Looking forward.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey

Goals 2022

Maintain meditation and workout routine
Maintain practice of fermenting and sprouting
Increase involvement in cropshare initiatives
Maintain guitar practice routine
Start practising Kung Fu
Participate in a sailing turn
Participate in another forest retreat
Participate in a sweat lodge

Project Goals 2021

Release Latest Broken Rules Project
Build a family home
Build a loft bed for AA
Port sinpin to uxn

Long Term Goals

Grow a garden
Grow mushrooms
Grow vegetables
Live closer to and with nature
Become more independent of large, corporate structures
Become more self reliant
Need less money
Decrease dependence on fossil fuels
Focus efforts on public welfare
Create art and tools that contribute in positive ways
Increase work with open-source tools

Projects on hold

Build a nori frame
Build a manual flashlight

review 2021

_{Reviewing 2021.}

2021 was defined by learning experiences, personal growth and building habits that mitigate the waves of changes and challenges that rolled over my life in the recent years. Within stereotypical proximity to the mid of my life expectancy, several events converged to uncover new and old ideas, values and goals that set me on a trajectory for the next part of my life.

Chasing after new goals, I tend to loose sight of the things that are already there. Deliberate practices cultivating a mindset focused on appreciation of the presence helped me retain a much needed balance. After years of physical, mental and spiritual neglection I was able to shift more towards these aspects by building and maintaining a daily routine, continuing therapy and participating in retreats devoted to personal growth. Meditation and physical exercise noticeably slowed down a perceived deterioration and considerably improved my constitution. Furthermore it enabled me to re-gain healthier sleeping patterns after many years of battling insomnia and other sleeping related maladies.

I met a Kung Fu master who runs a dojo in Vienna. After a first lession I decided that I want to pick up the training again and plan to integrate it in my weekly schedule.

In an effort to find alternative ways of consuming and producing, I joined three solidarity initiatives late this year and I'm looking forward to cultivating my engagement in the coming season.

Switching to a full vegetarian diet in 2020, I started experimenting with fermentation, pickling and sprouting, yielding largely positive results. The experiments shall continue next year.

Delicious and colorful red onions with garlic after four weeks of dry salt fermentation.

Reading is another habit that I picked up again and Project Gutenberg has become one of my most valued resources. I have an old e-ink reader that after modding and jailbraiking became a favorite device.
Favorites books include The Cyberiad (Stanislav Lem), How to do Nothing (Jenny Odell) and surprisingly Iphigenie auf Tauris (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe).

Professionally I'm closing in on the release of a new Broken Rules game project that I have been working on since early 2019. It was a long and challenging one and I am looking forward finally getting it out. While I am very proud of what the team achieved, I think it's save to say that I don't want to work on game projects of this magnitude in the forseeable future. Instead, I would like to focus my digital efforts on projects with less complexity and resource demand.

Plans on the house have been slowly but continually developed over the year. With any luck, we finally start building in 2022. It's going to be an exciting year!

Sketch from last summer. Sadly the small tower didn't make the cut in the final plans.

Projects

Submited the release candidate of a new Broken Rules game.
Learned programming C by porting the nchrs website generator.
Paper-prototyped a turn-based dungeon crawler currently titled sinpin.
Learned programming LUA by implementing sinpin in Löve2D.
Finished plans for a house.

Personal Highlights

Switched to feature phone.
Switched to a paper calendar.
Switched to khal and khard.
Joined Ouvertura and Ochsenherz, two cropshare initiatives.
Joined MILA, a cooperative supermarket initiative.
Took part in an energy autarky workshop.
Took part in a four day forest retreat.
Took part in a family constelation therapy.
Fasted for four full days.
Started fermenting and sprouting foods.
Improved guitar playing skills considerably.
Learned how to solve a rubicks cube.
Learned how to solder.
Learned how to preserve foods.
Read 25 books.
Watched 36 movies.

Inventory Changes

Obtained a PocketChip.
Obtained a soldering iron.
Obtained an old manual drill.
Obtained old manual woodworking planes.
Obtained and rebuilt a bike trailer.
Obtained classic analog board games documented their rules.
Obtained a reanimated bike.
Co-created a new wallet.
Obtained and sold two guitars.

Traveling

Visited and explored the Waldviertel around Ellends and Drosendorf
Went to Istria for family vacation
Went on a 4 day solo bike tour
Went camping with friends and family in Reingers
Visited the Lobau protest camps

Personal Lessions

Things don't have to be painful to be valuable.
Things don't have to be complex to be valuable.
If there is an easy and a complicated way, it's okay to take the simple route sometimes.
It is ok to like popular things. Elitism doesn't help anyone, least yourself.
Learning how to feel an emotion is the first step. Learning how to let go of it the next.
We all wear habitual masks constituting our behavior patterns. Truly taking them off is not only possible, but incredibly liberating. Being able to wear them deliberately is a skill you can learn.

review 2020

_{Reviewing 2020.}

2020 was a year of changed plans and reconsiderations. While the pandemic wasn't threatening us as much as others, it was a year of changes and challenges. Notable things that happened: