Greetings from scenic,

prettyboytellem.com

Category: Diary
Tags: Work Projects

Jan-02

Hello friends,

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently. Especially over the break, I have had the fair amount of time to do so.

I've been thinking largely about the work that I've done over the past 8 months. From the beginning, the point of these 3 projects has been to solve a problem, and each has had their respective, well-thought-out solution. I will iterate through them in case you are un-aware.

The first project I worked on was an imageboard for N.C. State. The second project I worked on was an image-tagging system, hooYa. The third project I have worked on (and recently completed) is a text-only neo-forum, RAL. All of these projects have addressed something which I have a real fire for.

First, the imageboard addresses things I would like to see happen around more college campuses; it is fun, anonymous, and spurs a sense of community in me that we've lost somewhere within the last decade.

The image-tagging system was meant only for personal use, but it has helped me to realize something which I will address later.

Finally, RAL holds everything I love about the internet close to its chest. As you've likely heard me talk about before, the state of the big internet me upset: it's really a combination of a lot of things, but here's a quick list of three of things that make me upset:

  1. Monetization

  2. Corporatization

  3. Identity (destruction of the VIRTUAL SELF distinction)

So you now see (at least vaguely) the purpose that these projects serve, and you notice that the impetus for these projects comes from within me. The trouble arises, now, after the pusuit of these projects, how completely exhausted I feel. Every day I would come home from school (or work, as is the case now and last summer) and whisper more and more life to these ideas.

But as I spoke, my voice also shrank. It's rather unfortunate that I'm now hardly able to speak any more reality to any idea I have: at the moment, I'm rather depressed and work-weary, and I feel unable to escape it: unlike a book, my work always has the ability to topple over, be deleted, or otherwise fetch 404. The work has also gradually made me feel farther away and less in-touch with myself than I can ever remember being: keenly, I feel like I've developed really poorly over the past year; I'd rather not let that go on for another 8 months.

Some days I dream of unplugging everything, returning the two computers to their corners and not giving it another thought, but I'm afraid that's only fantasy: to do so would be an admission that I can't handle the balance that life so often demands: this approach is a forfeit at its core.

More realistically, I want to quit. I'd rather /quit out and never have anything to do with this thing again. That's what I will do in April when I have the whole thing piloting itself. It'll be rather like being at home, lazing around rather than staying at work for 8 more months.

I desperately wanted to work together with a group of people on this but nobody seemed to be as excited about it all. As a result I've really chased my own tail for several more miles than I should have: consequently, I will be forfeiting all my administrative capacity for the foreseeable future at the end of March.

Oh, diary, I'm eating at the Cookout if you're curious what I'm doing today.

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