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

Here, I use the word "goal" as a synonym for an idea, a project or a state of being. It is stated in the present tense, as a self-responsibility, and as going towards, not away from something.

Ideally, a goal has a clear outcome and scope that can be quantitatively measured and tracked.

2024 Goals

Build a bike stand
Complete 1st year of Shiatsu training.
Complete 1st half of second year Shiatsu training.
Complete Naikan seminar
Co-organize and attend the Merveilles Meetup

10+ Year Goals

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.

Unfinished / On Hold

Update Ouvertura website.
Release generator source code for Broken Rules presskits.

Idea / Project Backlog

Build a composting toilet
Attend a classic massage course
Release generator source code for Broken Rules website.
Foot Reflexology Course
Sail across the Atlantic.
Build a nori frame
Build an experimental home server.
Build a battery less flash light.
Build a pihole adblocker.

"The goal of life is not to be perfect. It is to become progressively less stupid."

- Marshall Rosenberg

review 2023

I am writing this review in late March 2024 and it's still difficult to think about last year prior to the life-changing events that started unfurling in early November 2023: I left my partner, who I have been in a closed relationship with for fourteen years, married for five and have a wonderful, now ten year old son with. The house plans we had been working on for over three years are off. It's been a tremendously challenging time, strained by emotional and physical pain.

Now almost half a year passed. We are moving into different apartments and are figuring out ways forward. Our future is still uncertain in the midst of this difficult transition. And yet, there are moments of joy, ease and tenderness. I cherish these moments and look to the future with optimism. I see new paths in life and new potential for personal growth for all three of us.

Prior to the rupturing changes in my personal life, I started implementing changes in my professional life: after twelve years of struggling, building, laughing, cursing, publishing and celebrating I retired from all my responsibilities at Broken Rules.
And I retreated from game development in general.

There is a good amount of reasons that made me take the leap, but a central realization is that I've spent more than enough time staring at this bright rectangle in front of me. That is not to say that I'm retiring from computers in general. I probably will always love-hate these electronic boxes full of wonders. But drastically cutting down hours in front of the screen makes time available for other things, like learning a new craft.

My criteria for a new professional direction were:

Something where I work with my hands.
Something where I barely need any tools, if any at all.
Something that I can practice anywhere, anytime.
Something that allows me to cultivate and emanate well-being and positivity wherever I go.

In October 2023, after a few months of research and meditation, I started a three year training in Shiatsu, a form of Japanese acupressure bodywork based on concepts in traditional Chinese medicine. Different bodywork methods are practiced in my closer family and I look forward to adding my knowledge, broadening my horizon and applying myself to new concepts. To that end I stopped my Kung Fu training and intensified my daily Qi Gong practice.

"The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds."
- Dalai Lama

Projects

Published a mirror of the StarDict dictionary archive.
Illustrated the Elmet Brae album cover.
Created a logo for Rad Reader.
Created Merveilles stickers and raised ~EUR 700 for riseup.net.
Built and operated a booth for our local CSA at the global climate strike 2023.
Helped build four new highbeds in the community garden.
Illustrated basic concepts of music theory.
Implemented single album building in memoir.
Added pixel scaled dithering to tootpic.
Added syntax highlighting for indental in micro.
Created a lego stop motion movie with my son.

Personal Highlights

Celebrated my 40th birthday.
Participated in a one week skipper training in Croatia.
Participated in a 3 day blue water sailing training in Hawai'i.
Participated and in a neurolinguistics and communication seminar.
Organised and attended the second Merveilles Meetup.
Drove a 2CV!
Got a new tattoo.
Got a new computer.
Fermented cocoa nibs.
Made tofu for the first time!

Travels

Traveled to Leipzig.
Roadtrip through Austria.
Visited my parents on Hawai'i.

Personal Lessons

Spiritual health is just as important as mental and physical health for overall wellbeing.
Not everyone has to like what I am doing or how I am doing it.

review 2022

Releasing Gibbon: Beyond the Trees in January had a big impact on the rest of my year, as I went on a professional hiatus afterwards. I dramatically cut my working hours at Broken Rules, giving myself space to figure out what comes next. Since then, I've been a happy houseman, maintaining the household and spending a lot of time in the kitchen, cooking, baking and fermenting. I was able to devote more time to family matters, supporting my son and wife in their developments and projects as well as simply enjoying each other's company.

I continued to practice Kung Fu, but stopped going to the dojo often in the second semester. I managed to keep a meditation routine of at least three sessions per week.

Even though there was a lot going on, I perceived the year as much less packed and stressful than previous years and I appreciated the slower tempo. It's been really good to visit my parents for a whole month - I didn't realize how much I missed them. Even though at odds with my ecological values, we might visit them again in 2023.

Covid has slowed down our plans for the house. We haven't started building yet, but the plans are ready for submission. I'm glad we aren't in a hurry, but we're keeping our fingers crossed for 2023.

Projects

Released Gibbon: Beyond the Trees on Apple Arcade, PC and Switch with Broken Rules.
Rebuilt Broken Rules website generator in C.
Rebuilt Broken Rules presskits generator in C.
Released memoir, a photo album generator.
Released tootpic, a script to quickly upload optimised images to Mastodon.
Released scim to simplify scanning images from the command line.
Built various workshop projects.
Built a loftbed for AA.
Illustrated uxn notes.
Started working on an illustration series.
Revised rasputin.
Created a silly little spelunky comic.
Created a spooky rally for AA's birthday.
Invested in three ecological businesses/projects and bought an apartment in Graz, Austria.
Quit Ochsenherz to focus on Ouvertura.

Personal Highlights

Visited my parents on Big Island, Hawai'i.
Participated in a sailing trip.
Participated in the Merveilles Europe Meetup.
Participated in a forest retreat.
Participated in a sweat lodge.
Gibbon received the Apple Design Award 2022 in the category Social Impact.
Presented Gibbon live on national Japanese TV station NHK at Japan Prize.
First bike trip with AA.
AA learned ice-skating.
Introduced AA to Moomins, Erwin Moser and the original Winnie the Pooh.
A finished her coaching diploma (LSB).
Forgot my guitar on the train and found it again in Breclav, Czech Republic.
Rode a solar powered submarine in the bay of Kona, Hawai'i.
Learned to play three new songs on the guitar and improved improvisation skills.
Went to my first large concert in years (Bonobo).
Fully embraced open source software in daily use.
Read 18 books.
Watched 19 movies.
Played a lot of Stardew Valley with AA.

Travels

Traveled to Hawai'i.
Traveled to Venice.
Traveled to Croatia.
Visited Munich.

Personal Lessons

Thoughts create reality. Letting go of negativity in the mind creates space for positivity in real life.
Changing thought patterns is difficult, sometimes overwhelmingly so. Yet, the potential is always present.
Individual change can only ever be a part of the solution for systemic change.
Personal values are guidelines, not spectres of punishment. Don't let your values create unhappiness.
I may enjoy my priviliges without shame or guilt, but with humility, awareness, and dignity.
My priviliges empower me to work towards positive change.
Some things can change like a flip of a switch, others come only gradually through patience and discipline.
I can change noone but myself.
Renunciation can be a sensuous experience.
Effective altruism is an individual concept based on available options.

review 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.
Continued planning 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 Lessons

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

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: