Future game dev progress (#3) + some problems in life

i’ll start with the progress

  • Coding:
    i started learning to do android apps using kotlin, i have an idea for an app i want to make, basically an app to help me learn japanese, not intending to make this app public, just a thing for personal use and portfolio.

  • Music:
    i absolutely love H&VL, I learned so much from it even though i read only like 50 pages, but i didn’t really get some stuff from it, it has some complicated concepts that i didn’t really get.
    anyway, there’s a thing i wanted to ask about book reading, whenever i read few lines i ofter forget what i read and i re-read it tons of times to get it, also it’s hard to stay focused on the book, after like 5 minutes of reading i lose focus and it’s really annoying, does anyone have any tips or advice to what i can do to stay focused when reading something and getting stuff in one read so i don’t have to re-read it?

  • Drawing:
    today i drew the best drawing i ever made, and it took me like 2 and a half months to get there, i don’t really want to share it because it’s still looks like a 5 years old drawing, i’ll share art once i get much better at it.

  • Story:
    i decided to leave it for a while and only write small ideas i’ll have while doing the other stuff i’m doing, it’s anyway not that important as the other stuff for now and i anyway have a lot time till i even start developing the game, so it can wait a bit.

okay so now for the “life problems”:

university is hard, i should’ve taken less courses for the start, now i have a problem with it bc i barely understand anything and if i fail at any of the courses i’ll have to start over, and to start over i’ll have to pay for it again and it’s pretty expensive and i’m unemployed.

okay so the solution would be “get a job”, but first, it’s scary because i never worked before so i have no idea how it works, and second, i think i have social anxiety and i can’t communicate well with people. i’m scared of akward/embarresing situations (or situations where i make mistakes) and i try to avoid them at all cost, because when they happen i feel a kind of pain, and sometimes out of nowhere my brain remembers them and it hurts me again, and it does so pretty often and i try my best to forget those situations by distracting myself with something fun. so that’s why i try to avoid those situations, and jobs i feel like can be full of them.

so those are the reasons why i’m unemployed, and also why i want to be an indie game dev. also the second problem is also the reason why i don’t have friend or close relationships and why i feel lonely, but it’s been like this for a while now so i’m kinda used to the pain of loneliness.

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Is it possible to “withdraw” or “drop” a class or two, so you can better manage the rest? Schools tend to be understanding about students who take on more than they can comfortably handle.

New circumstances are scary for most of us. A first job, or even a change in jobs is a source of anxiety. New social situations are the same way. I consider those things as analogous to jumping into a cool lake. At first, it’s cold and uncomfortable, but after a bit of time, it gets more comfortable.

Very few people escape episodes of social anxiety, not even those who appear cool and calm on the surface. As a kid, I was withdrawn, super shy, had low self-esteem and always felt awkward. I got around to compensating by becoming the class clown, and acting like I absolutely didn’t mind making a fool of myself, and didn’t care what anyone thought of me. In short, I hid my insecurities behind a clown mask. It worked for a while. Then as I got older, I became quiet and shy again. I also began worrying about what others thought of me again.

I can’t help but wonder if the only way to avoid times of social anxiety is to become delusional or narcissistic. Yet that anxiety doesn’t have to be a permanent thing. A person can develop a reality based measure of confidence. With that said, even the most successful comedians, politicians, and public speakers, report episodes of self-doubt, or the “imposter syndrome.”

You might as well take a bit of comfort in knowing that 9/10 people around you are also dealing with insecurities and feelings of awkwardness. Jerry Seinfeld talked about how uncomfortable people are with public speaking, and at funerals, many would rather trade places with the corpse than stand in front of a crowd to deliver a eulogy.

I’m talking about public speaking because it has much in common with the feeling of being “on stage” around others. It correlates with the thought, “people will watch me and make me nervous, then I’ll screw up.”

There’s a lot of information around that’s dedicated to helping people get past social anxiety. Keyword “social anxiety” in Youtube and you’ll never run out of stuff to watch.

Might it be helpful to “reframe” the memories as learning experiences? Then you can tell yourself, “yeah, there was pain, but also gain.” BTW, the “feeling” part of the brain often makes no distinction between an upsetting memory and a similar upsetting even presently occurring. That’s why some memories “hurt again.” There’s a flip side to that - good feelings can also be relived.

