creation
the first occupation i aspired for as a child was that of an artist. this was pretty quickly followed up by author, animator, roboticist, and whatever other tangential career paths i've dreamed about. but artist came first, and i think it's the hardest one for me, because i don't pick up good habits well and the enduring need to create that i see in other arists and creators isn't ever-present in me. i enjoy making and creating and tinkering, but i can lose the momentum for months on end.
simone giertz talked about how creating shitty robots was a way to rebel against her innate perfectionism: instead of trying to make something excellent beyond compare, her goal was to make a robot achieve a particular goal in the absolute stupidest way conceivable.
i love that so, so much.
so in a similar way, to fight against all the failure i feel in my day-to-day, i set on to make a website that can act as a creative outlet for my emotions, irrational thoughts, anxieties and other spiritual irritants. i'm so ingrained in digital environments that a blank text editor is less nervewracking to me than an empty sketchbook page.
in creating this site, i can only loosely consider myself an artist, but the label--superficial, ego-serving it may be--does mean a lot to me.
money
as soon as i stated an interest in being an artist, there was pushback that i should be a lawyer instead. you like reading, you'll do well reading up on cases and laws!
turns out having an affinity for sff literature doesn't translate well to comprehending case studies. my experience with a media law class was evidence enough.
there's always been a pressure that whatever i do, i must come out financially successful at the end. of course, yes, i also want that, i'd like to be able to keep up with the wildly increasing cost of living without going under. to not be in a very high-earning job, especially after all my education, is just another tallymark in the ways i haven't upheld my duties.
as a side effect of fun of building a site for my own joy and expression, i end up building my skills in front-end development, in web design, in creative tech. creating for creating's sake encourages this exploration in a "safer" place, so if i find something i really want to make for a portfolio piece or want to do freelance, i have the experience from here.
i don't know that i'll ever reach familial income expectations. i don't know if a role that would provide that income would work with me, anyway. but web creation could be a pathway to working a job that suits a life i hope to live: one that keeps my own growing family financially stable, one where my partner won't have to worry about if we make enough money, one where i feel some degree of creative fulfillment and pride in my work, maybe even one i can do from my own home.
intelligence
i don't think of myself as a smart person. to counteract this mental image, i continually push myself into situations that make me seems smart: i study tech, i learn to code, and so on and so on. i strive to appear intelligent as much as possible, and i feel obliterated any time that perception is shattered.
the anonymity of the web allows me to fail without being seen by my peers: it's easier to fall hard in front of strangers than in front of those who know me. the pressure to be the smart one is lightened. i can be silly and dumb--i can just be.
community
creating websites is something that the Cool Kids do--at least to me. the ones who could make their myspace pages their own, the ones who could make incredible tumblr themes, the ones who made full-on sites dedicated to their obsessions: i have always loved seeing that.
it's been a real thrill browsing through neocities, springing off of links pages through cool parts of the web i nearly forgot existed. at risk of sounding like a dinosaur, it really brings me back to my younger years genuinely websurfing, before it felt like all there was to do was social media.
i'm at the time of my life where i feel like i can create and add on to the web, if even a little. those of you on neocities have really encouraged me, even if i haven't spoken with you: your passion for webmastery, your drive to make things about what you love, your willingness to share educational resources and coding tools and free web manifestos and every other wonderful thing i've seen on here--it all pushed me into making my own page, and making this contribution to the code jam. i am so grateful for all of you making me feel like i could belong in this space, and i hope to do this for others. thank you, thank you, thank you.