Nobody Can Live In The Theatre

Ever since I was a kid, I've been fascinated by the theatre. I think it has something to do with the fact that everything is, by necessity, so much bigger when it's on stage. Everything is larger than life because, let's face it, nobody wants to see a husband and wife fight. But throw it on stage, blow it up so it's larger than life, and suddenly it's interesting and artistic. When we expand things to larger-than-lifesize like that, they start incorporating literary elements, they start showing us things about ourselves. We cling to the cliches and archetypes and caricatures because they're convenient and easily recognisable, and because they are organic representations of the things we see in each other and ourselves. They're relatable.

I've always wanted to live in a theatre. I've always wanted everything to be larger than life, always wanted things to mean nothing or everything. There would never be a dull moment, right?

The problem with living in a theatre is that the people don't scale. The people around you are people, not cliches or archetypes or caricatures. And endless monologues are lonely things to give.

It's been a while since I wrote here last. A month, almost.

I've been keeping myself busy. I launched a defective product, I spent a bunch of time providing bug fixes for it, I took on contracts for clients, I worked and worked and worked. And you know what?

I'm seeing little reward from it.

That is purposefully disingenuous. I am being paid quite well, have wonderful relationships with my clients, and have somehow risen to the enviable position of turning down work I never sought in the first place. Kevin Purdy, of Lifehacker and Complete Android renown, and other well-connected friends and acquaintances in Buffalo keep pushing contracts and jobs towards me. I am, in a certain sense, being rewarded handsomely for my "work". But in the sense that matters most to me, my sense of accomplishment and quality of life, my high water mark for my emotions... in these places, I seem to be falling short, stagnating.

Part of the problem is that, since August, I've been embroiled in the part of being a programmer I hate the most: maintenance and revision. Part of what I love about programming is the high, the sense of freedom, the grandiose visions that starting a new project grant you. I haven't felt that, in all honesty, since August, not counting a brief moment of insanity here and there. Part of this, ironically, is the fault of my own success; a project that was started without that high, sans those grandiose visions, actually took off and began fulfilling some of the ones I would have had. Kevin, again, is to thank for that. In essence, all the problems in my life right now boil down to "It's pretty much Kevin's fault." I kid. Sort of.

I want to be working on something new. I have lots of ideas. I have lots of exciting technologies to play with, lots of interesting people to talk with, lots of encouragement. The only thing I truly lack is time.

I return to school in a week. I have yet to write the papers or read the books I need to have read by then. I've yet to start. Hell, I still haven't registered for classes. How can I already have no time to do this stuff, and be losing vast amounts of my day shortly? That's just not fair.

In roughly 12 hours, I'll be meeting with my doctor for a variety of reasons, mainly to get refills on my dextroamp-amphetamine, the federally controlled pills that let me have an attention span longer than--- ooh, kitty. But I also plan to broach the whole "sleep disorder" thing then, because I feel like that's where a lot of my time goes. If I could rid myself of that nasty compulsion, the unnerving need to go into a coma every day for a third of the day, I think I'd be a much more productive person.