By avoiding them, you’re turning a temporary discomfort into a fire breathing and debilitating monster.

Facing the fear is a way of calling it’s bluff.

If you say something stupid, and upon realizing it, say words to the effect, “I’m sorry, that was a stupid thing to say,” the listener(s) tend to find such openness to be admirable, and they’ll also be more comfortable around you.

What’s the worst case scenario about embarrassment? Does your skin fall off? Do your clothes melt away? Does it cost vast sums of money? Is it physically painful?

People are conditioned from early childhood to think of embarrassment as the boogeyman who will devastate you. It just ain’t so! A surprisingly “glaring secret,” is that usually when a person does something embarrassing, but doesn’t act embarrassed, it doesn’t occur to those around him that he actually did do something to be embarrassed about.

A few more things to consider while around others; while genuinely caring for those in your presence, it’s far less likely you’ll be worried about being embarrassed. Also, focus on what you wish to communicate to others instead of any discomfort you’re feeling.

People and puppies at a dog park have something in common. Introduce a new puppy into the dog group, and they all stop playing, and focus on the newcomer. Then follows a ritual butt sniffing, which is similar to humans looking each other up and down, then a short time later, the new puppy becomes an integral part of the group, just as people tend to get used to each other.

Embarrassment is like that, a few minutes of having the attention of others, then life goes on. People turn their attention elsewhere.

It’s worth taking a long, rational look at what we worry about. Then, like diving into cool water, pass through it rather than avoid it.

I wish I had the patience to create an app! Take care, Wings

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i wish it was as easy as saying that…

in my head the scenerio would be that they’ll make fun of you for forever even if you said that, and they’ll never forget the dumb thing you did, and will never let you forget

the worst case scenerio is that it will become part of history that you can’t rewrite/redo, and the shame will be with you for forever, and it may as well change your whole life for the worse

i don’t think so, but i can focus one course so it will be easier for me, but i’ll have to redo the other

thank you for taking your time to write this long reply, i really appreciate it

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From: ManekiNeko

you’ve got a lot of tasks going on at once. It reminds me when I open too many tabs in my phone and have too many programs all running at once, there’s a lag. I noted you said you’d be able to perhaps draw more focus to one, so perhaps making a prioritising list of what goals you want and which courses are going to get you there. There of course has to be room for down time and doing something enjoyable. I hope that potentially means that your work doesn’t have to suffer for lack of attention if that makes sense.

as far as embarrassment goes, my friend, I embarrass myself daily and you know what? Mistakes make us who we are. They make us human and they help us grow and become better. They teach us better approaches and help us develop better ideas. Your mistakes are failure, they’re part of your growth.

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From: twixremix

hi kanade,

so proud of you for all the progress and the necessary pauses you’ve put into your goals!! very excited to see your art once you’re comfortable to share.

have you already begun new classes for the spring semester? wishing you the best, i hope you can take advantage to any professor office hours, on-campus tutoring, or extra resources your university might offer. office hours definitely helped my own GPA during my time at college when things were too difficult to understand. when it comes to the job problems, there are part-time gigs that you don’t have to have any customer interactions. you could also take this as an opportunity to apply to game dev projects as a support role and accumulate work experience in the process. wishing you an awesome new year ahead, kanade!

love,
twix

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You’re definitely burning yourself out with all these different tasks at once. I agree with neko to sit down and start planning out projects and seeing which ones you can do first and which ones you can push back later. Take some time away to play a game and focus on you. I find coming back to a project with fresh eyes helps spot problems a LOT.

With not having a job and having social anxiety and university, there are little jobs like transcribing captions for videos to give yourself a little bit of starter cash. I’ll talk to some friends and see what else I can find for you.

Maybe joining a discord server for coding groups like python or even indie developing groups can help you not only with roadblocks, but also meet some nice people as friends.

Wishing you the best! <3

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Hey Kanade,

Congrats on your progress so far! It seems like you see the breath of what is needed for the industry you are aiming for, and I commend you for diving in. At the same time, if your studies have become overwhelming, can you talk to your professors/school/etc for advice on how to proceed in the best way possible for your education to continue with the least hindrance? Schools don’t want to see their students fail out - and the vast majority of them will do what ever they can to help those who want to succeed along. Show them the drive you have to get to the end of this semester.

