Expanding My Horizons

For the longest time I thought I was an artist.

A lot of this probably has to do with the way kids were categorized when I was in school -- which is to say, poorly. I was told I was a "hands on learner", probably because I wasn't so good at the book lernin'. The truth is I just don't think I was interested in what they were teaching me, and I found it hard to maintain focus on things that were boring to me.

I was good at drawing, though. I enjoyed drawing things on the back of assignments when I had extra time after finishing -- or sometimes I'd draw despite being finished. But it never felt like the end-goal for me.

I knew this because in the early 2000's my brother went to Art School to study painting and web design, and we were both young and eager to get out on our own so I came along with him to keep him company and help out. What I was exposed to with the majority of these students was a real "artistic" personality. These people were flippant, emotional, strange, energetic, passionate, creative, and highly talented. And at the time that they were doing this, I was noticing that webcomics were becoming a thing, so even though I didn't really read comics -- or even like them, to be honest -- I started to publish comics online. My friend Eric, who had moved in with us, was studying programming, and we double-teamed with him working on the code and me working on the content, design, and marketing.

This was something I really liked. It had to do with the audience response, and to a minor extent the expression of myself through the characters in the comic. I found myself molding the story and art style based on the audience I was trying to attract. I got more pleasure out of successfully completing a promotional goal than in creating an end to a story arc. I also found myself reading a lot of philosophy and theological treatises. A worldview started forming, but it was relatively secret, because it didn't seem to fit into the "artistic" personality type to which I was supposed to belong.

Years went on. Art stuff didn't work out at all. The advice was bad. So I got into menial labor. But even then I was constantly looking for ways to make whatever work I was doing more efficient, and I kept learning. Not things that were relevant to my jobs, but things that were meaningful to me as a person. I studied the categorical comparative, Pythagoras and his theorems, Gnostic syzygystic duality systems... that sort of stuff.

There didn't seem to be a place for me. I didn't seem to feel like I had a place. I would write very dense polemics against Descartes, I would write reviews for music that nobody listened to, I would design characters for a story that connected the dots between medical science and human culture with characters who were analogies for both biological processes and metaphysical principals. All the while I would work in a warehouse, at a machine shop, as a janitor, etc.

Then, one day, I heard from my old friend, the programmer from back in art school. He was a successful developer by this time, and doing very well for himself. He showed me a game he'd developed in his free time, and instantly I started to think about how it could be improved to increase player enjoyment and what could be done to monetize it in the most profitable and unobtrusive way. He told me we should make a game together. So we did.

I worked for 3 to 4 hours every morning before going to work in a warehouse for 10-12 hour shifts. People around me thought I was wasting my time on this game. People told me that nobody was going to play it and I wouldn't make any money. I believed differently because by now I understood that I didn't see the world like most people. So in about 2 and a half months, the game was done. We released it to the public.

That game was called Blobfish Evolution, and it got 1200 downloads on its first day. At it's peak it was getting 20,000 downloads in a day. Even after 3 years from its release, the game is still getting thousands of downloads per week -- unheard of. And it turns out the monetization system I had come up with was genius. We were able to make money without alienating players. We were able to successfully encourage them to give positive reviews. The game would get tweeted about hundreds of times per day.

This, I thought, is what I want to do.

However, I didn't know how to code. I would work on designs, illustration, music, sound, animations, and I'd tell my partner who would put everything together. This is actually a somewhat time consuming process, as we both had full-time jobs and often weren't able to connect at the same time. I had often wished that I could code because I could test my ideas before putting them into practice, and THEN consult my partner about it. But I simply didn't have the time to study code.

The thing I'm getting at here is that I'm not an artist. Artists don't really do the sort of things that I excel at doing. And even though I'm ok at drawing and animating, it becomes a bit of a hassle for me to do for too long, and I wind up feeling burnt out and ready for something new. I realized that I need a much more flexible and time-effective skill-set. Because I don't just want to make games. In fact, I want to work on blockchain projects because I have some very innovative and exciting ideas that I don't see anyone expressing in the space -- their minds are just not oriented to the sorts of things I'm thinking about.

That's where Code Fellows comes in. They are a school program that offers coding bootcamps that focus on complete immersion so that students can be ready to start working after just two months of school. This is exactly the sort of thing that I need, in part because my lack of a meaningful position in society has left me alienated and quite destitute -- when I have what I know are highly marketable ideas but don't have the skills to manifest them, well... I just look like a blowhard, know-it-all, pretentious looser lol.

Knowing how to code will offer me the kind of lifestyle that I know I need to really start pushing the limits of my potential. I need the skills to prototype my ideas and the kind of income that can afford to waste time on an idea that doesn't work out and have it not be a problem.

I'm an inventor, not an artist. It's something I wish I would have known about a long time ago, because it could have saved me a lot of time and heartache. But how are you supposed to know what you don't know before you know it?

Anyway, if you actually read to this point, I really appreciate your time and attention, and -- actually, I wonder if you can relate to this at all? Do you have a similar experience in life? Something to do with being miscategorized in society, feeling alienated, knowing you were capable of so much more than others took you for?

Tell me.
And follow me @shayne

Here's Rick Astley