When I can stand to, I think about the future. Seldom the future of the world at large – that’s entirely too complicated and distressing right now, although I do try to stay aware of opportunities to do what I can, where I can, to improve things. What I mean, though, is that sometimes, occasionally, I look up from whatever I’ve been working on that day for long enough to wonder where I’m actually going, where my life is leading.
This, too, is a complex and worrying question, such that I’ve generally chosen not to ask it often – or to, when I do, respond to myself with unhelpful platitudes such as “you can only know once you get there” or “opportunities will probably arise as long as you wait and work and pay attention.” I’m certain several of the posts I’ve written here boil down to me telling myself basically that – but, while I still feel like most of the time it’s more useful to focus on the immediate than to stress out about the future, it also tends to result in a certain lack of perspective. I’m relatively happy in life being an isolated weirdo, but as time goes on and I become, if anything, only more isolated and weird, it’s worrying to extrapolate that out towards a weird and isolated future.
Yesterday, I re-watched the Muppet Movie for the first time in a while. This movie has always emotionally resonated with me, but never more so than now: Kermit admitting to himself that he’d let himself believe the dream as inevitable when it seemed like it was about to fail; Gonzo reminiscing on the joy of a facsimile of flight, the closest he’ll ever get to a yearning that’s impossible to physically realize; the songs of seeking for an impossible and undefinable connection, the contact between those who dream out loud, those who sow dreams, and those whose dreams grow from those seeds – these moments are more immediate and poignant to me than ever.
When I’m isolated so much in my own mind – and these days, being obviously isolated in more material ways as well – the promise of a connection made through art, of being a vector through which people can glean entertainment, happiness, and maybe the inspiration to sprout some dreams of their own is one which is deeply compelling to me. It feels at times that such rainbow connections are the only ones left to me, that I’ve constructed a life where more prosaic connections are unavailable and I’m left grabbing at rainbow straws. Much as the starving artist is an archetype which continues to exist despite – or perhaps because of – it being clearly exploitative and hazardous, so too is the emotionally-starved artist. There is a belief that the only artists who deserve respect and regard are those who earn it, who’ve “made it” – the attention economy, like the actual economy, is harsh and tuned to only bestow its bounty on a chosen few – and, in most cases, which few primarily depends on luck, timing, and of course wealth and connections (of the non-rainbow sort).
I don’t know whether or how I’ll really be able to make it work as an independent game developer. I’ve lasted this long at it frankly not due to any real success, but due to an ability to live on a shoestring budget and a small degree of family wealth – enough at very least to not have to worry about being made homeless by unexpected expenses. That’s not really making it work, that’s just not letting it break. These days I’m starting to think a lot more about what an actual life doing this, actually making and finishing and selling things will look like, and it’s not easy to envision – because, one way or another, I have a terribly hard time actually making that connection, putting that work out there, finding other people – whether audiences, clients, or friends.
Nevertheless, I’m still a believer. One day I’ll find it.