As for being afraid of mistakes… my friend, I have some news for you. I appears that you have a severe, in-curable case of…

Being Human.

Humans make mistakes. It comes with being human. We don’t inherently know what the outcome will be when we make a choice. We don’t know the correct answer. We can’t control all the factors. The best we can do, is apply what we know, and do our best. Each success teaches us what works. Each failure teaches us something that didn’t work. Though it may be hard to frame your mind around that, it is something that has helped myself, and many others, in building up their skill and trade, relationships, and guided them through life.

Do you think you could see mistakes as lessons? Would that help your fear of making them, or embarrassment you experience when you think of them?

(Image Credit: The Awkward Yeti)

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Hi there @Kanade,

I’ve been following your development journey since your initial post and am proud of you for continuing to persevere through the challenges that this path presents. Indie development isn’t easy, particularly because you are essentially doing what a whole team of people would usually do and need so many skills!

In terms of university, that sounds like an overwhelming experience and I’m sorry that you’re going through so much stress due to that. Are university resources available to you to help with this, such as office hours and/or advisors? Perhaps you could utilize these to help you to feel more confident in your knowledge.

You also mention worrying that you won’t be able to “rewrite/undo” history or shake the shame of embarrassment/failure in a job. However (while I’m still young and am likely overstepping my “real” knowledge), I’ve learned a lot through my mistakes and even ones that seem catastrophic in the moment generally don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things (and oftentimes, people will “forget” quickly as we’re often our own harshest critics). With that said, once more, I understand this concern and hope that you are able to work through it.

Thank you for reaching out and keeping us updated on your journey. You’re an awesome person and I appreciate you for sharing with us.

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From: eloquentpetrichor

Hey again, Kanade! It’s good to see another update from you about what’s going on and your progress. It sounds like you are doing well with learning and progressing but definitely remember not to spread yourself too thin. Maybe take a break from the extra stuff some to focus on school since it is stressing you out.

I can understand your fears with work. I didn’t get my first job until my 20s. I had no idea how to do it. But it sounds like a night stock job at a store may be a good place for you. Simple and not much human interaction is needed (if any). You may look into that for a first job if you feel you have the time.

I’m glad you recognise that there is no rush to finish your game and that you can take your time. You got this! :hrtlegolove:

I wanted to add along with Taladien’s comic. Love some on point Awkward Yeti


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Easy or not, it’s the truth. In the long run, it’s easier to live with the truth.

Worst case scenario, they’ll keep on yammering about it, but at the same time, demonstrate their ignorance, immaturity and lack of value as friends.

You have the power of choice. You can convince yourself that early mistakes will affect your whole life negatively, in which case, it’s like saying “what’s the use in trying?” You can also decide that mistakes offer useful experience and ultimately make your life better. Mistakes are unavoidable, unless you intend to spend your life under a rock, but that would also be a mistake.

Avoidance isn’t a good long-term plan for two reasons. 1) As time passes, fear of the avoided things continues to increase. 2) Sooner or later, you will find it necessary to face those fears anyway. When you do, you’ll discover that contending with fear of the thing is far, far worse than the thing itself.

that sounds like a great idea, but i’m always afraid that i’m not good enough

even when the job is a simple one, i’m still afraid that i’ll mess it up and disappoint others, that’s why indie game dev is perfect for me because I can’t disappoint with it anyone except myself

I did that already, but i don’t think i’ll find any nice people/friends in these communities. (people told me that programming is not for me and that i should rethink my life choices there haha)

i took some time to think about these questions, and remembered something from the past. that’s also related to this:

so a long long time ago i had no friends except one, it was really fun to hangout and play video games with him, and then after a while he started being mean to me, saying that i look ugly, never careing about me. once when we agreed to meet in some place he never showed up, and the worst part is that we live in different cities and we decided to meet in his city. anyway, i decided then to never talk to him again, and i’m pretty sure he didn’t mind at all. to this day i’m not sure why it was even started.
i didn’t had any friends until i found another friend, he was mean from the start, but despite him being mean to me i still wanted to be his friends (he was newcomer and i knew the language from where he was from), then he started being more friendly to me, we were friends for a long while until he started getting along with people in class more and then he forgot i existed haha…
i didn’t really got along with people in my class because i didn’t really liked the culture i guess.
anyway we rarely talked after that and the last words he said to me were “you should socialize more”.
i found another friend after a while and there were 2 other people, we created a group and i was the one who rarely talked but i liked to be in the group because i felt like i was finally part of something, until i constantly felt left out so i left the group thinking that maybe they don’t want me there, i thought if they’ll want me in the group they’ll ask me to join back… they never did…

