It has been three months already since the last proper post from me, and over 4 months since The Eternal Turn of the Wheel. I wrote that one when the spring was accelerating quickly, the first leaves on the trees have already started to show, and the warm air seemed to beg to breathe it in deeply. It looked like there is a beautiful summer ahead... And now it's basically gone.
Where has all that time go, I ask myself time and time again. And then I realise... I still don't have enough free time and the peace of mind required to answer this question. Funny thing, because at the same time it is the answer. Being all caught up with worldly matters makes for a life that is passing by quickly, I guess...
Passing Through by Leonard Cohen
Trying to look at the world through the exponential glasses is something that I learned here in the crypto world, as this is obviously a place where things evolve quickly and one has to adapt one's mindset to thrive here. However, lately I have been trying to approach other matters with similar kind of exponential mindset, and it truly is a one-way ticket.
One of the main reasons why I feel like I have wasted the summer, is that I spent most of it working my ass off in front of a monitor—in various jobs and projects. Not an ideal way to spend a sunny, summer day, is it?
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I have a 9-5 job as a Software Engineer, working for a startup that was acquired in June by a larger international company. It's been 3 months, barely, and I already hate it. Not to mention that I broke my oath not to ever work for a large corporate company. But I accepted the offer to move to the new employer for one reason: hope for future gains in form of valuable experience that I could take out from working for such a big company.
You see, I though to myself: I could resign and look for something else, but given my current situation and my plans that I have, I will probably be better off just bearing this uncomfortable situation for some time. I am at the moment trying to cumulate some cash for a project that I have had in mind for a long time now. So I kept my 9-5 work...
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At the same time I am spending another 2-5 hours most of the days working on another project from a completely different hat... Over a year ago, in July of 2020 a friend of mine working in a local museum approached me. She had an idea for an exhibition about the history of sports and athletics in the region from before the I World War and up to the start of the II World War, but needed someone to design some display panels. I aggreed, as the exhibition date was far in the future (1st of October 2021), so there should be plenty of time to work on the projects without overworking myself.
Fast forward into the future, and here I am overworking myself in a very unhealthy way to keep the deadline. In the way there were some budget cuts, some minor delays, and a broken hard disk which meant one but huge delay before I could even start my work. Funny how the project was moving on so slowly until the very last moment, where it all seemed to explode and fall on me like a big rock from the sky...
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Wait, that's not the end! Sometime around February/March of this year I started a small project called @dgoal. This was not a big deal: I had just started playing @rabona game on Hive blockchain and really loved it. The only problem I had was with the interface for setting lineups for matches—it was rather unfriendly and hard to use. I decided to quickly create a new, modern interface for my own use, so that I could set up lineups more easily. Soon I decided that I will share it with the community as well, so others can use it if they want...
Again, fast forward few months into the future: I am currently within the core team of Rabona, leading some major software development undertakings for the project and working closely with @rondras and @uwelang on the future of the game. We have some major plans for the upcoming months, with many new features and additions to the game. We also have the confidence that Rabona has got a huge potential that is yet to be unleashed, and we expect it is possible that at some point Rabona will follow @splinterlands footsteps.
What started as a simple personal project to simplify my life a little bit when playing Rabona, and was developing rather slowly for some time, has now quickly turned into one of the biggest and most ambitious projects that I have ever worked on. I am usually spending a dozen of hours weekly working on Rabona, and not rarely more like a few dozens... And it's only going to get more interesting and intense from here!
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And now I will have to grow the overtone of this post gloomy... All of the above happens simultanously to the deterioration of health of my girlfriend's (@niebieskibezczas) mother. You see, we met each other just over a year ago, and the mother was not feeling well already, but was able to get by on. Her problems started a few years ago, but she refused to get a proper medical examination, diminishing the issue. The situation went on for such a long time, that everyone got used to it. Everything changed this summer, when the health of my girlfriend's mother started to deteriorate more quickly, becoming very uneasy and problematic for her. Despite her reluctance, she finally agreed for a proper medical examination, which quickly showed there are multiple problems with her health, the worst one being... an advanced cancer inside of her. She is now in a great pain and fighting for her life in a hospital, while we are all extremely worried and sorrowful.
My girlfriend told me this a few days ago: “It is mad, it all happens so quickly now.” At that point I realised that the way this awful sickness works is also exponential. At some point a single cell in the body becomes corrupted and turns into a neoplasm. Then this new structure starts to grow, slowly at first and not giving any symptoms for a long time—sometimes years. After the first noticeable signs of the disease show up, everything happens very quickly. Once symptoms appear, it is even too late sometimes.
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I have spent the last few days completely alone, as my girlfriend temporarily moved to her parents' place to be with her father in these hard times. I would love to join them, but first I must finish the exhibition project at least... Today I found myself working the entire day in a complete silence, trying to focus on the work despite all the painful emotions coming to me in waves. But something couldn't leave me alone, something I couldn't quite put my finger on, something happening in the unconsious part of me.
As a mean of clearing my mind a bit, as well as sharing the news to some of my friends who follow me here, I started to write this post.
And then it hit me...
For years now I have been living my life not necessarily the way I would like to. Sometimes it was easier to endure, sometimes harder. What kept me going was a feeling deep inside me, that I must endure through the initial hardships, to be able to finally reap the harvest at some point.
The harvest analogy is perfect here. It takes a lot of work and time to get to the moment of the harvest: you have to plant some crops in the spring, take care of them for weeks and months, watering them and removing weeds, you have to give them the summertime to grow up. And then autumn comes, the time to reap the harvest. The harvesting takes only a fraction of time it took to grow the crop... “It all happens so quickly now...”
And then it hit me...
It is a very hard and sad time for me and people around me, but I think it will also be an important turning point.
Maybe it is the time for the life to enter the exponential phase? Maybe it is the time to reap the harvest?
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Qui passus es pro nobis, miserere nobis.