General Update Log No. 11

I’ll be honest: I probably would’ve written this a whole lot sooner if I hadn’t gotten it into my head that I wanted to move away from Wordpress and create my own custom blog. But on the bright side, I can at least say that a lot has happened since January — a lot of really good stuff, in fact.

After some extremely devastating events happening to me right at the end of last year as a result of my own actions, I came to a realization that had been long overdue: My unhappiness with myself and my life was, more than anything else, my brain trying to tell me that I had to sit down, think about what exactly it is that I feel unsatisfied with, and then actively take steps to change it instead of just wallowing in misery and learned helplessness.

As soon as I fully grasped that and began to get the hang of forcing myself to act, things suddenly began to improve drastically, and I found myself accomplishing things I didn’t think I was even capable of. Fast-forward to today, and it genuinely feels like my mental health is the best it’s ever been since at least 2018, if not 2002. Having a sense of agency over oneself truly does wonders for one’s mental and emotional well-being.

So what have I been able to do with that newfound mental fortitude? For starters, I’ve done a lot of journaling on what helps and hurts my productivity, and finally came up with a plan that works for me: In addition to a small, daily to-do list of roughly 3-5 items, I’m also keeping a priority list of sorts now. I use that to keep track of mid-to-long-term tasks, categorizing them into ones with deadlines and ones without, and keeping detailed notes for each of them regarding what I need to do, what problems and roadblocks there may be, and what my first/next steps should be towards getting closer to completing a given task. And when they’re done, I move them to a section for finished tasks at the very bottom of the list, noting the date at which I completed them. It can be quite encouraging, watching that bottom list grow over time.

This system of prioritizing tasks and looking at them one step at a time has also resulted in a huge step forward with my life! I’d redoubled my efforts to send out job applications, and I can proudly say that, after nearly two years of freeloading, I’ve finally been hired somewhere! For the time being, it’s a three-year apprenticeship at a web development agency, but chances are good that I’d be taken on as a proper employee after I’ve been fully trained, and even so, I’d already be making a not-insignificant wage. I start next month, on the 3rd of July. Wish me luck!

Let’s talk a bit about my other creative endeavors, too, though. Progress on my album, for instance, is currently at just under 30%. I can’t say I don’t love what I have of it so far, but I would’ve liked to be further along than I currently am. Burnout and fear of failure have been ever-present companions slowing me down considerably, and with the added prospect of 40-hour work weeks starting from next month, a 2023 release is looking increasingly unlikely... at least for as long as my process of composing remains as inconsistent as it currently is. I’ve already figured out other conundrums in my life, though, so I’m sure I’ll figure this one out eventually, too.

You may also remember me talking about getting back into drawing by doing figure sketches back in January. I feel like I’ve been making quite a lot of progress since then, slowly getting to grips with the finer details of human anatomy, one body part at a time. Granted, my execution is still lagging behind what theoretical knowledge I have, but I’ve been fortunate enough to find a good mentor who knows how to keep me motivated and has an extremely keen eye for details. Maybe I’ll even end up producing some new illustrations sometime this year. We’ll see.

Some of you may have caught on to my recently-rekindled interest in the acquisition of foreign languages, too. For example, I started teaching myself Spanish last September, and while I’m certainly nowhere near fluent yet, I still find myself capable enough to hold conversations in it already. It’s made me want to pick up some other Romance languages, too, with my current focus being on French and Portuguese. That said, I do still want to expand my Spanish, as well as break through the plateau I feel like I’ve been stuck on with Japanese for several years now. And in the future? Who knows? Maybe I’ll pick up Swedish and Finnish again, maybe I’ll dabble in a completely different language. Either way, the dream of being a polyglot lives on.

Any other plans, then? Well, there unfortunately still isn’t much leeway for working on the second Mukai game — my art skills are still lagging behind, all my time spent on composing goes towards my new album, and without assets, there’s not much point in coding anything yet — but I have been thinking of another project to maybe work on in the distant future.

As a kid, I used to love working with RPG Maker. There’s this really crappy game I somehow completed start to finish with RPG Maker VX within its 30-day trial period, and aside from that and possibly dozens of other game projects I started and then dropped within a week, there’s one idea that I actually put some legitimate thought and planning into before I started working on it... Of course, I never finished that one, either, but even after all these years, the premise still holds a place in my heart, and I’d love to revive and expand on it. Plus, I’ve always wanted to try my hand at creating an RPG engine in Game Maker. I think it’d be a fun challenge.

That’s about the extent of what’s been going on over the first half of this year, I’d say. I remember when I used to want to write these logs once every two weeks... and while I highly doubt that I can get enough done in such a short time frame to make it worth writing about, the idea of making them a regular thing is nevertheless an enticing one. Maybe once a month, specifically somewhere during the final third of each month? That could work.