The Life and Times of Nathan Hourt

It's been a while since I produced anything on Steem, and I do regret that. So I wanted to put up a post about what's been happening lately that's kept me from you. :) This post is long and rather starkly honest, so buckle up.

Shortly after this post, I decided to allocate more time to my day job (which I haven't talked much about on Steem... I want to change that) wherein we were trying to get an alpha of our software together ASAP. So I went full-tilt on that and got the software to a state I felt reasonably comfortable calling an alpha, but the funny thing about life in a startup is that emergencies never end (sounds a bit like government); they go on indefinitely never reaching that point when someone says "OK, you can slow down and take a breath now, the world's not going to end." So with the alpha out, I just kept right on plowing towards the beta because "Seriously, we've been in business for how long, and we don't have a real product yet?" and "We've only got money for a couple more months; if we don't start making money soon we'll be broke" and all the rest of the clamoring stressors.

Next, I moved to Saint Louis, which was neither unexpected nor unwanted, but it definitely took its toll. I move a lot, mind you: in the last five years, I've lived in Arkansas, New York, Virginia, Texas, Kansas City, and now Saint Louis. The shortest of those was Kansas City, where I lived for only about six weeks. In all of my moves, the move to StL is the first one where I literally packed up my car and drove to "Saint Louis," not having any better idea than that of where I'd sleep that night.

It proved to be an interesting experience in which I surfed some couches, spent a night in a hotel, and also flew back to Virginia for a week before flying back to StL. Fortunately, I had managed to secure an apartment by the time I flew out, which would be ready for me to move into by the time I got back. My apartment isn't furnished, though, and for the past nine months or so I've been hopping between furnished places to cut down on the amount of stuff I need to move, so I don't have a proper workspace set up yet to record and edit videos, which contributes largely to the fact that I haven't posted any since I moved. So while I still feel a bit like I'm camping in my apartment, I am settled in and content here; now it's just a matter of time before I get the rest of my stuff hauled up here from my parents' house, as they have been kindly storing it for me.

The fine workstation from which I craft this post. Many thanks to the Steem community, whose upvotes paid for the awesome chair and speakers.

Then there's been the relationship issues, and these have occurred on three fronts: my family, my girlfriend, and my work.

Since moving to Kansas City, I haven't attended church, which has created some disquiet within my family. I still firmly assert that, if we utilize an originalist interpretation, the bible is a fine document which should not be overlooked lightly as it contains a great deal of wisdom when understood the way its authors intended it; however, I do not accept it as axiomatic, and I think the modern church has deviated gravely from the principles the bible espouses (which are actually quite anarchic in nature) and has utterly failed in the calling to be "in the world but not of it." They mean well, but they aren't asking the hard questions, the questions that matter. So, having closed that chapter in my life, I now must accept the consequences of that action, namely that my family is worried about me, and there's little I can do to reassure them even though I completely understand the origin of their unease. I may at some point resume attending church, but if and when that day comes, I want it to be for a clearly defined, positive purpose; not out of fear of what will happen if I don't.

Next up, my relationship with my girlfriend. Ours is a young relationship, but I don't enter romantic relationships lightly, and when I do, I intend for it to last and thrive. It was for this relationship that I moved to Kansas City, where my girlfriend lived at the time, with the stated intention of moving to Saint Louis soon thereafter, as she was enrolling in circus school in Saint Louis.

During my stay in KC, the relationship was going superbly. My biggest complaint was the amount of gas I was burning driving to and from her place every day or two. But after moving to StL, the relationship began to feel a bit desiccated: her schedule is killer (this is no exaggeration; she goes full-tilt seven days a week, and rarely has time to eat and sleep, much less hang out with the boyfriend), and we're both introverts which makes it difficult since I work from home, so I spend most of my time alone (and therefore have plenty of energy for social situations when they arise), while she spends most of her days in circus classes so when she finally does have a free moment, she wants nothing more than to curl up alone with a book.

The biggest issue has simply been the lack of communication between us, which led to me feeling more and more distant and wondering whether things were going to work out. At this point, we've taken time to sit down together and voice our concerns, get on the same page again, and figure out how to go forward, so I'm not worried anymore, but for a while this was a serious drag on my morale and productivity.

On Monday, we went to the Gateway Arch together. Here are my favorite pictures from the trip:

They say the Nexus 5's camera is terrible, and perhaps that's true, but those pictures look OK to me... :P

Finally, work has been a bit rough, mostly for the reasons I described above. Being the only technical person in a software startup composed of three people is a bit difficult. First of all, I think software development is best not done in a vacuum: it helps to have someone else to bounce ideas off of (the other guys are, of course, happy to be there for this, but without being familiar with software development, they can only do so much), and to help me figure out what the best way to solve a problem is. It would be a dream to have someone I could hand some tasks to and know it's in competent hands. But we can't afford to pay ourselves, much less competent help, so it's up to me to make this system as best I can.

And while I'm not worried about money -- I feel more than adequately equipped to make money by other mechanisms (including Steem!) if I need to -- the other guys are counting on me to make their work valuable, and they're some of my best friends in the world: I really don't want to let them down. Even so, burnout is crouching at my door, and sometimes I feel like it would be a relief for the company to finally, truly go broke and leave us with no choice but to move on. I most definitely don't want that to happen; I'm rather passionate about this project and what it could do for people; I just wish I had some competent help so I wouldn't be the only person on whom the future of the company rests, and so I wouldn't have to second guess every design I make because I have no one to ask "Does this make sense? Can we do better?" to.

So that's the highlights of what I've been up to since my posting tapered off. If you actually read this far, be sure and shout out in the comments! I look forward to getting back into the conversation on Steem.

As a closing note, it may sound like I'm complaining in this post, and while there's some veracity to that, I want to emphasize that these are the contours that make life worth living. It's the struggle that makes the victory so sweet, and I write these things not to point out how bad things are, but to understand how to ameliorate them. Thanks for sharing this part of my journey with me. Now let's go create beautiful things. :)