anyway that was the last time i ever had a close friend and i felt like i belong somewhere and it was like 5 years ago…

what i learned from those experiences is that i’m the problem, given that the common factor in all those stories is me, and no way it’s their fault. so i’m incapable of having friends.

about the university courses, i’ll have to give them a lot more time, so i think i’ll have to stop doing other things for some time until next semester starts, which is a bummer because i really want to balace university with other stuff but i guess it’s impossible at this point, next time i’ll know to take less courses…

thank you all so much for your replies!
and i wish you all a happy new year!

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Pick any human at random, give him a thousand friends. In a matter of months, he’ll be down to 20 or so friends. A few months later, he might have 6. If he’s rich and famous, he might have millions of pseudo-friends, but may be living with the belief he has no “real” friends. I’ve been watching documentaries about people like Louis Armstrong, Sammy Davis Jr and Robin Williams. None of them had more than a couple of close friends throughout their career, and those friendships took a few years to develop. Should they have assumed that because they didn’t have more friends, it was their fault? It’s really not a blame or fault thing.

Is it a person’s “fault” when people fade away? Is it a person’s fault if he feels isolated while surrounded by tons of people? It’s not your fault that past friends are in the past. Unless one or both people are behaving badly towards each other, fault isn’t the issue.

Long story short, you’re not the problem. If you’re surrounded by people who give popularity priority, they are vain, shallow and fickle. Among young people, such an attitude is prevalent. Friendships like that can’t be expected to last. Still, there are usually a few decent people in most groups, but you won’t end up connecting with them if you’ve already given up hope, therefore fail to recognize opportunities for friendship.

I’m glad you’re here. I hope you find some inspiration here too. You have friends here.

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it’s difficult to believe that there are any friendship opportunities given all the failed past attempts, what’s the point of even trying to find new friends if you know in the end they either going to hurt you or change you for someone better and forget you, or both. and who knows maybe i’m hurting them somehow and i don’t know that, no way it’s all the people i met in the past were mean just to be mean, it’s most likely me not being able to be a good enough friend for them.

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I think you’re good enough. I think working on someone else’s projects can be beneficial for resume material too! You can use those people as references. Even if you believe in the future you’ll be a solo team, it shows a lot better to have experiences with others under your belt.

I don’t think you’ll mess up in a transcribing job. They help you out if they believe there was a mistake! I’m rooting for you in both your hobby and educational endeavors! Stay strong, and don’t feel afraid to take up tutoring and after hour opportunities that your university has if you’re having problems. Even talking to a guidance counselor there can sometimes help you with assignment extensions. I believe in you! <3

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When a friendship fades, it’s not a failed attempt. Friendships are especially transient in school and early adulthood. It’s not just you. Ask around, and you’ll learn that just about everyone has experienced friendships come and go. If a “friend” was mean to you, it means they were childish and not qualified to be a true friend.

It is possible to “tune in” on other people’s body language and expressions, and it helps to determine if what you’re saying or doing bothers them. Based on your writing skill, I suspect you’re pretty insightful and willing to look honestly at yourself. The problem now is that you’ve stopped looking, and have been going on negative self-assumptions instead. If you convince yourself of a negative self-image, others sense that negative energy, and that can make friendships difficult. It’s the opposite of being too prideful, but either extreme is hard for others to be around.

It’s important that you recognize your potential as a friend. Take inventory of your attributes, such as intelligence, caring, talent, warmth, etc. Keep in mind, others who lack the capacity to be decent friends, won’t be able to see your value. I think that’s what you’ve fairly consistently encountered.

Look for things to admire in others, because it’s the positive side of the saying, “it takes one to know one.” In other words, if you can see good things in others it’s because those things exist, at least in potential within you, or they fully exist and you’ve overlooked them.

Be well my friend.

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