I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel this chair…

We’ve managed to catch the train for about three weeks straight. Time that I’d spent in the past writing or doing malware research has instead been used to sharpen my web development skills. I don’t have any delusions of grandeur, I’m not looking to change jobs, I just enjoy it and I didn’t like that I’d eliminated it from my life.

Earlier this year, Aesop Rock released a new album, and one of the tracks really connected with me.

The drifting away from the things that you used to enjoy, used to consider part of your fabric of being, part of your soul, and that initially that drifting away was temporary, then a protracted hiatus, then you’re saying “Well, I used to do that.”

I don’t want to overdramatize my love-affair with web-design, but I built my first webpage in 1997. That’s almost 20 years ago. For comparison’s sake, I played guitar from my 13th birthday on to my first semester in college, so about five and a half years. I derive too much enjoyment from it to deny myself of it on some weird professionalism issues.

Whether I’m doing the work for myself or someone else is really secondary to the creation element. I’m learning how to do things the right way in my language of choice, and I’m building little applications that exist only on this tablet I’m writing from. They’re built for an audience of one, and they do exactly what I need, and want, and nothing more or less. At some point I’ll expand that scope, but making peace with the fact that I enjoy it for the sake of creation, has been useful. I’m not getting hung-up on justifying the hobby with being able to monetize it. If I come up with a million-dollar idea, fantastic. Those probably won’t happen unless I’m creating in the first place.

One of the problems I’m having with the new train situation is that Diana and I have been sitting together every time, which highly restricts the seating options. Sometimes I don’t get a seat with a table, and it makes for a very awkward setup, trying to use my knees as a table and having my legs and feet go to sleep. I’m debating getting a different laptop to accommodate. The Surface Pro 3 has been about the best laptop I’ve ever owned, but for the lap part of laptop, it fails spectacularly. Since I’m no longer doing any really specialized Windows work, I’m strongly considering a MacBook Air or Pro. I really enjoyed by Early 2008 MBP, and about all I am going to be using it for anymore is writing, web development, and general surfing. Most of the “gee whiz” stuff on the SP3 is stuff I haven’t really used. And it still holds most of its value. I could get in for not much more money and probably be much happier on the commute. As I’m currently crunched up with pretty much my whole lower body going numb, it’s very intriguing indeed.