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

Personal Highlights

Inventory Changes

Traveling

Personal Lessons

Links