i’ve barely been posting and barely making art and not making music at all for the last 1.5 years. the reason is a combination of being busy with other things, a lot of self-discovery with ups and downs in mental health (but a big net positive) and my usual issue of wanting to do too much all at once. there is a change i’ve been wanting to try online for many months and i didn’t want to post more regularly before then, but before making that change i wanted to do this and before this i wanted to do that and also that and this… and there are so many songs i’ve been wanting to arrange into 8bit and art i wanted to draw, but i wanted to do this first and also i still haven’t finished the drawn part for the dp opening arrangement that turned out great and that i’ve been itching to finally make public for 1.5 years. i want to get that done before i do any other song because the song is already done and i want to publish it in the same order as i’ve made it, so if i were to do another song first, i would have to postpone the dp opening even more and then publish the newer song after the dp opening. the biggest problem with the dp opening is that i’ve long lost my enthusiasm about it and i don’t feel like continuing to work on the drawn part. i knew it was a bad idea to want to do something really big for it, but my perfectionism and urge to always make the new thing better than the previous thing had triumphed once again. and i want to properly make my website, and i want to write lots of blog posts, and make lots of other things. but this giant wall of things i want to do and things i want to do before i can do other things i want to do has overwhelmed me and so i haven’t been very motivated most of the time and didn’t do things very efficiently. once again i wish i could clone myself 10 times or something so that i could do 10 times as many things at once instead of being overwhelmed and doing nothing. it’s such a shame, i can only really do things well and with enjoyment if i’m obsessed with them and i’ve let so many obsessions go to waste during the past 1.5 years. i’m very efficient (perhaps too much, i don’t sleep or eat enough then) and very enthusiastic and happy when i’m working on something i’m obsessed with, but i can’t do anything at all otherwise.
anyway, my dad’s birthday was coming up and i had the idea to do an 8bit arrangement of the star trek next generation opening for him. he, my brother and i have been watching tng every few weekends when the 3 of us come together over lunch and he often whistles along to the opening and says how catchy it is. i happen to really love it too. one could even say i’m currently obsessed with it. so i finally started working on an 8bit arrangement again, after 1.5 years of not using famitracker. and i was having an absolute blast. his birthday gave me an excuse to set everything i’ve been stuck with aside and finally act on an obsession again and work on something bigger that i really felt like doing, and it was such a good experience. of course i still wanted to finish the dp opening first before i was going to make the tng opening public, but for the moment i didn’t waste much of a thought on that and just focused on the tng opening, both because i had a deadline and because i was just having too much fun with it. i had missed this so much. this is what i live for. to quote the one and only hans zimmer: it’s satisfying.
but then it happened. the project file was suddenly empty and my pc backups turned out to have been inactive recently. my work on the tng opening was lost and i couldn’t have it ready for the birthday. i had finally gotten something done again that i really wanted to do and now it was gone. i was devastated.
i wanted to re-do it while my memories of what i did are still fresh, but i needed a break first to overcome the disappointment. i used that time to make something else that i’ve really been wanting to make and that is part of the things i wanted to do before i post more regularly again, but it’s one of the things i wanted to do last, so it has also been out of reach while i was stuck on other things. but i really felt like doing it and so i did it. it’s a new profile picture of something very important to me and it’s in a new and different style that i’ve been itching to try out. i’m really happy and proud of how it turned out and i really want to post it and use it as my pfp in public, but i don’t want to do that before some other things are done.
today i started working on the second version of the tng opening. a lot later than i had planned because things happened, so i hope i haven’t forgotten too many things that i had figured out the right way before, but i definitely had lots of fun again so far. in a way it’s even more relaxing and less stressful than usual because there is way less fear of it turning out bad. i might be placing new notes on a blank piece of virtual paper, it might not sound that good yet because lots of things still have to be added and tuned, but i’ve kind of already heard the result. i’ve seen the future, i know that i can do it because i’ve already done it. and of course i’ve learned a lot from the first attempt, both regarding the song and in general, so this version might even turn out better despite being made with a little less enthusiasm. like how i’m now forced to do things anew that i wasn’t entirely satisfied with but had deemed too tedious to redo.
and once i’m done with the tng opening, i definitely have to change something. i have to find my way back to following my passions and obsessions. i have to somehow simplify the things on my endless to-do list that i don’t feel like doing anymore but that i do want to finish. like finding a minimum i can get away with for the missing parts of the dp opening visuals and coming up with a different approach to the things i want to get done before i make that change i mentioned in the first paragraph. and it would be nice if i can somehow still act on some other waning obsessions i currently have before they’re gone. but that sounds like becoming too much and too overwhelming again. well, for now i’ll just continue working on the tng opening and then i’ll see what happens next.