Work-life balance seems to come up a lot lately in conversation, and also in the larger societal realm. I think it's because emerging from the pandemic, where we focused on keeping ourselves sane, there is an instinct to return to a mode of "killing it" at work, and slip back into patterns of over-work. I'm a little guilty of this, having some recent weeks where I've let myself get close to 50 hours, even though I can't empirically prove that it improves outcomes. Aware of it, I'm adjusting, and changing those habits.
One of the things that gives me purpose and happiness is doing creative things. In fact, I noticed that lately I've been indecisive about what kinds of things I want to do, leading to a little self-loathing. Then one day I saw two memes from creative people that were completely antithetical. One, speaking to writers, suggested that you must write every single day no matter what. The other, I think it was in the context of visual art, said that when you don't feel it, you don't feel it, so don't try to force creativity. Of course! Just because something is fun or creative doesn't mean that there isn't some cost and effort involved. It's not that different from over-working.
So for the last few weeks, I've allowed myself to be mostly passive in my free time. I let the world entertain me with movies and TV and music, and a good nap or two. I'm not going to feel at all bad about it. I did that in January too after two years of constant code writing. Of course, I'm thinking now about what I do want to do next.
I would like, before the end of the year, to get a new release of POP Forums out, though I'm still not sure what that means. In recent years, I've mostly been keeping it up with the latest frameworks and technologies, and that's still a good idea. After 20-something years, and a crazy resurgence in ad revenue, it's worth keeping up. Niche communities never went away, but they've certainly been diminished by the big social media platforms. The crazy growth we've seen on the sites this year suggests something is gong on.
That said, I'm not super motivated on that project. It's just upkeep and refactoring, and I'm not adding anything new. It's not like last year, where the "feature" was making it faster and able to scale out. I have some ideas about crafting some deep components from scratch (learning about the bare metal instead of a framework). Meh, maybe I'm just tired of the forums. I don't have any bright ideas about a new app, because those ideas are typically driven by necessity.
I want to do more with photography and video. I haven't really pushed the R6 since I bought it, and I'd like to take it to the theme parks, if I can find a not-so-hot day. Maybe I need to do a photoshoot with Diana, as I did some years ago just for fun. I have a lot of favorite photos from over the years, and I mostly just do throw-aways from my phone now.
I made a bunch of videos for our YouTube channel around the start of the year. I have others that aren't even edited. I've spent a lot of time thinking about short films, but I have nothing to shoot, because I can't seem to write anything. I'm wondering if I have fiction writing in me. I've published a technical book, and written some short-form historical features, but making shit up is hard. I'd like to make someone else's script, but those are surprisingly not easy to come by.
An alternative video plan is to do what I know how to do. For example, I could write and produce a solid video about EV ownership, because that style of production was my jam in my relatively brief professional television life. I also think it might be fun to start vlogging about relearning video.
I think I'm ready to make stuff again.
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