Life is too short.

I figured I should /really/ get around to starting that blog and today was the day it seems.

Earlier today I was thinking about another blog that I wrote in and how it served as a very good “backup” of my history. Seeing as I’m working on so many projects at once right now it couldn’t be a better time to start keeping track of it all. I can barely remember it anyways.

I am amazed at how much work I’ve been doing these past few months. Nearly every waking moment is spent on the computer. You know, I’ve often thought about how /actual/ time spent is always less than how much time you /think/ you spend on a particular activity. How many times I’ve felt accomplished and think: “Oh yeah, I spent a good 10 hours today” — when in reality all the little things like snack breaks, 30 second mental lapses, checking mail, add up to a huge portion of your day?

These days though, I really do spend 60-100 hours a week on the computer, /working/. This might be possible only because I have 0 distractions here. Not even TV. I can’t imagine what I will do when I get home. Hopefully I can keep it up.

It suddenly feels like life is way too short. There are too many things to do, and much too little time to do them. I’m getting my first glimpse at many professions, and it’s finally occurred to me that you can spend your early life (college/self taught) learning to do something that you don’t want to do. This makes the future much more difficult/risky to think about.

At this point, I want to try too many things.

Learning Django+Python has shown me what a future programming would be like. That skillset allows you to solve so many problems and also ties into many industries that I also have an interest in (game development). Object Oriented principles learned here seem to apply to many other technical professions.

Deploying Django with PostgreSQL on Nginx and Apache has shown me a glimpse of the System Administrator. I have a new found respect for these people. My world was quite simple until I came across the finer workings of computers and the internet. Its quite scary considering I already thought most of the world operated on a simpler level in the first place. People barely stop and “think” in this world. At least constructively. If you are blind (mentally) in the first place, your pondering means nothing.

Using Photoshop, and to a lesser extent Illustrator has shown me life as a Designer. I have seen the works of rockstar designers who wield Photoshop amazingly, and it is out of this world. The internet is a great medium for showing you just how small you are. You literally compete with the best of the world from the comfort of your own computer. No longer can you ignore real talent that’s out there. It definitely sets the bar high — which is a good thing.

Using Flash+ActionScript3, and Papervision3D has shown me life as a flash developer. Interactive media is very interesting. I am glad to see that the Object Oriented concepts from python carry right over to help out with flash. But this is quite an uphill struggle. Right now i think Anuva needs Flash. Very fancy flash that is on par with the worlds best. I am far from being able to produce that. 3D Flash is ridiculous. Its only used by a relatively small crowd. You don’t find high shool kids animating with Papervision. Yet.

And finally, dealing with Papervision3D has reminded me of 3dsMax, Maya, and SoftimageXSI. Those 3d modeling programs I used to meddle with years ago. This too is of great interest to me. It was great fun. Everything takes so much time to learn its very disheartening. Perhaps it is possible to use them all? Perhaps that is only a naive thought.

One interesting thing I notice is that there are common elements to everything I am learning. I can’t quantify it and express it in words but everything makes everything else make sense. It probably stems from a change in the way I look at computers from behaving “magically” to some ruleset.
Previously, in my mind, the underlying logic behind a computer was always what was built into the UI. It was from the users point of view. The logic in each computer related task was how the buttons worked with eachother. What the buttons did, as opposed to how. Now, everything is defined by how it works. You can’t run a server, or manage a postgresql database without understanding how it works. You can’t understand how it works without understanding how a computer functions.

Basically, this entire field is immensely interesting. It is a realm where much of the universe has yet to be solved. It’s like waking up one morning and wondering whether the sun orbits the earth, or the earth orbits the sun, and being able to go about solving that problem (instead of reading it in a book).

Its where you can apply all the skills you’ve ever learned about critical thinking, math, physics to solve problems every day that have yet to be solved. Physics was cool, except the problems were already made for you, and the real problems have all been solved, except for the extremely difficult stuff thats already a non comparison anyways. I see great intellectual stimulation from this.

I still have MUCH more to learn, but this is the beginning. I am afraid I will hit a mental roadblock and never be able to comprehend these languages on the level I read about, but nothing comes with a guarantee, huh?

Lets hope this is the beginning of something great. Lets also hope the world is stable in the coming decade for my dreams to be realized.

Listening to: “Together We Will Live Forever” — The Fountain

Very soothing piano piece that I have on repeat.