Goodbye 2024 (2025-01-14)Link

Good Riddance.

2024 has definitively been the worst year of my life, mostly because I made the mistake of trying to tough it out around someone making me miserable instead of moving on. Anyone else reading this, in a situation where they're dreading every single time they go and see someone, or go somewhere, please get out of there if you have the autonomy to do so. There's too many opportunities in the world to waste your time on things making you miserable.

I can point at other things. My 3D printer being unuseable for most of the year, for one. Failing to be all that productive on much of anything because of the total mess i was in.

The mental health gurus will probably say that I'm fixating on the bad. I'm gonna tell you to get stuffed. Trying to keep a happy face and blindly ignoring the negatives is part of the reason I destroyed the year. Nobody needs the happy brigade thought police hunting them down. Regardless, acknowledging something isn't upsetting. The fact that I can talk openly about this is a far better sign than if I was trying to burry it.

Apparently I graduated, but I didn't really notice. I did get some decent progress on the Godot driving sim, although much less than I'd like to. And yes, this website was built through the latter months of 2024. I managed to get some writing done for the offline racing league Racing Heart, which I've been enjoying as a place to write for an audience without any stakes.

What about 2025 though? Well, with the passage of time constantly accelerating as it does, I've blinked and lost a 1/24th of the year already. So I feel some sort of urgency to do something. So far, all I've done is moved this site into a useable state for me as a creator. I've got a car I'm developing for GTR2 that's staying under wraps for the time being, and it really hasn't had the attention or development time it deserves. I've got books I want to read. A puzzle taking up space on the kitchen table. And ideally, I'll get a job.

There's a stack of sticky notes on my desk, so I've just taken one and made some notes, so hopefully with that reminder stuck to my monitor. The most productive periods of my life have been with a constant checklist of things to do, or a sprawling log of what I'm doing and where to take it next. The issue is avoiding poisoning that area of inspiration and direction. Over time they degrade, or get harder to reach, or surrounded by distractions, and cease to be so effective. And it helps to have a clear vision of where to start.