a new short-term plan. My long-term plan remains similar, with different pieces being moved around. The primary goal, “make video games literature”, persists. This is the one area that I’m allowing myself to fully rage against the machine. Everywhere else I leave to others, though I’ll support them whether it be through my work or interpersonal communication. These are the types of individuals I should focus my bandwidth on. People who are already going in the right direction, and instead simply need a good, open, metaphorical highway to let them go to the exceptional. Or just encouragement. I spend a lot of time trying to turn people around who are going the wrong way on that highway… Oftentimes these people are not even wanting help, so it is a losing battle. Therefore, I must train my mind to help those who are going in the same direction as me increase in speed, and simply let those who aren’t pass by. There is, unfortunately, always the temptation to go in their direction because you like them or whatever else, but when we end up in a bad place, neither of us will be happy. When I see someone on this highway going the wrong direction, I should call out of my window, “hey! the good stuff is this way!” and, perhaps, they will follow. However, if they don’t, it is not good for me to turn around, follow them, and keep shouting. Not good at all. As for how I bring people along to rage against the machine for my purpose of “make video games literature”, I’ve got three major avenues I need to invest in: 1. creation of example Modern Visual Novels, 2. developing toolsets to allow others, who are perhaps turned off by the common dev environments, to develop, 3. create distribution channels for the finished products. Because it is what is most interesting to me as I write this, I’ll focus on 2 for just a moment. My development strategy for all of this tends to favor elegance over power. Fortunately, while elegance does not perhaps lead to the most powerful — by powerful I mean the highest graphical fidelity — it does seem to tend to be rather optimized? Just my experience. Like the concept of the “pointer”? I don’t know why we are so obsessed with getting rid of this. Unbelievably elegant, and also helps so much with optimization.*
*…Yeah, so between everything written above and now, I’ve done a lot of research on bringing more people into the fold of what I want to create. There are lots of ideas rolling around in my head, but I’m going to leave this particular blog post in a messy state. Feel free to reach out with thoughts to phil@tableauxtheory.com if you are left unsatisfied.