(part 1) internal acupuncture from under the covers

Since I always choose to use the energy I have to actually work on development, I'm gonna try a different style of post.
I'm laying in bed writing this, not quite having mustered the force of will to get up and begin the day.
Maybe I write this over a few days. Maybe I can speak more candidly this way, or maybe it will motivate me. Or be a better use of time.
Or all of the above.
But then even if it's none of them, at least I will be saying something here.
Maybe it will help me to write to you all less like a Creator (tm) and more like someone confiding in a friend.

Frankly I'm sick of being a Creator anyway. Not that I'm not going to create-- even in my relative inactivity I can't not. I will go crazy. Have been.
But as far as the modern engagement culture and stuff? Yuck.

No, I'm tired. It's cold. It's 7pm because my sleep schedule is backwards, and it costs double to run the heater at this hour.
And even thinking about the unseen expectations of the outside world I can feel my heart huddle up and retreat further into the recesses of my pericardial cavity.
I love you all, those of you still here, most of all.

But then I've never been very good at connecting to those I love.

The Creator (tm) in me feels the need to justify my existence.
I have still been working every day, I want to say.
It's true, save the occasional life emergency (of which there have been a few) and mental health/break days, as weekends broken up and scattered where I need them most.
I am still working most of the day, I want to say.
It's true, save sleep-- and I am sleeping far too much--, and acknowledgement through practical application that maybe starting despairingly at code for hours straight is neither the best use of my time, nor my energy, nor an effective strategy to solve the problems, and that perhaps if I take a break for an hour and return with renewed emotional perspective, I will make greater headway.
And that is often true, but it sounds less compelling as a Creator (tm), doesn't it?

But am I just here to talk about my emotional issues?
Well, yes. I suppose I am.
You-- no one single person, but the greater private collective here in audience to this patreon-- are the subject of said issues, so it only makes sense I should reason them out with you, yes?
And I suppose you could close the tab at any time.

But my preferred vector of dialogue for emotional issues is the games and writing itself. And that brings us back to "I should put the energy towards working on the games".
Then again, emotional noise is hardly a finite resource-- something I could stand to learn by heart-- and even in the course of the above paragraph my mind went off in eight different angles and somehow I have to choose one to actually put to text in this rudimentary and worthless format.

But that, too, is a judgement of The Creator. It's worthless to anyone else. To me, it is serving an immediate emotional purpose.
And isn't that the important thing? I would say that is the finer form of art if that didn't sound incredibly pretentious. And pretentiousness must inherently be at odds with emotional expression.
Ah. So I realize: the modern hustle culture is simply the new form of pretentiousness. Rather than intangible ideals of Quality or Depth, what we chase is Output.
But to Chase anything is a vice. If one is true to themselves, they can only Be.

Therein spawns a new doubt, spreading through the earth and unfolding beneath me like a yawning, vacuous chasm:
If one can only Be, then there must be a question of, speaking honestly, Am I?
If I am being true to myself, am I, as a person, still capable of making a game as I did with reborn?
Is that what I need or is it what I want to need
And if it is not the former, then where does that leave You?
(And miserably, there is a question of, financially and in stability of life, where does that leave me?)
I have thought some repeated number of times right now that if I am to be fully honest, no longer playing at being The Creator as an ideal I'm unsure I can live up to, I ought to hang up my hat now, close the Patreon, and start applying to traditional jobs near me, even if it is food service or retail.

But then, if I am being honest, I also don't know that it's Not me.
It might be. I am pretty good at this. And These things take time.
Quitting would be shooting myself in the foot.
And I said before, if I'm not making something I will simply go crazy. That hasn't changed.

There was a quote from, i guess it was Defunctland??
"I hate literally every step in the filmmaking process. The only thing I hate more than making a film is not making a film."
I don't quite hold to the negativity there. A lot of it is fun. But I very much get the quote.