I saw a friend this past weekend who I hadn’t hung out with since I started school, just about a month ago.
“You look,” he told me bluntly, “so much happier.”
Happier than who or when, he didn’t say, but I knew what he meant. I’ve had trouble tracing the timeline precisely myself — the funk I slid into is convenient to peg to the onset of the pandemic, yet my malaise and restlessness predated even then. I’d stopped writing almost altogether at that point; I had begun to feel a certain hollowness at work, with no idea how to fill or even name it. I woke up most mornings with a lurch of dread in my stomach that I quelled until I couldn’t, and I waited for each week to pass.
These flutters of existential discontent, perched as they were at the very tip-top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, did not at first command my attention. If anything, they annoyed me. I had weightier, more immediate problems to deal with, and a job I felt lucky to have — lucky enough that I didn't realize when my days became harder, the routines less rewarding. I turned 30 years old that first locked-down spring, and this past one I turned 34, and it feels like only now am I finally shaking off a thick mantle of inertia I didn’t notice had settled.
Now, at ITP, the weeks are going by too quickly. I’m taking four classes — learning software and code and physical and digital fabrication — and TAing two undergrad ones, and even when I’m not required to be on campus it’s pretty much the only place I want to be. I’m learning so much I don’t know where to put it all, and meeting people who I think I’ll know forever. We’re halfway to midterms, which is halfway through the first semester, which is halfway through the first year, which is half of the whole span; more, really, since the second semester of second year is devoted entirely to working on a thesis. I spent almost as long deciding, applying, and preparing to come here as I’ll actually be attending.
That finitude is a good thing; it gives a shape and sense of urgency to what could otherwise be formless. (More to the point, I need to start making real money again sooner rather than later.) Still, it does make me feel a tad nostalgic for something that’s barely underway. I love who I get to be here, inquisitive and energetic and focused, and one of my goals for the next two years is figuring out how to more readily access that state when it feels out of reach.
I guess a simpler word for all of this is “grateful,” or maybe just “happier.”
If you’re interested in the specifics of what I’m studying, I’m keeping a blog for a couple of classes where that’s a requirement (check out Physical Computing and Automatons under the Fall / Winter 2024 tab). There’s a heavy emphasis on documentation here, and I’ve found it helpful to articulate my process as I approach different physical and computational problems. Beyond that, I like having a record of what I knew when, the ability to pinpoint the moment I went from grasping nothing about a given topic to understanding and applying it.
I also spoke with Kyle Starr over on the Y Button podcast about my recent creative and professional journey, and particularly how games have figured in. It was a fun, meaningful, kind of surprisingly intimate conversation! I touched on some similar topics when I guest-co-hosted Into the Aether along with Chase Allhart over the summer.
Finally: If you too are currently having your life ruined by Fields of Mistria in early access, get in touch. (I’m trying to decide who I should date.)