November 09th 2006

I really hate working. Now that this civilian service crap is over I'm back in the office doing website programming (I freaking HATE Internet Explorer 7, that piece of junk is only good for nothing). Okay, one might say I should call myself lucky to even have a job. Fine. I do. Don't worry.

But the thing is, the more I sit there in the office and stare at some ridiculous designs that were made by our designers who forced themselves to be creative (an act we all know can't result in anything good), the more I feel lost. I'm giving up 50% of my life just to get money so the other 50% of my life can live. Do you want to see my personal todo list?

IAD, Halfquake Sunrise, my second personal album, Personal Halfquake, an overall recode of The Farm website, Antaran, HQA Comics and all those little ideas that only live for about 5 minutes before they get killed again because I'm telling them I don't even have enough time for the others.

For example, I'd love to do a little magazine, just like I did back in school. Ten pages filled with random stuff. Monthly.

I'd like to continue Antaran daily, add a lot more content for PHQ and finally get going with IAD again. I want to devote five hours a day to HQS, and spend some quality time composing music.

But I can't do that! I wake up in the morning, drive to this boredom crap fest for which I even get paid WAY less than one would expect from such a job and waste just another eight hours for nothing.

My head explodes with ideas and I just can't let them out. Whenever I come home at 6 pm I eat something, check the news, and then it's 7 pm. I'm tired as hell and I take a look at my todo list. Mostly I end up doing things for PHQ because that's mostly just coding stuff which is more convenient than drawing for example, and PHQ is a multiplayer game, so it requires a lot more attention anyway. Bugs have to be fixed asap, issues have to be resolved, gameplay has to be balanced, content has to be added to keep players interested and satisfied. Why I keep doing PHQ then, you ask? PHQ is a project of mine and - believe me I've tried to quit making PHQ - it's impossible to just cancel it. There were times when I sat back for two weeks and did absolutely nothing for PHQ and then - WHAM! - I get so many ideas and start implementing right away. The moment I start implementing I actually see my todo list grow bigger and bigger again because I'm getting ideas faster than I can implement them. This is the moment where I start deleting things from my list and save them for later.

What's even worse is that whenever I work on a project the other projects get left behind, which means that going back to old unfinished projects makes a huge difference to its style. And since I have only so much time for even ONE project you can imagine how hard it is to go back to old projects like the HQA Comics because I'm worried that I could either forget story elements or ruin the drawing style.

I'm afraid the more I work and the more ideas I get and the less time I have to execute those ideas the more my artistic senses will fade away. I don't really know if that's possible because I've said that to myself thousands of times and then the next second I had another idea, but I really think that work makes an empty shell out of you, with eyes that just stare for the sake of staring and hands that just work for the sake of getting money for food. Of course, that's nothing new, we all know that already.

All that ranting about work doesn't mean I want to hang around all day doing nothing but shoving fat chips down my throat until I can't leave my house anymore. In fact I believe I would be even more productive if I wouldn't go to work every day. I'm not trying to tell people to stop working and get high all day. It's all about the freaking money. No, actually it's all about our basic human needs. We need food, water and a place to rest. And since we're all civilized we can't just hang out in the streets. Wow, imagine everyone would just quit their jobs. That would be fun to watch. No workers means no more shops, which means that even rich people can't do anything about it and just starve to death like the rest.

I thought about the phrase "Get a life" recently. What does it mean anyway? Usually you tell someone to get a life who's constantly doing stuff like working on hobbies in a dark room the whole day. "Get a life" means go out, meet people, get a job. But I think the man in the dark room working on his own world has more of a life than the one going to work 40 hours a week. So the next time someone tells you to get a life, tell him you already have one.

I assume you have a life, since you're reading this news post. In the past I found out that a lot of people who're reading these news posts are creating things themselves. So, let me congratulate you for having a life.

Never stop being creative, people.

That said, I will go back to my drawing board.