Failure to Launch

June 26, 2021

The best laid plans of bits and bytes oft go uncached.

There isn’t really a goal that I set out to achieve when I created this… idk, thing. Newsletter? Column? Blog? Amorphous hodge-podge of pre-determined HTML and CSS being crafted with dubious quality? But I suppose that’s why it’s sat collecting virtual dust for the past six months. Maybe, despite still riding through the world with ADHD training wheels, setting some goals isn’t a terrible idea. At this stage, it could be less of an exercise in futility and more of an exercise in actual exercise and learning? So, imbued with all the spirit that being an alum of a school with virtually no campus life brings, here goes!

Nick’s List of “Hopes & Dreams” (by Toby Fox)

Honing my analytical sense and picking up writing again.

It kills me that I can’t just spend my days reading theory and writing. Being a capitalist wage slave, especially in the context of where I work and what I do, just doesn’t feel like what I can do for a very long time, so I need to pick up a more substantial and serious hobby in my off time. Making coffee in steadily more complicated ways can only bring so much fulfillment. But on a serious note, I do want to work to establish myself in the writing space – make a real name for myself for my thinking and writing, and my unending desire to shine an overly critical and penetrating light on pieces of media that usually end up in the shadows. It’s not a very original goal, but it’s a truth!

A nearly four-year old article might not be the best testament to my abilities, but I can’t take a screenshots of PDFs I don’t have, now can I?

Continuing to tinker and learn more about computers/computing.

My big achievement last year was successfully building a self-specked desktop, and while I haven’t gotten as much mileage out of it as I had expected I would – which is mostly my own fault, but alas – it still has opened me up to a new area of interest! Documenting some of the projects that I undertake and the processes that go into those is something I’m really looking forward to doing with this space. In fact, I have an old iPod classic just waiting on some parts before I summon the effigy of Dr. Frankenstein and I can turn it into something neat.

Cable management is a work in progress, as always.

Discovering more about myself and my queerness.

What self-respecting queer doesn’t think they’re the most interesting case study of deviancy and totally worthy of an A24-produced feature film series while they discover themselves? Sadly, I don’t have that kind of budget, nor the kind of introspective ability to tell a decent story… yet. Learning to fully embrace that part of myself and all the nooks and crannies that come along with being a queer man in a straight world is a lifelong process, and I’m eager to start that process! Of course, I don’t intend on turning these into impromptu therapy sessions, but if they do, oh well.

Promise that the red band is up at the top… and that I won’t always strike such dumb poses.

There’s so much else that I hope to do, both personally and in the semi-public eye, but this is a pretty substantive list of the things on my mind right now. Every great movement and creation started somewhere, so even if these things don’t ultimately unfurl how I plan, I’m sure something great will blossom from these efforts.

And as soon as I stop trying to write like a failed novelist, I think I’ll have taken my first steps in that direction.